[17] CREATE COLLATION default provider

On Wed, Jun 14, 2023 at 9:48 PM Jeff Davis <pgsql@j-davis.com> wrote:

Currently, CREATE COLLATION always defaults the provider to libc.

The attached patch causes it to default to libc if LC_COLLATE/LC_CTYPE
are specified, otherwise default to the current database default
collation's provider.

+            if (lccollateEl || lcctypeEl)
+                collprovider = COLLPROVIDER_LIBC;
+            else
+                collprovider = default_locale.provider;

The docs for the CREATE COLLATION option 'locale' say: "This is a
shortcut for setting LC_COLLATE and LC_CTYPE at once."

So it's not intuitive why the check does not include a test for the
presence of 'localeEl', as well? If we consider the presence of
LC_COLLATE _or_ LC_CTYPE options to be a determining factor for some
decision, then the presence of LOCALE option should also lead to the
same outcome.

Otherwise the patch looks good.

v11-0001-CREATE-COLLATION-default-provider.patch

I believe v11 is a typo, and you really meant v1.

Best regards,
Gurjeet
http://Gurje.et

On Sat, 2023-06-17 at 09:09 -0700, Gurjeet Singh wrote:

The docs for the CREATE COLLATION option 'locale' say: "This is a
shortcut for setting LC_COLLATE and LC_CTYPE at once."

So it's not intuitive why the check does not include a test for the
presence of 'localeEl', as well? If we consider the presence of
LC_COLLATE _or_ LC_CTYPE options to be a determining factor for some
decision, then the presence of LOCALE option should also lead to the
same outcome.

The docs say: "If provider is libc, this is a shortcut...". The point
is that LC_COLLATE and LC_CTYPE act as a signal that what the user
really wants is a libc collation. LOCALE works for either, so we need a
default.

That being said, I'm now having second thoughts about where that
default should come from. While getting the default from datlocprovider
is convenient, I'm not sure that the datlocprovider provides a good
signal. A lot of users will have datlocprovider=c and datcollate=C,
which really means they want the built-in memcmp behavior, and to me
that doesn't signal that they want CREATE COLLATION to use libc for a
non-C locale.

A GUC might be a better default, and we could have CREATE COLLATION
default to ICU if the server is built with ICU and if PROVIDER,
LC_COLLATE and LC_CTYPE are unspecified.

Regards,
Jeff Davis

On Fri, Jul 7, 2023 at 9:33 AM Jeff Davis <pgsql@j-davis.com> wrote:

On Sat, 2023-06-17 at 09:09 -0700, Gurjeet Singh wrote:

The docs for the CREATE COLLATION option 'locale' say: "This is a
shortcut for setting LC_COLLATE and LC_CTYPE at once."

So it's not intuitive why the check does not include a test for the
presence of 'localeEl', as well? If we consider the presence of
LC_COLLATE _or_ LC_CTYPE options to be a determining factor for some
decision, then the presence of LOCALE option should also lead to the
same outcome.

The docs say: "If provider is libc, this is a shortcut...". The point
is that LC_COLLATE and LC_CTYPE act as a signal that what the user
really wants is a libc collation. LOCALE works for either, so we need a
default.

Sorry about the noise, I was consulting current/v15 docs online. Now
that v16 docs are online, I can see that the option in fact says this
is the case only if libc is the provider.

(note to self: for reviewing patches to master, consult devel docs [1]https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/ online)

[1]: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/

Best regards,
Gurjeet
http://Gurje.et

On 15.06.23 06:47, Jeff Davis wrote:

Currently, CREATE COLLATION always defaults the provider to libc.

The attached patch causes it to default to libc if LC_COLLATE/LC_CTYPE
are specified, otherwise default to the current database default
collation's provider.

That way, the provider choice at initdb time then becomes the default
for "CREATE DATABASE ... TEMPLATE template0", which then becomes the
default provider for "CREATE COLLATION (LOCALE='...')".

I like the general idea. If the user has selected ICU overall, it could
be sensible that certain commands default to ICU.

I wonder, however, how useful this would be in practice. In most
interesting cases, you need to know what the provider is to be able to
spell out the locale name appropriately. The cases where some overlap
exists, like the common "ll_CC", are already preloaded, so won't
actually need to be specified explicitly in many cases.

Also, I think the default should only flow one way, top-down: The
default provider of CREATE COLLATION is datlocprovider. There shouldn't
be a second, botton-up way, based on the other specified CREATE
COLLATION parameters. That's just too much logical zig-zag, IMO.
Otherwise, if you extend this locally, why not also look at if
"deterministic" or "rules" was specified, etc.

On Thu, 2024-01-18 at 11:15 +0100, Peter Eisentraut wrote:

I wonder, however, how useful this would be in practice.  In most
interesting cases, you need to know what the provider is to be able
to
spell out the locale name appropriately.  The cases where some
overlap
exists, like the common "ll_CC", are already preloaded, so won't
actually need to be specified explicitly in many cases.

Good point.

Also, I think the default should only flow one way, top-down:  The
default provider of CREATE COLLATION is datlocprovider.  There
shouldn't
be a second, botton-up way, based on the other specified CREATE
COLLATION parameters.  That's just too much logical zig-zag, IMO.

Also a good point. I am withdrawing this patch from the CF, and we can
reconsider the idea later perhaps in some other form.

Regards,
Jeff Davis