Re: documentation fix for SET ROLE

On Thursday, March 11, 2021, Bossart, Nathan <bossartn(at)amazon(dot)com> wrote:

> Thanks for reviewing.
>
> On 3/11/21, 6:59 AM, "Laurenz Albe" <laurenz(dot)albe(at)cybertec(dot)at> wrote:
> > I have had a look at the patch, and while I agree that this should
> > be documented, I am not happy with the patch as it is.
> >
> > I think we should *not* document that under "server configuration".
> > This is confusing and will lead people to think that a role is
> > a configuration parameter. But you cannot add
> >
> > role = myrole
> >
> > to "postgresql.conf". A role is not a GUC.
> >
> > I think that the place to document this is
> > doc/src/sgml/ref/alter_role.sgml.
>
> I don't think I totally agree that "role" and "session_authorization"
> aren't GUCs. They are defined in guc.c, and "role" is referred to as
> a GUC in both miscinit.c and variable.c.

>
Implementation details are not that convincing to me. As a user I wouldn’t
think of these as being “server configuration” or even “client defaults”;
typically they are just representations of me as session state.

The minor bit of documentation pseudo-redundancy doesn’t bother me if I
accept they are there own separate thing. The fact that set role and set
session authorization are entirely distinct top-level commands in our
documentation, as opposed to bundled in with plain set, is a much more
convincing example for treating them uniquely and not just additional GUCs.

David J.