Re: Proposal: Conflict log history table for Logical Replication

On Thu, Dec 18, 2025 at 8:09 PM Dilip Kumar <dilipbalaut(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Dec 16, 2025 at 9:51 AM Amit Kapila <amit(dot)kapila16(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, Dec 15, 2025 at 5:11 PM Dilip Kumar <dilipbalaut(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>
> >
> > We could do this as a first step. See the proposal in email [1] where
> > we have discussed having two options instead of one. The first option
> > will be conflict_log_format and the values would be log and table. In
> > this case, the table would be an internally generated one.
> >
> > [1] - https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/CAA4eK1KwqE2y%3D_k5Xc%3Def0S5JXG2x%3DoeWpDJ%2B%3D5k6Anzaw2gdw%40mail.gmail.com
>
> So I have put more thought on this and here is what I am proposing
>
> 1) Subscription Parameter: Son in first version the subscription
> parameter will be named 'conflict_log_format' which will accept
> 'log/table/both' default option would be log.
> 2) If conflict_log_format = log is provided then we do not need to do
> anything as this would work by default
> 3) If conflict_log_format = table/both is provided then we will
> generate a internal table name i.e. conflict_log_table_$subid$ and the
> table will be created in the current schema
> 4) in pg_subscription we will still keep 2 field a) namespace id of
> the conflict log table b) the conflict log format = 'log/table'both'
> 5) If option is table/both the name can be generated on the fly
> whether we are creating the table or inserting conflict into the
> table.

IIUC, previously you had a "none" value which was a way to "turn off"
any CLT previously defined. How can users do that now with
log/table/both? Would they have to reassign (the default) "log"? That
seems a bit strange.

The word "both" option is too restrictive. What if in the future you
added a 3rd kind of destination -- then what does "both" mean?

Maybe the destination list idea of Sawda-San's is better.
a) it resolves the "none" issue -- e.g., empty string means revert to
default CLT behaviour
b) it resolves the "both" issue.

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Kind Regards,
Peter Smith.
Fujitsu Australia