Re: postgresql.auto.conf and reload

Amit Kapila <amit(dot)kapila16(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> Please find the patch attached to address the above concern. I have
> updated docs, so that users can be aware of such behaviour.

I'm in the camp that says that we need to do something about this, not
just claim that it's operating as designed. AFAICS, the *entire* argument
for having ALTER SYSTEM at all is ease of use; but this behavior is not
what I would call facilitating ease of use. In particular, if you are
conveniently able to edit postgresql.conf, what the heck do you need
ALTER SYSTEM for?

One possible answer is to modify guc-file.l so that only the last value
supplied for any one GUC gets processed. The naive way of doing that
would be O(N^2) in the number of uncommented settings, which might or
might not be a problem; if it is, we could no doubt devise a smarter
data structure.

regards, tom lane