Re: Commit/abort WAL records with dropped rels missing XLR_SPECIAL_REL_UPDATE

On Fri, Aug 14, 2020 at 2:17 PM Heikki Linnakangas <hlinnaka(at)iki(dot)fi> wrote:
>
> While hacking on pg_rewind, I noticed that commit and abort WAL records
> are never marked with the XLR_SPECIAL_REL_UPDATE flag. But if the record
> contains "dropped relfilenodes", surely it should be?
>

Right.

> It's harmless as far as the backend and all the programs in PostgreSQL
> repository are concerned, but the point of XLR_SPECIAL_REL_UPDATE is to
> aid external tools that try to track which files are modified. Attached
> is a patch to fix it.
>
> It's always been like that, but I am not going backport, for fear of
> breaking existing applications. If a program reads the WAL, and would
> actually need to do something with commit records dropping relations,
> that seems like such a common scenario that the author should've thought
> about it and handled it even without the flag reminding about it. Fixing
> it in master ought to be enough.
>

+1 for doing it in master only. Even if someone comes up with such a
scenario for back-branches, we can revisit our decision to backport
this but like you, I also don't see any pressing need to do it now.

--
With Regards,
Amit Kapila.