Thread

Re: Idea Feedback: psql \h misses -> Offers Links?

Kirk Wolak <wolakk@gmail.com> — 2024-05-09T01:07:57Z

On Fri, Apr 19, 2024 at 10:14 AM Euler Taveira <euler@eulerto.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Apr 17, 2024, at 2:47 PM, Kirk Wolak wrote:
>
> ...
>
> This is Question 1: Do others see the potential value here?
>
>
> Yes. However, I expect an exact and direct answer. There will be cases
> that the
> first result is not the one you are looking for. (You are expecting the
> function or parameter description but other page is on the top because it
> is
> more relevant.) The referred URL does not point you to the direct link.
> Instead, you have to click again to be able to check the content.
>

Again, this does get to the point that the current search feature at
postgresql.org could be better.  I would like to see that improved as
well...


> Question 2: What if we allowed the users to set some extra link Templates
> using \pset??
>
> \pset help_assist_link_1 =  https://www.google.com/search?q={token}'
> \pset help_assist_link_2 = '
> https://wiki.postgresql.org/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&search={token}&go=Go
> <https://wiki.postgresql.org/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&search=%7Btoken%7D&go=Go>
> '
>
>
> That's a different idea. Are you proposing to provide URLs if this psql
> variable is set and it doesn't find an entry (say \h foo)? I'm not sure if
> it
> is a good idea to allow third-party URLs (even if it is configurable).
>

If you want to check the patch Andrey published.  We basically set the
default value to the set variable, and then allowed the user to override
that value with multiple pipe (|) separated URLs.  It does BEG the question
if this is cool for hackers.  Personally, I like the option as there are
probably a few resources worth checking against.  But if someone doesn't
change the default, they get a good enough answer.


> IMO we should expand \h to list documentation references for functions and
> GUCs
> using SGML files. We already did it for SQL commands. Another broader idea
> is
> to build an inverted index similar to what Index [1] provides. The main
> problem
> with this approach is to create a dependency between documentation build
> and
> psql. Maybe there is a reasonable way to obtain the links for each term.
>
>
> [1] https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/bookindex.html
>

I don't want to add more dependencies into psql to the documentation for a
ton of stuff.  To me, if we had a better search page on the website for
finding things, it would be great.  I have been resigned to just googling
"postgresql <topic>" because google does a better job searching
postgresql.org than the postgresql.org site does (even when it is a known
indexed item like a function name).

Thanks for the feedback.