Re: Add new protocol message to change GUCs for usage with future protocol-only GUCs

On Fri, 5 Apr 2024 at 16:02, Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> wrote:
> Often?
>
> I kind of hope that the protocol starts to evolve a bit more than it
> has, but I don't want a continuous stream of changes. That will be
> very hard to test and verify correctness, and a hassle for drivers to
> keep up with, and a mess for compatibility.

I definitely think protocol changes require a lot more scrutiny than
many other things, given their hard/impossible to change nature.

But I do think that we shouldn't be at all averse to the act of
bumping the protocol version itself. If we have a single small
protocol change in one release, then imho it's no problem to bump the
protocol version. Bumping the version should be painless. So we
shouldn't be inclined to push an already agreed upon protocol change
to the next release, because there are some more protocol changes in
the pipeline that won't make it in the current one.

I don't think this would be any harder for drivers to keep up with,
then if we'd bulk all changes together. If driver developers only want
to support changes in bulk changes, they can simply choose not to
support 3.1 at all if they want and wait until 3.2 to support
everything in bulk then.

> > So, what approach of checking feature support are you envisioning
> > instead? A function for every feature?
> > Something like SupportsSetProtocolParameter, that returns an error
> > message if it's not supported and NULL otherwise. And then add such a
> > support function for every feature?
>
> Yeah, something like that.
> ...
>
> > I'm also not sure why you're saying a user is not entitled to this
> > information. We already provide users of libpq a way to see the full
> > Postgres version, and the major protocol version. I think allowing a
> > user to access this information is only a good thing. But I agree that
> > providing easy to use feature support functions is a better user
> > experience in some cases.
>
> I guess that's a fair point. But I'm worried that if we expose too
> much of the internals, we won't be able to change things later.

I'll take a look at redesigning the protocol parameter stuff. To work
with dedicated functions instead.

> I really intended the _pq_ prefix as a way of taking something out of
> the GUC namespace, not as a part of the GUC namespace that users would
> see. And I'm reluctant to go back on that. If we want to make
> pg_protocol.${NAME} mean a wire protocol parameter, well maybe there's
> something to that idea [insert caveats here]. But doesn't _pq_ look
> like something that was intended to be internal? That's certainly how
> I intended it.

I agree that _pq_ does look internal and doesn't clearly indicate that
it's a protocol related change. But sadly the _pq_ prefix is the only
one that doesn't error in startup packets, waiting another 5 years
until pg_protocol is allowed in the startup packet doesn't seem like a
reasonable solution either.

How about naming the GUCs pg_protocol.${NAME}, but still requiring the
_pq_ prefix in the StartupPacket. That way only client libraries would
have to see this internal prefix and they could remap it someway. I
see two options for that:
1. At the server replace the _pq_ prefix with pg_protocol. So
_pq_.${NAME} would map to pg_protocol.${name}
2. At the server replace the _pq_.pg_protocol prefix with pg_protocol.
So _pq_.pg_protocol.${NAME} would map to pg_protocol.${name}.

I guess you prefer option 2, because that would still leave lots of
space to do something with the rest of the _pq_ space, i.e.
_pq_.magic_pixie_dust can still be used for something different than a
GUC.

Bikeshedding: I think I prefer protocol.${NAME} over
pg_protocol.${NAME}, it's shorter and it seems obvious that protocol
is the postgres protocol in this context.

This should be a fairly simple change to make.

> Wouldn't libpq already know what value it last set? Or is this needed
> because it doesn't know what the other side's default is?

libpq could/should indeed know this, but for debugging/testing
purposes it is quite useful to have a facility to read the server side
value. I think defaults should always be whatever was happening if the
parameter wasn't specified before, so knowing the server default is
not something the client needs to worry about (i.e. the default is
defined as part of the protocol spec).

> Hmm, OK. I guess if the PGC_PROTOCOL flag makes it so that the GUC can
> only be set using ParameterSet, and it also makes them
> non-transactional, then it's fine. So to be clear, I can't set these
> in postgresql.conf, or postgresql.auto.conf, or via ALTER $ANYTHING,
> or via SET, or in any other way than by sending ParameterStatus
> messages. And when I send a ParameterStatus message, it doesn't matter
> if I'm in a good transaction, an aborted transaction, or no
> transaction at all, and the setting change takes effect regardless of
> that and regardless of any subsequent rollbacks. Is that right?
>
> I feel like maybe it's not, because you seem to be thinking that you'd
> also set these in the startup packet, at least...

Setting PGC_PROTOCOL gucs would be allowed in the startup packet,
which is fine afaict because that's also something that's part of the
protocol level and is thus fully controlled by client libraries and
poolers) But other than that: Yes, conf files, ALTER, and SET cannot
change these GUCs.