Re: Unclear wording

On Fri, 2025-07-11 at 16:12 +0000, PG Doc comments form wrote:
> Page: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/ddl-schemas.html
> Description:
>
> In §5.10.3 these two sentences seem inconsistent:
>
> > When objects are referenced in any other context without schema
> qualification...the search path is traversed until a matching object is
> found. Therefore, in the default configuration, any unqualified access again
> can only refer to the public schema.
>
> Either unqualified access can refer to any schema in the search path,
> because the search path is traversed until a matching object is found, or
> else unqualified access can only refer to the public schema because the
> search path will not be traversed looking in other schemas for a matching
> object, but both of those possibilities conflict with one or the other of
> the sentences quoted from the manual.
>
> Obviously I'm missing something; I don't know which of the two sentences
> quoted from the manual to believe, or if I am to understand both are true,
> what I am misunderstanding about their meaning.

I don't see an inconsistency. The key phrase is "in the default configuration".
The default value for 'search_path' is '"$user", public'.
Now by default there is no schema with the same name as the database user, so
the effective default search path is just the 'public' schema.

Yours,
Laurenz Albe