Re: BUG #19540: Inconsistent integer-to-octal formatting for permission GUCs in pg_settings (boot_val vs setting)

PG Bug reporting form <noreply(at)postgresql(dot)org> writes:
> Steps to reproduce:
> postgres=# SELECT name, setting, boot_val
> FROM pg_settings
> WHERE name IN ('data_directory_mode', 'log_file_mode',
> 'unix_socket_permissions');

> Actual Result :
> name | setting | boot_val
> -------------------------+---------+----------
> data_directory_mode | 0700 | 448
> log_file_mode | 0600 | 384
> unix_socket_permissions | 0777 | 511
> (3 rows)

Yeah, the min and max columns are confusing too. That's because
we entrust the formatting to the "show_hook" for those variables,
and those hooks are defined to show the current value only.

Looking through the existing show_hooks, all the other ones seem to
be used to account for situations where the effective value depends on
more than just the GUC variable itself. Maybe we should say that
a show_hook should be used only for that purpose and not for specially
formatting the value? We could deal with these cases by inventing a
new GUC flag, say GUC_SHOW_IN_OCTAL, that could be applied to all the
relevant values.

regards, tom lane