From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: Josh Kupershmidt <schmiddy@gmail.com>
Cc: pgsql-docs <pgsql-docs@postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: explaining "context" column of pg_settings
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2010 19:11:49 -0500
Message-ID: <17754.1292544709@sss.pgh.pa.us> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTi=rY=Ffo3JkU1eKROG0cDnr0PKaejrEbTSjffnu@mail.gmail.com>
References: <AANLkTi=rY=Ffo3JkU1eKROG0cDnr0PKaejrEbTSjffnu@mail.gmail.com>
Josh Kupershmidt <schmiddy@gmail.com> writes:
> The six different kinds of contexts in the pg_settings system view
> aren't terribly well documented. The current doc page says only:
> "Context required to set the parameter's value". A search through the
> archives turned up only a brief explanation[1] of what "postmaster"
> means for this setting. The recent book "PostgreSQL 9.0 High
> Performance"[2] complains "The context field isn't documented very
> well in the official manual."
> I've put together a patch to help document these values based on the
> comments in guc.h, the explanations in [2], and my own understanding.
> My crude explanations could probably use some further wordsmithing and
> check for accuracy :-)
I did some work on this patch and attach an updated version. I'm not
however convinced that it's a good idea to bury this material in
catalogs.sgml --- I think few people ever read that chapter. Shouldn't
we put this into config.sgml instead, somewhere in section 18.1?
> I avoided just copy-pasting from guc.h, particulary because some of
> the explanations struck me as confusing or incorrect.
Well, your replacement explanations seemed even less correct ;-).
Also, I think what the text needs to emphasize is *how* to change
each setting type, so that prompted some of my editing.
regards, tom lane
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To: pgsql-docs@postgresql.org
Cc: tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us, schmiddy@gmail.com
Subject: Re: explaining "context" column of pg_settings
In-Reply-To: <17754.1292544709@sss.pgh.pa.us>
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