Re: Units in postgresql.conf

Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> Zdenek Kotala wrote:
>> Time units is easy:
>> 1h = 60min = 3600s = 3600000ms
>
> We don't need anything larger than seconds at the moment.
>
>> What kind of unit prefix will we use for memory?
>
> PostgreSQL has always used 1 kB = 1024 B.
>
>> 1) will be unit required?
>
> No.
>
>> What will be default unit for value without
>> unit?
>
> What we have now.
>
>> I suggest mandatory unit avoid the problem with unclear default
>> value.
>
> Not going to happen.
>

Ok. Conclusion is for time s=second, ms=millisecond and for memory B,
kB, MB, GB. Unit is not mandatory and if it will missing the behavior
stays same - backward compatibility (no extra conversion utility).

Last question is if "page" unit should be useful too. For example:

#shared_buffers = 1000 # min 16 or max_connections*2,
8KB each

It means 8000kB. But if somebody compiles postgres with different page
size, than the size will be different. However, somebody should use for
example 8MB and number of buffers will be 8MB/page_size.

Zdenek

PS: I have some GUC patches in the patches queue. Could anybody
test/commit them? I would like continue on the latest version of guc
subsystem. Thanks