Re: PATCH: psql boolean display

2012/8/21 Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>:
> "Kevin Grittner" <Kevin.Grittner@wicourts.gov> writes:
>> The type itself does output true/false; it's just psql that uses
>> t/f.
>
> No, 't'/'f' is what boolout() returns.  The 'true'/'false' results from
> casting bool to text are intentionally different --- IIRC, Peter E.
> argued successfully that this cast behavior is required by SQL spec.
> But we'd already been returning 't'/'f' to applications for far too many
> years to change it.  (And that argument has not gotten any weaker since
> then.  Keep in mind that Postgres was returning 't'/'f' for bool years
> before the SQL spec even had a boolean type.)
>
> If we're going to do something like this at all, I agree that psql is
> the place to do it, not the server.  But my beef with this patch is that
> it's thinking too small --- why would bool be the only type that
> somebody would want to editorialize on the display of?  I'd rather see
> some general "substitute this for that in display of columns of type X"
> feature.
>

can you explain your idea, please? - I can't to imagine any general
solution for other types than "enum" like types (without significant
enhancing of psql scripting possibilities)

Regards

Pavel

>                         regards, tom lane