Re: Proposal for Allow postgresql.conf values to be changed via SQL [review]

On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 1:59 PM, Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> wrote:
> On 6/7/13 12:14 AM, Amit Kapila wrote:
>> I will change the patch as per below syntax if there are no objections:
>>
>>  ALTER SYSTEM SET configuration_parameter {TO | =} {value, | 'value'};
>
> I do like using ALTER SYSTEM in general, but now that I think about it,
> the 9.3 feature to create global settings in pg_db_role_setting would
> also have been a candidate for exactly that same syntax if it had been
> available.  In fact, if we do add ALTER SYSTEM, it might make sense to
> recast that feature into that syntax.
>
> It might be clearer to do something like ALTER SYSTEM SET EXTERNAL FILE
> or something like that.  It's only a small syntax change, so don't worry
> about it too much, but let's keep thinking about it.

I think that anything we want to add should either go before SET or
after the value, such as:

ALTER SYSTEM SET configuration_parameter = 'value' IN FILE 'myconf.conf';
ALTER SYSTEM CONFIGURATION FILE SET configuration_parameter = 'file';
ALTER SYSTEM CONFIGURATION FILE 'myconf.conf' SET
configuration_parameter = 'file';

I agree we shouldn't back ourselves into a syntactic corner.

-- 
Robert Haas
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