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Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2023 09:38:40 +0100
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Subject: Re: GUC names in messages
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To: Peter Smith <smithpb2250@gmail.com>
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From: Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org>
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On 11.12.23 00:07, Peter Smith wrote:
> If the rule is changed to quote those MixedCase GUCs then the docs
> will require minor tweaking
> 
> CURRENT
>     <para>
>      In messages containing configuration variable names, do not include quotes
>      when the names are visibly not natural English words, such as when they
>      have underscores, are all-uppercase or have mixed case. Otherwise, quotes
>      must be added. Do include quotes in a message where an arbitrary variable
>      name is to be expanded.
>     </para>
> 
> "are all-uppercase or have mixed case." --> "or are all-uppercase."

After these discussions, I think this rule change was not a good idea. 
It effectively enforces these kinds of inconsistencies.  For example, if 
you ever refactored

     "DateStyle is wrong"

to

     "%s is wrong"

you'd need to adjust the quotes, and thus user-visible behavior, for 
entirely internal reasons.  This is not good.  And then came the idea to 
determine the quoting dynamically, which I think everyone agreed was too 
much.  So I don't see a way to make this work well.