Re: doc: Clarify ANALYZE VERBOSE output

Hi,

The discussion makes sense to me.

Just to add one variant for consideration:

"Emits detailed information about vacuum activity for each table in the
form of INFO and DETAIL messages."

Thanks.

On Tue, Apr 14, 2026 at 6:29 AM David G. Johnston <
david(dot)g(dot)johnston(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:

> On Mon, Apr 13, 2026 at 2:28 PM Maciek Sakrejda <m(dot)sakrejda(at)gmail(dot)com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Apr 7, 2026 at 6:57 PM Shinya Kato <shinya11(dot)kato(at)gmail(dot)com>
>> wrote:
>> > On Mon, Apr 6, 2026, 14:17 David G. Johnston <
>> david(dot)g(dot)johnston(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> How about something like:
>> >> “Enables sending an INFO message to the client (and server log) as
>> each table is processed. This message contains: etc…”
>> >>
>> >> And then let’s tell the user what info they are getting and what it
>> means (where necessary).
>> >>
>> >> I concur being specific about when these messages arrive, and IMO
>> where, should be specified. But losing the detail of “report” is not good;
>> but not sure why we are being vague so suggest we just go all-in on
>> specificity.
>> >
>> > Thank you for the suggestion. I'd prefer to keep this patch focused;
>> since the verbose output of both commands is subject to change, listing
>> every individual field in the documentation would require frequent updates.
>> >
>> > I believe the current "Outputs" section is intentionally kept simple to
>> minimize maintenance overhead. While expanding it might be a worthwhile
>> follow-up, it probably deserves its own dedicated discussion.
>>
>> +1, listing output details is signing up for busywork.
>
>
> Given how expansive and thorough our documentation is, and the fact this
> is user-facing output, I'm not seeing why this gets a pass on the
> documentation requirement. That said, I concur this patch needn't be
> responsible for dealing with that - I'm not even sure whether trying to do
> that on the vacuum/analyze pages is even the correct choice since at least
> some of what is output is object-specific and not generic to vacuum
> itself. Though stuff like timings are. Even if we want to leave ourselves
> the "it's undocumented so it can be changed at will" clause we can simply
> write that in.
>
> maybe something
>> along these lines:
>>
>> "Prints detailed stats at <literal>INFO</literal> level for each table
>> as it is processed."
>>
>>
> I really don't like the word "Print" here. What the client decides to do
> with the INFO message is up to them - the interface to document for the
> server is simply sending the message and its details.
>
> I was apparently mistaken about this info showing in the server log file
> though.
>
> So that leaves me with suggesting:
>
> "Enables the sending of a detailed INFO message to the client after each
> table is processed."
>
> David J.
>
>