Tom Lane [mailto:t...@sss.pgh.pa.us] wrote: >> 2. If the folding mode is chosen through a GUC variable, which >> is certainly what people would expect, then it turns out that >> it breaks client libraries/applications *anyway*, because an >> installation-wide setting could impose itself on a client that >> hadn't asked for it.
I know that some variables can only be configured at a wide scope, and not a narrow one. Is there no way to restrict a GUC variable's configuration scope to session and finer, but force a fixed value at global scope? If it is possible to restrict global configuration, that at least protects the general purpose administrative tools to a significant degree. >> And for libraries, that isn't a great solution because then they're incompatible with applications that wanted another setting. Good point. Libraries continue to have problems even with session level configuration if they are to operate in the context of an application that reconfigures its session case folding for its own purposes. But, that seems like a problem that is much more likely to affect developers of new systems rather than general users or administrators of existing database systems. If so, it is more of a forward looking problem than a legacy problem in the sense that the person who encounters it is likely to be in a position to do something about it. This makes it much less critical to get every library in the world updated to support all case folding modes than would be the case for general administrative tools like pgAdmin. Depending on the nature of the library, a developer would have the option of using multiple sessions or, perhaps, if it were possible, modifying the folding configuration when using the library. Anyhow, as you say, libraries clearly continue to have issues even with restricted scope on case folding configuration. And the session level idea really helps nothing unless the global default session configuration is fixed. Ian Lewis (www.mstarlabs.com) -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
