Re: [HACKERS] Server Programming Interface underspecified in 4.1beta1
J. Greg Davidson g...@ngender.net wrote: I would like to be able to program to a C or C++ SPI which is clean, complete and type-safe. I am good at reading API documentation in C or C++ and would be happy to review any proposed improvements. I want to second Andrew's post, and emphasize that such suggestions are not intended to be flippant -- a lot of PostgreSQL development (documentation included) occurs because someone feels the need for something and goes ahead with making it happen. If you want to put the effort into improving the API documentation for SPI, but don't know where to start, I'd be happy to help you get started. It's great when someone who benefits from PostgreSQL can scratch their own itch and give back to the community in the process. Let me know. -Kevin -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
[HACKERS] Server Programming Interface underspecified in 4.1beta1
The documentation for the Server Programming Interface is underspecified such that it is impossible to create real extensions using only the documented interface. For example, in the example 43.5 http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/static/spi-examples.html a variable of type SPITupleTable is being dereferenced as tupdesc-natts but this is not documented. The SPI documentation suggests studying the contributed extension code for further examples but that code is full of hundreds of features which are not in the SPI at all. My own SPI code uses dozens of macros and field names which I found in existing source and in conversations on the mailing lists. I'm always nervous when a new release comes out because the API I am using is not official and might therefore change and break my code. This is especially bad since much of the code is not type-safe and problems will tend to be hidden by all of the casts in the pre-ISO-C-style macro code. It would be good if the Server Programming Interface were sufficiently documented that most of the contributed extensions which ship with PostgreSQL and most of the SPI-based modules in the backend were using ONLY the documented features of the SPI. Macros hiding casts and typedefs hiding void * types should replaced with inline functions and pointers to specific strong types. To be very clear: Yes, I can always rummage around in the include files and source to find out how to do things IN THIS RELEASE. But I can't expect PostgreSQL development to avoid breaking the idioms I happen upon, nor can the developers write unit tests to ensure that proper extensions using the SPI will not break. I would like to be able to program to a C or C++ SPI which is clean, complete and type-safe. I am good at reading API documentation in C or C++ and would be happy to review any proposed improvements. _Greg -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
Re: [HACKERS] Server Programming Interface underspecified in 4.1beta1
On 05/09/2011 05:23 PM, J. Greg Davidson wrote: It would be good if the Server Programming Interface were sufficiently documented that most of the contributed extensions which ship with PostgreSQL and most of the SPI-based modules in the backend were using ONLY the documented features of the SPI. Docs patches welcome. (BTW, 4.1beta) cheers andrew -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
