Re: Libpq support to connect to standby server as priority

Haribabu Kommi wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 24, 2018 at 9:01 AM Jing Wang <jingwangian@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi All,
> >
> > Recently I put a proposal to support 'prefer-read' parameter in target_session_attrs in libpq. Now I updated the patch with adding content in the sgml and regression test case.
> >
> > Some people may have noticed there is already another patch (https://commitfest.postgresql.org/15/1148/ ) which looks similar with this. But I would say this patch is more complex than my proposal.
> >
> > It is better separate these 2 patches to consider.
>
> I also feel prefer-read and read-only options needs to take as two different options.
> prefer-read is simple to support than read-only.
>
> Here I attached an updated patch that is rebased to the latest master and also
> fixed some of the corner scenarios.

The patch applies, builds and passes "make check-world".

I think the "prefer-read" functionality is desirable: It is exactly what you need
if you want to use replication for load balancing, and your application supports
different database connections for reading and writing queries.

"read-only" does not have a clear use case in my opinion.

With the patch, PostgreSQL behaves as expected if I have a primary and a standby and run:

  psql "host=/tmp,/tmp port=5433,5434 target_session_attrs=prefer-read"

But if I stop the standby (port 5434), libpq goes into an endless loop.

Concerning the code:

- The documentation needs some attention. Suggestion:

   If this parameter is set to <literal>prefer-read</literal>, connections
   where <literal>SHOW transaction_read_only</literal> returns off are preferred.
   If no such connection can be found, a connection that allows read-write
   transactions will be accepted.

- I think the construction with "read_write_host_index" makes the code even more
  complicated than it already is.

  What about keeping the first successful connection open and storing it in a
  variable if we are in "prefer-read" mode.
  If we get the read-only connection we desire, close that cached connection,
  otherwise use it.