On Sat, Oct 14, 2023 at 7:02 PM Tom Lane <t...@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote: > Noah Misch <n...@leadboat.com> writes: > > That's right. We don't have a standard that installcheck of v13.N will have > > zero diffs on an initdb from v13.0. > > Um ... don't we? I do not recall very many cases where we changed > initial catalog contents at all in a point release, and I don't think > any of those cases intentionally created regression diffs.
This did come up in review. I deferred to Noah on the question. FWIW if I had authored this bugfix, it wouldn't have touched catalog contents on the backbranches. > > We've got bigger fish to fry. > > True, this isn't going to affect many people either way. But > I don't think you've made a good precedent here. I tend to prefer whatever approach seems least reliant on my having an accurate understanding of what guarantees exist, and/or what people actually rely on. It seems to me that there is an asymmetry here: it is virtually certain that superfluous catalog entries won't bother anybody, but it is less certain that allowing initdb to produce different catalog contents in a stable branch is completely harmless. Why even take a tiny risk if it can be avoided? For that matter why even bother trying to quantify a risk like that if it can just be avoided? -- Peter Geoghegan
