Tom Lane wrote:
No, I don't think so. Suppose I write
COPY ... (xml_header on)
If HEADER isn't actually an option supported by XML format, what I will
get here is an "unknown option" error, which conveys just about nothing
--- is it really an unsupported combination, or did I just misspell the
option name?
Well, I don't see why you would write that if the option is not documented.
Usually as a user, when I need to use a command, I look at the doc/man
page and use the options that are indicated, I don't try to invent new
options. That should prevent the kind of scenario you describe here:
If we go with the other way then I would expect
COPY ... (xml, header on)
to draw a specific "HEADER is not supported in XML format" error.
Of course, that will require some extra code to make it happen.
So you could argue that format-specific option names are easier
from the lazy programmer's viewpoint. But I don't believe the
argument that they're better from the user's viewpoint.
Here you will force every format to use the same set of options and if
someone introduces a new option, you will have to modify all other
formats to make sure they throw an error telling the user that this
option is not supported. I don't think this is a great design and that
it will be easy to extend.
Emmanuel
--
Emmanuel Cecchet
Aster Data Systems
Web: http://www.asterdata.com
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