Re: strange buildfarm failures

Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@commandprompt.com> writes:
> I'm wondering if it wouldn't be more robust to define a longjmp target
> block before calling BaseInit(), and have it exit cleanly in case of
> failure (which is what you say elog.c should be doing if there is no
> target block).

No, because elog is already supposed to deal with that case; and does,
every time you connect to a bad database name for example.  If it's
failing, the question to answer is why.  

> In errstart(), it is checked if PG_exception_stack is NULL.  Now, this
> symbol is defined in elog.c and initialized to NULL, but I wonder if a
> child process inherits the value that postmaster set, or it comes back
> to NULL.

Hmm ... I was about to say that the postmaster never sets
PG_exception_stack, but maybe an error out of a PG_TRY/PG_RE_THROW
could do it?  Does the postmaster ever execute PG_TRY?  (And if so,
should it?  The postmaster really ought not be dealing in anything
very hairy --- it should be passing such work off to children.)
        regards, tom lane