Re: Allow an extention to be updated without a script

Hi,

On Tue, Jan 31, 2023 at 11:17:22AM +0900, Yugo NAGATA wrote:
>
> On Mon, 30 Jan 2023 16:05:52 -0500
> Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
>
> > If you have no update script, why call it a new version? The point
> > of extension versions is to distinguish different states of the
> > extension's SQL objects. We do not consider mods in underlying C code
> > to justify a new version.
>
> Although, as you say, the extension manager doesn't track changes in C code
> functions, a new version could be released with changes in only in C
> functions that implement a new feature or fix some bugs because it looks
> a new version from user's view. Actually, there are several extensions
> that provide empty update scripts in order to allow user to install such
> new versions, for example;
>
> [...]
> - hypopg
> (https://github.com/HypoPG/hypopg/blob/REL1_STABLE/hypopg--1.3.1--1.3.2.sql)
> [...]

Indeed, almost all users don't really understand the difference between the
module / C code and the extension, and that gets worse when
shared_preload_libraries gets in the way.

I personally choose to ship "empty" extension versions so that people can
upgrade it if they want to have e.g. the OS level version match the SQL level
version. I know some extensions that chose a different approach: keep the
first 2 digits for anything that involves extension changes and have a 3rd
digit for C level bugfix only. But they get very frequent bug reports about
version mismatch any time a C bugfix is released, so I will again personally
keep shipping those useless versions. That being said, I agree with Tom here
and we shouldn't add hacks for that.