Re: Possibly hard-to-read message

On 05.06.25 17:57, David G. Johnston wrote:
> - "if set to a number" seems to indicate that something else happens
> if it's not a number.  But it doesn't say what.  And it's also not
> true. And we don't phrase things like that for other numeric settings.
>
>
> If not set to a number (data type indicator) it doesn’t override.  I
> suppose “to a number” could be removed since mention of seconds implies
> that you better enter a number for the value.

If you don't set it to a number, you get an error, so this case can't
even happen:

postgres=# \set WATCH_INTERVAL foo
invalid value "foo" for "WATCH_INTERVAL"

> - The way this is phrased now seems to say that the variable is
> unset by default, and only if it is set does it override the
> default.  But that is not what happens.  The variable has a value by
> default, and that is what gets used.
>
>
> Can you demonstrate this claim?  It’s basically an environment variable
> - which are conventionally unset in the environment, and when set their
> value overrides some other externally defined value.  In this case a define.

$ psql -X
postgres=# \echo :WATCH_INTERVAL
2