Thread

Re: Better visualization of default values

Marcos Pegoraro <marcos@f10.com.br> — 2025-05-14T20:40:56Z

Well, I don't know if you like it, but here it is.

What I'm trying to do here is put some standard on how variables are
described, because they have lots of ways they are described.
What way is better is to be discussed but I think they are confused because
they were written at different times by different people.
The explaining part sometimes starts with default value, sometimes default
is the last thing, sometimes it doesn't exist at all.
Additionally there is no explanation about read only variables.

These are examples explaining these different ways of writing:

No default value
 - restrict_nonsystem_relation_kind
 - local_preload_libraries, session_preload_libraries and
shared_preload_libraries
 - gin_fuzzy_search_limit
 - quote_all_identifiers
 - data_checksums
 - num_os_semaphores
 - archive_mode
 - archive_timeout
 - restore_command
Default value is written twice
 - transform_null_equals
Values written in different ways
 - '' vs empty string
 - one thousand files vs 1000 files
 - The default is five transactions vs The default is five minutes
(<literal>5min</literal>).
 - The default value is <literal>10.0</literal> vs The default value is 100
buffers
 - 128 megabytes vs 128MB vs two megabytes
 - If this parameter is off (the default) vs Default is off
 - The default is zero (<literal>0</literal>) vs The default value is
<literal>0</literal>
 - <literal>-1</literal> (the default) means vs A value of zero (the
default) disables

regards
Marcos