Re: improving user.c error messages

On Fri, Jan 27, 2023 at 08:31:32AM -0500, Robert Haas wrote:
> I almost hate to bring this up since I'm not sure how far we want to
> go down this rat hole, but what should be our policy about mentioning
> superuser? I don't think we're entirely consistent right now, and I'm
> not sure whether every error message needs to mention that if you were
> the superuser you could do everything. Is that something we should
> mention always, never, or in some set of circumstances?

IMHO superuser should typically only be mentioned when it is the only way
to do something. Since superusers have all privileges, I think logs like
"superuser or privileges of X" are kind of redundant. If Robert has
privileges of X, we wouldn't say "privileges of X or Robert." We'd just
point to X. Ultimately, I feel like mentioning superuser in error messages
usually just makes the message longer without adding any useful
information.

I recognize that this is a bold opinion and that the policy to mention
superuser might need to be more nuanced in practice...

--
Nathan Bossart
Amazon Web Services: https://aws.amazon.com