Re: SELECT pg_reload_conf(); returning true despite hba file loading was failed

On Thursday, February 4, 2021, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:

RAJAMOHAN <garajamohan@gmail.com> writes:
> After checking the logs, I found out that the hba file was not loaded
> successfully because of the invalid character. My concern is
> why pg_reload_conf is returning true if the load was unsuccessful.

A true result only indicates that a SIGHUP signal was sent to the
postmaster; your backend process has no visibility into whether the
signal was even received, never mind whether the postmaster did
what you wanted.  (I thought this was adequately documented, but it
seems not.)

My and Heikki’s recent changes to address this are only in head, not v13 or earlier.

David J.