Previously this was usually done after argument parsing. This can cause
SEGFAULTs if the number or type of arguments changes in a new version.
By checking that Citus version is correct before doing any argument
parsing we protect against these types of issues. Issues like this have
occurred in pg_auto_failover, so it's not just a theoretical issue.
The main reason why these calls were not at the top of functions is
really just historical. It was because in the past we didn't allow
statements before declarations. Thus having this check before the
argument parsing would have only been possible if we first declared all
variables.
In addition to moving existing CheckCitusVersion calls it also adds
these calls to rebalancer related functions (they were missing there).
Jelte Fennema
Marco Slot