initdb (Re: [HACKERS] TODO list updated)

On Thu, 13 Jan 2000, Tom Lane wrote:

> What I am starting to think is that we do need a C program.  However,
> it could be very small; it shouldn't try to do all of what initdb does.
> All it needs to do is fetch the password from stdin and then echo it
> to stdout in an ALTER USER command.  The invocation in initdb would

One more little utility lying around, not my favourite.

What I had been phantasizing about is an initdb completely in C that
a) eliminates all shell incompatibilities
b) doesn't depend on the grace of external utilities
c) doesn't need any external files

The implemenation idea behind c) was to include all the catalog/*.h files
directly, having changed the DATA() and DESC() macros prior, thus
eliminating the need for .bki files, genbki.sh (which fortunately hadn't
had any compatibility problems), another set of files being installed that
you don't really need at runtime.

Also you wouldn't need pg_version or pg_encoding which implies you don't
need libpq, which means you don't need to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH. The idea is
that initdb should run right out of the box after make install.

I'm going to try if I can get something like this together before this
thing goes out the door. But I urge you to give the potential advantages
of this careful consideration.


-- 
Peter Eisentraut                  Sernanders vaeg 10:115
peter_e@gmx.net                   75262 Uppsala
http://yi.org/peter-e/            Sweden