On 2013-04-30 05:14:15 +0100, Joel Jacobson wrote: > On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 12:58 AM, Tom Lane <t...@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote: > > Noah Misch <n...@leadboat.com> writes: > >> Note also that minor releases can readily fix bugs in C-language functions, > >> but we have no infrastructure to update sql-language functions after > >> initdb. > >> That flexibility is unfortunate to lose, particularly for something that > >> pg_dump depends on. > > > > That alone would probably be sufficient reason why we would never allow > > pg_dump to depend on any such thing (not that I see a compelling > > argument for it to do so anyway...). > > It would be better to find a way to update sql-language functions in > minor upgrades, instead of shutting that door entirely for all future > implementation ideas involving sql-language functions in the > pg_catalog.
I'd be very careful with jumping on this task. I am pretty sure its a very good way to get very, very frustrated if you don't present a widely accepted design beforehand. Doing this correctly is *far far* from easy. Just a little collection of problems: * You need to connect to all databases, not just one. There's no infrastructure for this. * You need to do the update *before* allowing any external connections. Otherwise the feature won't be useful to fix actual problems. Again, there is no infrastructure for this. * You need to do it in a way that a) doesn't slow down normal startup b) doesn't break if the update has only been applied to 9999 of 10000 databases. FWIW I really, really doubt you can do all the functions referred to upthread sensibly and correctly from SQL functions. The infrastructure to do this just isn't there. Besides, I really don't buy this helping pg_dump. I think the far more realistic course here is to put some parts that are required by pg_dump and by such functions in some common library that then can *also* be used by such backend functions. But thats a humongous task that, besides deep technical knowledge in lots of areas, requires quite a bit of politics. Greetings, Andres Freund -- Andres Freund http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/ PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training & Services -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers