Horton

Re: Doc patch on psql output formats

Daniel Verite <daniel@manitou-mail.org>

View thread View on postgr.es
From: "Daniel Verite" <daniel@manitou-mail.org>
To: "Tom Lane" <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Cc: pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org
Date: 2018-11-26T12:00:36Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers 
	Tom Lane wrote:

> As of HEAD, it's impossible to select latex output format
> at all:
> 
> regression=# \pset format latex
> \pset: ambiguous abbreviation "latex" matches both "latex" and
> "latex-longtable"

Oops!

> We could fix that by adding a special case to accept an exact match
> immediately.

Personally I would favor that one, but to me the problem is that
allowing abbreviations doesn't really work well in the long run,
that is, if new format names are going to appear recurringly in the
future.

In interactive mode, tab-completion seems good enough (maybe \pset was
not tab-completed in the past, when abbreviations were initially
implemented?).

In non-interactive mode, anything abbreviated may clash in the future
with another format, so there's a forward-compatibility hazzard that
should motivate to avoid them as well in scripts.


Best regards,
-- 
Daniel Vérité
PostgreSQL-powered mailer: http://www.manitou-mail.org
Twitter: @DanielVerite

Commits

  1. Fix breakage of "\pset format latex".

  2. Make psql's "\pset format" command reject non-unique abbreviations.

  3. Doc: remove claim that all \pset format options are unique in 1 letter.

  4. Reorganize format options of psql in alphabetical order