On Mon, Aug 29, 2005 at 08:12:37AM -0400, Robert Treat wrote:
> On Monday 29 August 2005 00:33, Tom Lane wrote:
> > David Fetter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > > On a slightly related note, I've noticed that psql isn't
> > > backward compatible.
> >
> > We have never expected psql's \d commands to work against older
> > server versions, and two months after feature freeze isn't the
> > time to start making that happen.

Tom, good point on the timing.  I wish I'd come up with this at a
better moment for 8.1.  I still contend that this falls squarely in
the realm of bug fixes, and would be happy to get as
backward-compatible a bunch of \ functions as possible, even
back-porting, little as I believe that should be encouraged.

> That said, number of folks have looked at this problem and agree it
> would be nice to do, they just haven't formed a consensus on how to
> do it.  If you have a plan for how you would want to approach this
> in 8.2, feel free to post it. 

I'd be curious as to what's been proposed before, but briefly:

switch (pset.sversion/100) {
    case 801:
        ...
        break;
    case 800:
        ...
        break;
    .
    .
    .
    default:
        ...
        break;
}

for each version-specific chunk of SQL that a backslash command would
issue.  I know it makes the code bigger, but stacking things that way
makes it relatively easy to prepend new conditions at the top as
needed.  Also TBD, I think it would be a Very Good Idea(TM) to see
about how this (and other front ends) can play nice with the
newsysviews project.  It really chaps me to see all these wheels being
reinvented. :/

Cheers,
D
-- 
David Fetter [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://fetter.org/
phone: +1 510 893 6100   mobile: +1 415 235 3778

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