pingcap/tidb

Add units to the numeric options in the configuration file

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#17,847 opened on Jun 8, 2020

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Description

Feature Request

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe:

Most of the numeric configs lack unit. It is easy to confuse users. For example,

https://github.com/pingcap/tidb/blob/b05327509cb3584881815c2605a7537bbc24a8f0/config/config.toml.example#L243

104857600 should be 104857600B and 10737418240 should be 10737418240B or 10G.

Here is another example causing problems: #17434. https://github.com/pingcap/tidb/issues/17434#issuecomment-640209382

Describe the feature you'd like:

  • Add units to the numeric options in the configuration file.
  • Forbid numeric options without units.

Describe alternatives you've considered:

  • Explain the units in documents
  • Explain the units in the configuration file comments

Both of these solutions are not easy to use enough.

Teachability, Documentation, Adoption, Migration Strategy:

Change how the configuration file is parsed.

Contributor guide

Research direction
Investigate how TiDB parses configuration files, specifically the numeric options. Look into existing unit parsing libraries or patterns in the codebase, and propose a way to add unit support that is backward compatible for human readable values while enforcing unit requirements for new configs.
Tech stack
go
Domain
backendinfrastructure
Issue type
Feature
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
Half day
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
Active
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
Clear
Prerequisites
Goconfiguration parsing
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
40