Re: Tracking role modification timestamps in pg_authid / pg_roles

Hi,

On August 21, 2026 7:05:15 AM EDT, Andrew Dunstan <andrew(at)dunslane(dot)net> wrote:
>
>On 2026-08-21 Fr 12:40 AM, Andres Freund wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> On 2026-08-21 13:07:42 +1000, Gabriele Bartolini wrote:
>>> I'd like to propose adding a small column to pg_authid (rollastupdated
>>> timestamptz), that records when a role was last created or altered, and get
>>> feedback on the idea before polishing it for a commitfest (a working
>>> prototype is attached).
>>>
>>> Why?
>>> Tools that manage PostgreSQL roles declaratively all reconcile in the same
>>> way: given a desired set of roles and attributes, make the live cluster
>>> match it, repeatedly and idempotently.
>> My question is why this is needed for pg_authid and not any of the other
>> catalogs? Adding one-off code for different catalogs one-by-one would ... not
>> be likely to result in good code.
>>
>
>Is the suggestion to track modification times for all catalog objects? I'm not objecting, but that does seem like a pretty substantial change.

I'm not suggesting to do anything. I want to know why pg_authid, given Gabrielle's logic does apply just as much to many other object types. I would bet a fair amount of money that if we add it for authid there will be a lot of patches for other objects. So it seems bogus to just discuss doing this for one catalog in isolation.

Andres

--
Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.