Thread: Replace PG_AUTOCONF_FILENAME with parameter

On Fri, Oct 05, 2018 at 09:39:03AM +0300, Jonathan Jacobson wrote:
> As opposed to config_file, hba_file, etc. the name and location of the
> autoconfig file is fixed to $PGDATA/postgresql.auto.conf (guc.h)
>
> The static name also appears in some other locations, such as
> pg_basebackup, pg_rewind & initdb.c.
>
> New feature suggestion: Allow to set the file's location, as with hba_file
> and ident_file.
>
> Would be glad to make it my contribution to the code.

Could you explain what is your use-case? postgresql.auto.conf is used
internally by Postgres to store information from ALTER SYSTEM, and is
not something aimed at being available externally.
--
Michael

>>>>> "Jonathan" == Jonathan Jacobson <jonjac@gmail.com> writes:

 Jonathan> As opposed to config_file, hba_file, etc. the name and
 Jonathan> location of the autoconfig file is fixed to
 Jonathan> $PGDATA/postgresql.auto.conf (guc.h)

The reason it's in a fixed location is that the server needs to be able
to rewrite the file, and we don't assume we can write to directories
outside of $PGDATA unless the _directory_ (not the file) was explicitly
specified (e.g. unix_socket_directories or stats_temp_directory).

hba_file and ident_file can be outside $PGDATA because the server never
needs to write to them.

-- 
Andrew (irc:RhodiumToad)