Re: remove more archiving overhead

On Mon, Sep 19, 2022 at 06:08:29AM -0400, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> On 18.09.22 09:13, Noah Misch wrote:
> >>>This documentation change only covers archive_library. How are users of
> >>>archive_command supposed to handle this?
> >>
> >>I believe users of archive_command need to do something similar to what is
> >>described here. However, it might be more reasonable to expect
> >>archive_command users to simply return false when there is a pre-existing
> >>file, as the deleted text notes. IIRC that is why I added that sentence
> >>originally.
> >
> >What makes the answer for archive_command diverge from the answer for
> >archive_library?
>
> I suspect what we are really trying to say here is
>
> ===
> Archiving setups (using either archive_command or archive_library) should be
> prepared for the rare case that an identical archive file is being archived
> a second time. In such a case, they should compare that the source and the
> target file are identical and proceed without error if so.
>
> In some cases, it is difficult or impossible to configure archive_command or
> archive_library to do this. In such cases, the archiving command or library
> should error like in the case for any pre-existing target file, and
> operators need to be prepared to resolve such cases manually.
> ===
>
> Is that correct?

I wanted it to stop saying anything like the second paragraph, hence commit
d263ced. Implementing a proper archiving setup is not especially difficult,
and inviting the operator to work around a wrong implementation invites
damaging mistakes under time pressure.