Re: PostgreSQL 17: Bug in libpq when libpq is dlopened/closed multiple times

On Wed, Apr 22, 2026 at 11:29:04AM -0700, Jacob Champion wrote:
> > (I'd be surprised if this were the only such resource leak across all
> > supported versions and combinations of Kerberos, OpenSSL, OpenLDAP,
> > Curl, etc. etc. From a quick search, you're the first to report this
> > in the ten years since the leak was introduced, so there may be more
> > dragons where you're headed.)
>
> If anyone has thoughts on that, I'd love to hear them. I don't mind
> removing this unnecessary code in HEAD, or even backpatching as a
> courtesy -- but if it were up to me, I would not guarantee zero global
> resource leaks across libpq and its entire dependency graph. (Even if
> we magically had control over all those dependencies, I think it'd
> still be reasonable for libpq devs to use "allocate once and move on"
> patterns... and I want to continue using those in my new code.)

Leaking a dl handle is a way to prevent unloading. Not saying that's a
great answer, just that it's a workaround.