Re: BUG #18094: max max_connections cannot be set

On Fri, Sep 8, 2023 at 06:57 Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:

"David G. Johnston" <david.g.johnston@gmail.com> writes:
> On Thu, Sep 7, 2023 at 9:25 PM Nikolay Samokhvalov <nikolay@samokhvalov.com>
> wrote:
>> nik=# select max_val from pg_settings where name = 'max_connections';
>> max_val
>> ---------
>> 262143
>> (1 row)
>>
>> -- here is why

> Glossed right over that...yeah, quite a few settings seem to have a max_val
> of "unsigned numeric", I'd be curious whether they all have some
> non-datatype maximum recognized during runtime that pg_settings is unable
> to see.

Yeah, there are for example plenty of entries with max_val of INT_MAX,
but that doesn't necessarily mean you can set them that high.  The
max_val is *a* constraint, it's not the *only* constraint

Thank you for the explanation.

Then, I think, the column name may be misleading to many. I will now memorize that it's not the actual max value, but I'm sure in a couple of years I'll forget (as it happens to me often), and think again that this is a bug.