Re: Make wal_receiver_timeout configurable per subscription

> On Feb 13, 2026, at 23:51, Fujii Masao <masao.fujii@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Feb 6, 2026 at 2:03 PM Chao Li <li.evan.chao@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I applied the patch locally and played with it a bit. In short, it adds a new subscription option that allows overriding the GUC wal_receiver_timeout for a subscription’s apply worker. The changes look solid overall, and the new option worked as expected in my manual testing.
> 
> Thanks for the review!
> 
> 
>> I have only one small comment:
>> ```
>> +                       /*
>> +                        * Test if the given value is valid for wal_receiver_timeeout GUC.
>> +                        * Skip this test if the value is -1, since -1 is allowed for the
>> +                        * wal_receiver_timeout subscription option, but not for the GUC
>> +                        * itself.
>> +                        */
>> +                       parsed = parse_int(opts->wal_receiver_timeout, &val, 0, NULL);
>> +                       if (!parsed || val != -1)
>> +                               (void) set_config_option("wal_receiver_timeout", opts->wal_receiver_timeout,
>> +                                                                                PGC_BACKEND, PGC_S_TEST, GUC_ACTION_SET,
>> +                                                                                false, 0, false);
>> ```
>> 
>> Here, parse_int() is also from GUC, with flag 0, it will reject any value with units such as “1s” or “7d”. So in practice, the only purpose of calling parse_int() here is to detect the special value “-1”.
>> 
>> Given that, I think using atoi() directly may be simpler and easier to read. For example:
> 
> If we use atoi(), a command like CREATE SUBSCRIPTION with an invalid
> wal_receiver_timeout value such as '-1invalid' would succeed, since atoi()
> interprets it as -1. I don't think that's desirable behavior. So it would be
> better to use parse_int() so that such invalid input is properly rejected.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> -- 
> Fujii Masao

I realized atoi(“-1invalid”) would return -1, but I thought that would be an imagined use case. I’m fine if you insist to use parse_int. Maybe we can enhance the comment. set_config_option does the test and parse_int is used to skip -1.

Best regards,
--
Chao Li (Evan)
HighGo Software Co., Ltd.
https://www.highgo.com/