Re: [HACKERS] Removal of plaintext password type references

On Wed, May 10, 2017 at 10:01 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
> Heikki Linnakangas <hlinnaka@iki.fi> writes:
>> Also note that changing the signature check_password_hook_type would
>> break any external modules that use the hook. Removing
>> PASSWORD_TYPE_PLAINTEXT will do that too, because any password hook
>> function would use that constant (see e.g. contrib/passwordcheck). If we
>> were to change the signature, I'd actually like to simplify it by
>> removing the password_type parameter altogether. The hook function can
>> call get_password_type() on the password itself to get the same
>> information. But it's not worth changing the API and breaking external
>> modules for that.

Ahah. I just had the same thought before reading this message.

> FWIW, I think we've never hesitated to change hook signatures across major
> versions if there was a good reason for it.  It seems actually rather
> unlikely that an external module interested in check_password_hook would
> not need to know about the SCRAM changes, so this case seems like it's
> easily justifiable.

My modules break every couple of months (utility hook is the last one
in date), and usually fixes are no big deals. Removing password_type
is in this category, and as long as compilation fails properly people
will be able to notice problems easily.
-- 
Michael