Horton

Re: [PATCH] pg_bsd_indent: improve formatting of multiline comments

Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>

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From: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>
To: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Cc: Álvaro Herrera <alvherre@kurilemu.de>, Aleksander Alekseev <aleksander@tigerdata.com>, PostgreSQL Hackers <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>, Nathan Bossart <nathandbossart@gmail.com>, Chao Li <li.evan.chao@gmail.com>, Arseniy Mukhin <arseniy.mukhin.dev@gmail.com>, Michael Paquier <michael@paquier.xyz>
Date: 2025-12-19T20:02:12Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers 
On Fri, Dec 12, 2025 at 11:17:01AM -0500, Tom Lane wrote:
> =?utf-8?Q?=C3=81lvaro?= Herrera <alvherre@kurilemu.de> writes:
> > It's strange to see this thread go on about messing with the Perl script
> > because we're too afraid of pg_bsd_indent.  Maybe we should take
> > ownership of that code -- improve its own indentation to our
> > conventions, add comments, rename unclear variables, and so on until we
> > have something we can work with, and fix these weird bugs and
> > idiosincratic behaviors we don't like.  I just found out this code dates
> > back from 1976.
> 
> I've worked with that code a little bit, and it's mostly unreadable
> spaghetti :-(.  If somebody wants to make an effort to make it not
> so awful, that'd be great, but I fear it's a very nontrivial project.

Yes, this is why we had to wrap the pg_bsd_indent call in Perl.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        https://momjian.us
  EDB                                      https://enterprisedb.com

  Do not let urgent matters crowd out time for investment in the future.