On Thu, Dec 15, 2022 at 4:45 AM PG Doc comments form <nore...@postgresql.org> wrote:
> The following documentation comment has been logged on the website: > > Page: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/15/sql-altersystem.html > Description: > > Documentation say > ALTER SYSTEM SET configuration_parameter { TO | = } { value | 'value' | > DEFAULT } > > The variant 'value' has special, not obvious behaviour and must be > documented. > > This syntax representation and accompanying text annoys me too. It is logical behavior and described accurately, but I think readability could be improved. I suggest changing it to: SET configuration_parameter { TO | = } { value [, ...] | DEFAULT } Values can be specified as unquoted alphanumeric+underscore sequences. If the value contains any non-alphanumeric (plus underscore) characters it should be enclosed in quotes (single or double, it does not matter). For settings that accept multiple values, separate each value to be supplied with a comma (and optional whitespace). This concern is not limited to this page though, and should be applied elsewhere as is applicable. I haven't tried to exhaustively enumerate when quoting is required, and probably the quoting rules should be centralized and the description simplified to: The rules for when individual values must be quoted is described in Chapter 20.1.1. For settings that accept multiple values, separate each value with a comma and optional whitespace. That chapter does indeed already explain for each type of value when quoting is required. David J.
