Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2020 13:47:03 -0400
From: Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@2ndquadrant.com>
To: tuomo.salo@gmail.com, pgsql-docs@lists.postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Documentation issue: Default value of temp_buffers
Message-ID: <20200420174703.GA15940@alvherre.pgsql>
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Hello,

On 2020-Apr-20, PG Doc comments form wrote:

> https://www.postgresql.org/docs/11/runtime-config-resource.html says:
> 
> ------snip------
> temp_buffers (integer):
> Sets the maximum number of temporary buffers used by each database session
> [...] The default is eight megabytes (8MB). 
> ------snap------
> 
> Are we setting the maximum number of buffers or the maximum total size of
> the buffers?

Yeah, it's ambiguous. If you give it without units, it's the number of
buffers; otherwise it's the size.  The docs were updated in version 12
to include this phrase: "If this value is specified without units, it is
taken as blocks, that is BLCKSZ bytes, typically 8kB."

-- 
Álvaro Herrera                https://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Remote DBA, Training & Services