Horton

ALTER DATABASE RESET with unexistent guc doesn't report an error

Vitaly Davydov <v.davydov@postgrespro.ru>

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From: "Vitaly Davydov" <v.davydov@postgrespro.ru>
To: "pgsql-hackers" <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>
Date: 2025-09-11T08:35:36Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers

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Same data as JSON: GET /api/v1/messages/:b64id/commits the thread's linked commits as JSON, with link sources. API reference →

  1. Reject "ALTER DATABASE/USER ... RESET foo" with invalid GUC name.

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Dear Hackers,

I've found that ALTER DATABASE RESET with an unexistent guc does nothing without
error reporting.

ALTER DATABASE SET reports an error if guc doesn't exist:

> alter database mydb set myparam to 10;
ERROR:  unrecognized configuration parameter "myparam"

ALTER DATABASE RESET doesn't report an error at all:

> alter database mydb reset myparam;
ALTER DATABASE

I think it is a wrong behaviour. I believe, ALTER DATABASE RESET should report
an error in this case. I've also think that ALTER DATABASE RESET TABLESPACE does
nothing without any error reporting. I've prepared a simple patch to handle this
case (master branch). It adds a check for guc existence with error reporting.

With best regards,
Vitaly