On Mon, Jan 30, 2017 at 8:35 AM, Stephen Frost <sfr...@snowman.net> wrote:
> Tom, > > * Tom Lane (t...@sss.pgh.pa.us) wrote: > > Stephen Frost <sfr...@snowman.net> writes: > > > This particular bike-shedding really doesn't seem to be terribly useful > > > or sensible, to me. \gx isn't "consistent" or "descriptive", frankly. > > > > Why not? To me it reads as "\g with an x option". The "x" refers to > > the implied "\x", so it's not an arbitrary choice at all. > > That's not how '\dx' works, as I pointed out, so I don't see having the > second character being 'x' to imply "\x mode" makes sense. > It makes perfect sense ... it just not something that we've had the option to do before (no, I haven't tried to figure out if we've missed an opportunity or two here). [...] without actual consistency across commands which take 'x' > as a sub-command I don't see the 'descriptive' argument as holding much > weight either > . > Arguing that something is mnemonic doesn't require any precedence - though one could wish for better uses of mnemonic naming choices for past and future items. In scripting uses of psql I could see wanting to use "\gx" and, say "\gn" (i.e., always output in non-expanded mode) instead of ";" so that for any given query I can specify the exact layout I care about and don't have to jump through hoops to toggle \x back and forth. Limiting consideration of the use-case of this feature to interactive use is, IMHO, a mistake. In the copious use of psql scripting that I do I would find both options I named above to be useful to directly and concisely communicate the display intent of each query I execute. David J.
