Re: [PATCH] Stop ALTER SYSTEM from making bad assumptions

On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 10:50 AM Ian Barwick
<ian(dot)barwick(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com> wrote:
> In Pg12, the code in pg_basebackup implies the correct thing to do is append to .auto.conf,
> but as demonstrated that can cause problems with duplicate entries.

Yeah.

To me, forcing every tools author to use postgresql.conf parsing tools
rather than just appending to the file is a needless burden on tool
authors. I'd vote for just having ALTER SYSTEM silently drop all but
the last of duplicated entries.

It sounds like I might be in the minority, but I feel like the
reactions which suggest that this is somehow heresy are highly
overdone. Given that the very first time somebody wanted to do
something like this in core, they picked this approach, I think we can
assume that it is a natural approach which other people will also
attempt. There doesn't seem to be any good reason for it not to Just
Work.

--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company