Re: pg_basebackup and error messages dependent on the order of the arguments

>> My point was not so much about --compress but rather giving a good error message.

>Right, and my point was that the issue is bigger than --compress.
>For example, you get exactly the same misbehavior with

>$ pg_basebackup --checkpoint=fast --format=t -d --pgdata=/var/tmp/dummy
>pg_basebackup: error: must specify output directory or backup target
>pg_basebackup: hint: Try "pg_basebackup --help" for more information.

>I'm not sure how to solve the problem once you consider this larger
>scope.  I don't think we could forbid arguments beginning with "-" for
>all of these switches.

It is not dependent on short or long switches:
$ pg_basebackup --checkpoint=fast --format=t -p --pgdata=/var/tmp/dummy
pg_basebackup: error: must specify output directory or backup target
pg_basebackup: hint: Try "pg_basebackup --help" for more information.

$ pg_basebackup --checkpoint=fast --format=t --port --pgdata=/var/tmp/dummy
pg_basebackup: error: must specify output directory or backup target
pg_basebackup: hint: Try "pg_basebackup --help" for more information.

Maybe checking if a valid "-D" or "--pgdata" was given and return a more generic error message would be an option?

Regards
Daniel