Re: Reword messages using "as" instead of "because"

Amit Kapila <amit.kapila16@gmail.com>

From: Amit Kapila <amit.kapila16@gmail.com>

To: Kyotaro Horiguchi <horikyota.ntt@gmail.com>

Cc: pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org

Date: 2025-09-16T03:56:17Z

Lists: pgsql-hackers

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Improve few errdetail messages introduced in commit 0d48d393d46.
- 8aac5923a361 19 (unreleased) landed
Resume conflict-relevant data retention automatically.
- 0d48d393d465 19 (unreleased) cited

On Tue, Sep 16, 2025 at 8:17 AM Kyotaro Horiguchi
<horikyota.ntt@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I noticed that the recent commit 0d48d393d46 introduced the following
> three messages:
>
> 4793> errdetail("Retention is stopped as the apply process is not advancing its xmin within the configured max_retention_duration of %u ms.",
> 4822> ? errdetail("Retention is re-enabled as the apply process is advancing its xmin within the configured max_retention_duration of %u ms.",
> 4824> : errdetail("Retention is re-enabled as max_retention_duration is set to unlimited."));
>
> I think I saw other instances of this kind of as recently, and I
> thought we had agreed to avoid this usage and prefer because instead,
> but I lost track of where that discussion took place.
>
> Anyway, unlike some past uses, these ones are apparently confusing,
> and I'd like to propose changing the wording to because.
>

Thanks for pointing this out. I checked the code and found the use of
'because' is preferred.

> In addition, I felt that the tense in the second message is not
> immediately clear.  If it is reasonable and keeps the correct sense,
> I'd like to propose changing "is (not) advancing its xmin within" to
> "has (not) advanced its xmin into".
>
> + errdetail("Retention is stopped because the apply process has not advanced its xmin into the configured max_retention_duration of %u ms.",
> + ? errdetail("Retention is re-enabled because the apply process has advanced its xmin into the configured max_retention_duration of %u ms.",
> + : errdetail("Retention is re-enabled because max_retention_duration is set to unlimited."));
>

In the above sentence, has advanced sounds like we have already
advanced but that is not the case. Also, use of into looks odd to me.
How about changing it to: "Retention is re-enabled because the apply
process can advance its xmin within the configured
max_retention_duration of %u ms."?

Similarly for the first message, how about: "Retention is stopped
because the apply process could not advance its xmin within the
configured max_retention_duration of %u ms."?

-- 
With Regards,
Amit Kapila.