Re: MySQL-ism help patch for psql

Stefan Kaltenbrunner <stefan@kaltenbrunner.cc>

From: Stefan Kaltenbrunner <stefan@kaltenbrunner.cc>
To: Jeff Davis <pgsql@j-davis.com>
Cc: David Christensen <david@endpoint.com>, pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org, Magnus Hagander <magnus@hagander.net>
Date: 2010-01-19T19:52:05Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
Jeff Davis wrote:
>> I'm not convinced that we should start adding syntax helpers like that 
>> to psql. For now it is an arbitrary subset of MySQL stuff, are we going 
>> to add oracle/db2/mssql/drizzle/mariadb and whatnot later on?
>> Also I can already see people asking "well you already know that this is 
>> that command - why not emulate it fully?".
> 
> Good points. However, it only takes effect in interactive mode, so I
> don't see it as a promise to do much. I'll make an analogy to:
> 
>   $ git difff
>   git: 'difff' is not a git-command. See 'git --help'.
> 
>   Did you mean this?
>           diff

well the actual output is just:

:~$ git difff
git: 'difff' is not a git-command. See 'git --help'.


which is more or less the same as:

postgres=# \mysql
Invalid command \mysql. Try \? for help.

so I don't really see why we need to add some random second guessing of 
what the user actually wanted (and if he is indeed a mysql refugee he 
can always use "help" and go on from there).


Stefan