Shridhar, Tom,

As long as we're messing around with PostgreSQL.conf, I propose that we 
comment the file much more thouroughly -- in the style of Apache's httpd.conf 
and our own pg_hba.conf (though maybe not quite as long as hba).   Someone 
proposed this for 7.4 and we ran out of time, and as I've thought about the 
idea over the last 6 months I've come to like it.

I'm happy to do the work for this ... it should be relatively easy if 
everyone's Doc patches are up to date.    I can't see any drawback to it; is 
there something I'm missing?

-- 
-Josh Berkus
 Aglio Database Solutions
 San Francisco


Tue, 1 Jun 2004 14:05:07 -0700
Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com>
Re: Converting postgresql.conf parameters to kilobytes
Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> writes:
> As long as we're messing around with PostgreSQL.conf, I propose that we 
> comment the file much more thouroughly -- in the style of Apache's httpd.conf
> and our own pg_hba.conf (though maybe not quite as long as hba).

ISTM we had decided that putting vast amounts of documentation into the
file comments was exactly the thing *not* to do.  It duplicates the SGML
documentation, thereby doubling the maintenance effort, to very little
purpose.  pg_hba's comments in particular had gotten quite out of hand
at one point, and have been pruned back severely.  Let's not follow the
same wheel of fate for postgresql.conf.

			regards, tom lane

Tue, 01 Jun 2004 17:33:47 -0400
Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Re: Converting postgresql.conf parameters to kilobytes 
Tom Lane wrote:
> ISTM we had decided that putting vast amounts of documentation into the
> file comments was exactly the thing *not* to do.  It duplicates the SGML
> documentation, thereby doubling the maintenance effort, to very little
> purpose.

I agree. If people really think that adding more comments to 
pg_hba.conf is a good idea, I think the best way to do that is to 
automatically extract that information from the main SGML docs.

-Neil


Tue, 01 Jun 2004 16:49:54 -0700
Neil Conway <neilc@samurai.com>
Re: Converting postgresql.conf parameters to kilobytes
Neil Conway wrote:
> Tom Lane wrote:
> > ISTM we had decided that putting vast amounts of documentation into the
> > file comments was exactly the thing *not* to do.  It duplicates the SGML
> > documentation, thereby doubling the maintenance effort, to very little
> > purpose.
> 
> I agree. If people really think that adding more comments to 
> pg_hba.conf is a good idea, I think the best way to do that is to 
> automatically extract that information from the main SGML docs.

And if folks want more info in postgresql.conf, we can perhaps pull them
from the docs too, or at least the descriptions we added.

Also, I it seems postgres --describe-config isn't working.  It outputs
nothing here.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 359-1001
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  13 Roberts Road
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

Tue, 1 Jun 2004 23:00:03 -0400 (EDT)
Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us>
Re: Converting postgresql.conf parameters to kilobytes
Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> writes:
> Also, I it seems postgres --describe-config isn't working.  It outputs
> nothing here.

Yeah, same here.  I'll take a look --- I may have side-swiped that during
recent hacking in main.c.

			regards, tom lane

Wed, 02 Jun 2004 10:48:29 -0400
Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Re: Converting postgresql.conf parameters to kilobytes 