Message-ID: <4b83f9888428925e3049e24b60a73f4b94dc2368.camel@cybertec.at>
Subject: Re: GUC names in messages
From: Laurenz Albe <laurenz.albe@cybertec.at>
To: Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org>, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>, 
	Daniel Gustafsson
	 <daniel@yesql.se>
Cc: Peter Smith <smithpb2250@gmail.com>, PostgreSQL Hackers
	 <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>
Date: Wed, 01 Nov 2023 21:46:52 +0100
In-Reply-To: <22998fc0-93c2-48d2-b0f9-361cd5764695@eisentraut.org>
References: 
	<CAHut+Pv-kSN8SkxSdoHano_wPubqcg5789ejhCDZAcLFceBR-w@mail.gmail.com>
	 <CAHut+PuDSj_knEzfXx+v9_-15XYSJAuFmpgubh8rN4nWjFMdUg@mail.gmail.com>
	 <2CCB9293-BB93-44DC-8B6E-4C1D163C625B@yesql.se>
	 <2758485.1698848717@sss.pgh.pa.us>
	 <22998fc0-93c2-48d2-b0f9-361cd5764695@eisentraut.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
User-Agent: Evolution 3.48.4 (3.48.4-1.fc38) 
MIME-Version: 1.0
Archived-At: <https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/4b83f9888428925e3049e24b60a73f4b94dc2368.camel%40cybertec.at>
Precedence: bulk

On Wed, 2023-11-01 at 16:12 -0400, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> On 01.11.23 10:25, Tom Lane wrote:
> > And there's never been any
> > real clarity about whether to quote GUC names, though certainly we're
> > more likely to quote anything injected with %s.  So that's why we have
> > a mishmash right now.
>=20
> I'm leaning toward not quoting GUC names.  The quoting is needed in=20
> places where the value can be arbitrary, to avoid potential confusion.=
=20
> But the GUC names are well-known, and we wouldn't add confusing GUC=20
> names like "table" or "not found" in the future.

I agree for names with underscores in them.  But I think that quoting
is necessary for names like "timezone" or "datestyle" that might be
mistaken for normal words.  My personal preference is to always quote
GUC names, but I think it is OK not to quote GOCs whose name are
clearly not natural language words.

Yours,
Laurenz Albe