Re: superuser() shortcuts

On 11/26/14 10:24 AM, Stephen Frost wrote:
> The implementation detail is that it's not part of the normal
> GRANT/REVOKE privilege system, which is why it's useful to note it in
> the detail and why we don't need to add an errdetail along the lines of
> 'You must have SELECT rights on relation X to SELECT from it'.

I don't agree with this argument, but I might agree with the conclusion. ;-)

I think in the past, error messages for permission problems were
effectively written according to the criterion:

"If I can explain the reason for the lack of permission in one short
line, then I will, otherwise I will just produce a generic 'permission
denied' error and have the user read the manual for the details."

The proposed change is effectively:

"I will produce a generic 'permission denied' error, and if the reason
for the lack of permission is anything other than GRANT/REVOKE, then I
will add it to the detail message."

That's not necessarily an invalid change, but it implies that there is
something special (or less special) about GRANT/REVOKE, and there is no
consensus on that.

Seeing that we are planning to add more permissions systems of various
kinds, I don't think it would be bad to uniformly add "You must have
SELECT rights on relation X to SELECT from it" detail messages.  The
proposed changes would then be subset of that.