Re: our checks for read-only queries are not great

Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>

From: Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>
To: Peter Eisentraut <peter.eisentraut@2ndquadrant.com>
Cc: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>, Stephen Frost <sfrost@snowman.net>, "pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org" <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>
Date: 2020-01-13T19:14:05Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
On Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 5:57 AM Peter Eisentraut
<peter.eisentraut@2ndquadrant.com> wrote:
> On 2020-01-10 14:41, Robert Haas wrote:
> > This rule very nearly matches the current behavior: it explains why
> > temp table operations are allowed, and why ALTER SYSTEM is allowed,
> > and why REINDEX etc. are allowed. However, there's a notable
> > exception: PREPARE, COMMIT PREPARED, and ROLLBACK PREPARED are allowed
> > in a read-only transaction. Under the "doesn't change pg_dump output"
> > criteria, the first and third ones should be permitted but COMMIT
> > PREPARED should be denied, except maybe if the prepared transaction
> > didn't do any writes (and in that case, why did we bother preparing
> > it?). Despite that, this rule does a way better job explaining the
> > current behavior than anything else suggested so far.
>
> I don't follow.  Does pg_dump dump prepared transactions?

No, but committing one changes the database contents as seen by a
subsequent pg_dump.

-- 
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company



Commits

  1. Fix problems with "read only query" checks, and refactor the code.

  2. Read-only transactions, as defined in SQL.