Re: explaining "context" column of pg_settings

On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 10:00 PM, Josh Kupershmidt <schmiddy@gmail.com> wrote:
> I was rather surprised when I learned this from the description in
> guc.h of SIGHUP options. I tested by altering "full_page_writes" in
> postgresql.conf and sending a SIGHUP to one backend, and sure enough
> that backend picked up the change but new backends didn't. Unless this
> feature is documented somewhere else, I think it would be helpful to
> keep a snippet like this.

I'm not sure we want people to rely on that behavior.  Had we a way of
being sure that all backends would see an updated value at the same
time, we might be able to make some things that are PGC_POSTMASTER to
be PGC_SIGHUP instead.

--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company