Re: BUG #5669: server process was terminated by exception 0xC0000005

Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@commandprompt.com> writes:
> Excerpts from Tom Lane's message of mié sep 22 12:39:24 -0400 2010:
>> As far as a fix for the crash goes, I'm not sure if it'd be better to
>> try to make show_session_authorization() return some sort of default
>> value in this scenario, or to try to ensure that the variable has been
>> set to something valid before we start running user-supplied code.
>> In either case the problem is potentially wider than this one function
>> and variable.  Thoughts anyone?

> My first thought is that the weird encoding of
> session_authorization_string should better be contained in as few places
> as possible, so we shouldn't try to initialize it to something
> valid-looking.  Seems easier to have show_session_authorization() cope
> with a NULL value.

Yeah, coping with a NULL seems like the best thing to me too after
further reflection: the other way couldn't possibly cope with scenarios
like "show_session_authorization gets called before we got around to
initializing the variable".

> But what would this default value be?

Wouldn't an empty string be acceptable?  SQL doesn't allow zero-length
identifiers, so this couldn't be confused with any really-valid value.

            regards, tom lane