The Hermit Hacker <scrappy@hub.org> writes:
>>>> I also added the function sslinfo() to get information about the SSL
>>>> connection.
>>
>> That strikes me as a very bizarre way of doing things. Why not add an
>> inquiry function to the libpq API, instead?
> what's the difference between 'select sslinfo()' and 'select version()',
Well, (1) backend version is not known directly to libpq; the backend
*must* be queried in some fashion for that info. I suppose the SSL
connection info is known equally well at both ends of the connection,
so it seems bizarre to inquire of the backend information that would
be available without any round-trip query.
(2) Transport-level info should be available without having to deal with
concerns like whether you have a half-issued query already, or are in
abort transaction state and can't get the backend to execute a SELECT,
etc. This is a confusion of protocol-stack levels; it's like asking
the backend what the client's IP address is.
(3) version() is a constant, more or less, but sslinfo() will vary
depending on how you have connected. That bothers me, although I can't
quite put my finger on the reason why.
regards, tom lane