Re: Backporting BackgroundPsql

On 26/06/2024 03:25, Michael Paquier wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 26, 2024 at 02:12:42AM +0200, Alvaro Herrera wrote:
>> FWIW I successfully used the preliminary PqFFI stuff Andrew posted to
>> write a test program for bug #18377, which I think ended up being better
>> than with BackgroundPsql, so I think it's a good way forward.  As for
>> back-patching it, I suspect we're going to end up backpatching the
>> framework anyway just because we'll want to have it available for
>> backpatching future tests, even if we keep a backpatch minimal by doing
>> only the framework and not existing tests.
>>
>> I also backpatched the PqFFI and PostgreSQL::Session modules to older PG
>> branches, to run my test program there.  This required only removing
>> some lines from PqFFI.pm that were about importing libpq functions that
>> older libpq didn't have.
> 
> Nice!  I definitely +1 the backpatching of the testing bits.  This
> stuff can make validating bugs so much easier, particularly when there
> are conflicting parts in the backend after a cherry-pick.

I haven't looked closely at the new PgFFI stuff but +1 on that in 
general, and it makes sense to backport that once it lands on master. In 
the meanwhile, I think we should backport BackgroundPsql as it is, to 
make it possible to backport tests using it right now, even if it is 
short-lived.

-- 
Heikki Linnakangas
Neon (https://neon.tech)