Re: BUG #18971: Server passes an invalid (indirect) path in PGDATA to the external program

On Sat, Jun 28, 2025 at 1:19 PM Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:

> Dmitry Kovalenko <d.kovalenko@postgrespro.ru> writes:
> > For my point of view, if you can't provider a valid path in PGDATA, do
> > not do it at all.
>
> I'm not sure which part of "don't rely on PGDATA" you didn't get.
> Under normal circumstances, Postgres itself doesn't set that at all.
>
>
If we have to tell someone to not rely on a value that we've set we've done
something wrong.  Either haven't explained how to use it correctly, we've
set it in unusual circumstances when we should not have, or we are choosing
a bad value to set it in the first place.  Setting it to an absolute path
would seem like the least problematic approach to take to make our system
more usable.

David J.