Re: Missing variable "role" in "pg_settings"?

Tom Lane wrote:
> "Florian G. Pflug" <fgp@phlo.org> writes:
>
>>The per-session variable "role" is not shown when
>>doing "select pg_settings". It is, however, possible
>>to set it using "set role ...", and to query it using
>>"show role". Is this per design, or is this a bug.
>
> It's marked NO_SHOW_ALL in guc.c.  I'm not sure about the reasoning
> for this --- session_authorization is the same way, and we probably
> just copied that when we made the role variable; but I've forgotten
> what the rationale for marking session_authorization as NO_SHOW_ALL
> was.

Isn't "set session authorization <user>" basically the same
as "set role <user>" (Not from an implemenation standpoint, but
from the standpoint of the user), with "set role" being more generic,
because it's also allowed for non-superusers? In that case, omiting
"session_authorization" while showing "role" would make sense..

And, additionally, "alter user <user> set session authorization <other
user>" doesn't seem to make much sense...

>>In case omiting role from pg_settings is per design,
>>how could pgadmin find _all_ variables that can be set per user?
>
> If this is an argument for not having *any* NO_SHOW_ALL variables,
> I think the answer will be "no".
I don't quite understand what the "no" refers to...
I think Andreas Pflug now commited a patch that manually adds
"role" to the list of per-user variables in pgadmin3 - but in the
long run, there should be a better solution...

greetings, Florian Pflug