Re: documentation fix for SET ROLE

On Fri, Mar 12, 2021 at 7:35 AM Laurenz Albe <laurenz(dot)albe(at)cybertec(dot)at>
wrote:

> On Fri, 2021-03-12 at 10:16 +0100, I wrote:
> > After sleeping on it, I have come to think that it is excessive to write
> > so much documentation for a feature that is that unimportant.
> >
> > It takes some effort to come up with a good use case for it.
> >
> > I think we can add a few lines to ALTER ROLE, perhaps ALTER DATABASE
> > (although I don't see what sense it could make to set that on the
> database level),
> > and briefly explain the difference between RESET ROLE and SET ROLE NONE.
> >
> > I think adding too much detail will harm - anyone who needs to know the
> > exact truth can resort to the implementation.
> >
> > I'll try to come up with a proposal later.
>
> Attached is my idea of the documentation change.
>
> I think that ALTER DATABASE ... SET ROLE can remain undocumented, because
> I cannot imagine that it could be useful.
>
> I am unsure if specifying "role" in a libpq connect string might be
> worth documenting. Can you think of a use case?
>

Does our imagination really matter here? It works and is just as "useful"
as "ALTER ROLE" and so should be documented if we document ALTER ROLE.

I agree that ALTER DATABASE seems entirely useless and even
counter-productive...but I would still document if only because we document
ALTER ROLE and they should be kept similar.

Haven't formed an opinion on the merits of the two patches.

David J.