Horton

Re: Add new protocol message to change GUCs for usage with future protocol-only GUCs

Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>

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From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>
Cc: Jelte Fennema-Nio <me@jeltef.nl>, Jacob Burroughs <jburroughs@instructure.com>, PostgreSQL Hackers <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>, Dave Cramer <davecramer@gmail.com>, "Andrey M. Borodin" <x4mmm@yandex-team.ru>, Pavel Stehule <pavel.stehule@gmail.com>, Jeff Davis <pgsql@j-davis.com>, Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org>
Date: 2024-01-05T16:53:53Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers

Commits

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

  1. libpq: Add min/max_protocol_version connection options

  2. libpq: Handle NegotiateProtocolVersion message differently

  3. Add PQfullProtocolVersion() to surface the precise protocol version.

  4. Do not hardcode PG_PROTOCOL_LATEST in NegotiateProtocolVersion

  5. libpq: Handle NegotiateProtocolVersion message

  6. Provide for forward compatibility with future minor protocol versions.

Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
> Second, I don't really like the idea of selectively turning GUCs into
> protocol-managed parameters. I think there are a relatively small
> number of things that we'd ever want to manage on a protocol level,
> but this design would force us to make it work for any GUC whatsoever.

I'd not been following along for the last few days, but I agree that
we don't want to make it apply to any GUC at all.

> I think we should start by picking one or two protocol-managed
> parameters that we want to add, and then adding those in a way that is
> distinct from the GUC system. I don't think we should add an abstract
> system divorced from any particular application.

There is a lot of infrastructure we'll have to re-invent if
we make this completely independent of GUCs, notably:
* a way to establish the initial/default value
* a way to display the active value

So my thought was that this should be implemented as an (unchangeable)
flag bit for a GUC variable, GUC_PROTOCOL_ONLY or something like that,
and then we would refuse SQL-based set attempts on that.  The behavior
would end up being very much like PGC_BACKEND variables, in that we
could allow all the existing setting methods to work to establish
a session's initial value; but after that, it can only change within
that session via a protocol message from the client.  With that
rule, it's okay for the protocol message to be nontransactional since
there's no interaction with transactions.

			regards, tom lane