Re: doc: Fix description of how the default user name is chosen

On Friday, July 8, 2022, Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 8, 2022 at 10:17:11PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> > Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> writes:
> > > On Tue, Jul 5, 2022 at 08:20:25PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> > >> I agree this phrasing needs some work, but "resolved" doesn't seem
> > >> helpful, since it's not defined here or nearby. Maybe "The default
> > >> database name is the specified (or defaulted) user name." ?
> >
> > > I am not seeing much improvement in the proposed patch either. I
> wonder
> > > if we should be calling this the "session" or "connection" user name.
> > > When the docs say "if you do not specify a database name, it defaults
> to
> > > the database user name", there is so much "database in there that the
> > > meaing is unclear, and in this context, the user name is a property of
> > > the connection or session, not of the database.
> >
> > Umm ... you could make the exact same statement with respect to the
> > user's operating-system login session, so I doubt that "session" or
> > "connection" adds any clarity.
>
> Well, one confusion is that there is a database name and a database user
> name. We don't have different operating system names that users can
> connect to, usually.
>
>
Maybe invoke the wording from the libpq docs and say:

The default database name is the same as the user connection parameter.

https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/libpq-connect.html#LIBPQ-PARAMKEYWORDS

That page doesn’t feel the need to qualify user name and I don’t think it
hurts comprehension; and the writing “user parameter” there, instead of
“user name”, since the parameter is simply “user”, not “username”.

David J.