Hi,
I didn't understand the current wording of the NOTES section in
psql(1) on which major versions psql is compatible with, so here's a
patch to make that more explicit.
Christoph
>From 89f947c215c679004e1f3fbf88751fe527e16f91 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Christoph Berg <m...@debian.org>
Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2022 13:21:48 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] psql-ref.sgml: Be more specific about major versions support
The old wording only mentioned \d, but in practise even `psql -l` would
fail for pre-9.2 servers, so be more clear about the version range.
---
doc/src/sgml/ref/psql-ref.sgml | 13 ++++++-------
1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)
diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/ref/psql-ref.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/ref/psql-ref.sgml
index 186f8c506a..09e3da7c24 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/ref/psql-ref.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/ref/psql-ref.sgml
@@ -4946,20 +4946,19 @@ PSQL_EDITOR_LINENUMBER_ARG='--line '
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
- <para><application>psql</application> works best with servers of the same
- or an older major version. Backslash commands are particularly likely
+ <para><application>psql</application> works with servers of the same
+ or an older major version, back to 9.2. Backslash commands are particularly likely
to fail if the server is of a newer version than <application>psql</application>
- itself. However, backslash commands of the <literal>\d</literal> family should
- work with servers of versions back to 9.2, though not necessarily with
- servers newer than <application>psql</application> itself. The general
+ itself, or older than 9.2. The general
functionality of running SQL commands and displaying query results
- should also work with servers of a newer major version, but this cannot
+ should also work with servers of a other major versions, but this cannot
be guaranteed in all cases.
</para>
<para>
If you want to use <application>psql</application> to connect to several
servers of different major versions, it is recommended that you use the
- newest version of <application>psql</application>. Alternatively, you
+ newest version of <application>psql</application>. (To connect to pre-9.2 servers,
+ use <application>psql</application> 14 or earlier.) Alternatively, you
can keep around a copy of <application>psql</application> from each
major version and be sure to use the version that matches the
respective server. But in practice, this additional complication should
--
2.35.1
