How to convert rows into HTML columns?

am Fri, dem 05.10.2007, um 8:20:32 +0200 mailte Stefan Schwarzer folgendes:

Before I was used that the yearly values were all to be found in a
single SQL row; now for each year of each country I have a separate
row. How do I convert that into a single (HTML) row again?

You can use conditionals like in my simple example:

test=*# select * from vals;
year | val
------+--------
1998 | 10.00
1998 | 20.00
1998 | 25.00
1999 | 30.00
1999 | 39.00
2000 | 100.00
2000 | 99.00
2000 | 98.00
(8 rows)

test=*# select
sum(case when year=1998 then val else 0 end) as "1998",
sum(case when year=1999 then val else 0 end) as "1999",
sum(case when year=2000 then val else 0 end) as "2000"
from vals;
1998 | 1999 | 2000
-------+-------+--------
55.00 | 69.00 | 297.00
(1 row)

And the next question coming up is: How should my query look like so
that I can sort the (HTML) table by a specific year in ascending or
descending order? So, that it doesn't display it by the country names
alphabetical order, but by, say 1998?

If you have only one row, how would you sort this result? ;-)

Andreas
--
Andreas Kretschmer
Kontakt: Heynitz: 035242/47150, D1: 0160/7141639 (mehr: -> Header)
GnuPG-ID: 0x3FFF606C, privat 0x7F4584DA http://wwwkeys.de.pgp.net

And the next question coming up is: How should my query look like so
that I can sort the (HTML) table by a specific year in ascending or
descending order? So, that it doesn't display it by the country names
alphabetical order, but by, say 1998?

If you have only one row, how would you sort this result? ;-)

With the "old" design I had up to 240 rows - for each country/
territory one row. Now, I have 240*num_years rows.

The user should be able to sort then the resulting table by country
name as well as by any year in ASC or DESC order.

am Fri, dem 05.10.2007, um 9:13:10 +0200 mailte Stefan Schwarzer folgendes:

And the next question coming up is: How should my query look like so
that I can sort the (HTML) table by a specific year in ascending or
descending order? So, that it doesn't display it by the country names
alphabetical order, but by, say 1998?

If you have only one row, how would you sort this result? ;-)

With the "old" design I had up to 240 rows - for each country/
territory one row. Now, I have 240*num_years rows.

Maybe i don't understand you.
I extend the table:

test=# select * from vals ;
year | val | country
------+--------+---------
1998 | 10.00 | a
1999 | 30.00 | a
2000 | 100.00 | a
1998 | 20.00 | b
1999 | 39.00 | b
2000 | 99.00 | b
1998 | 25.00 | c
2000 | 98.00 | c
(8 rows)

Now, select for every country and every year all in one row (in the
example only for 1998 and country a and b, i'm to lazy):

test=*# select
sum(case when year=1998 and country='a' then val else 0 end) as "1998_a",
sum(case when year=1998 and country='b' then val else 0 end) as "1998_b",
sum(case when year=1999 then val else 0 end) as "1999",
sum(case when year=2000 then val else 0 end) as "2000"
from vals;
1998_a | 1998_b | 1999 | 2000
--------+--------+-------+--------
10.00 | 20.00 | 69.00 | 297.00
(1 row)

you can see: sort by year and country, and all in one line ;-)

Or, one row for every country, ordered by the country's name:

test=*# select country,
sum(case when year=1998 then val else 0 end) as "1998",
sum(case when year=1999 then val else 0 end) as "1999",
sum(case when year=2000 then val else 0 end) as "2000"
from vals
group by country
order by country;
country | 1998 | 1999 | 2000
---------+-------+-------+--------
a | 10.00 | 30.00 | 100.00
b | 20.00 | 39.00 | 99.00
c | 25.00 | 0 | 98.00
(3 rows)

Btw.: i'm subscribed on the list, please no extra CC to me.

Andreas
--
Andreas Kretschmer
Kontakt: Heynitz: 035242/47150, D1: 0160/7141639 (mehr: -> Header)
GnuPG-ID: 0x3FFF606C, privat 0x7F4584DA http://wwwkeys.de.pgp.net

On Oct 5, 2007, at 1:20 , Stefan Schwarzer wrote:

Before I was used that the yearly values were all to be found in a
single SQL row; now for each year of each country I have a separate
row. How do I convert that into a single (HTML) row again?

Take a look at the crosstab functions in contrib/tablefunc.

And the next question coming up is: How should my query look like
so that I can sort the (HTML) table by a specific year in ascending
or descending order? So, that it doesn't display it by the country
names alphabetical order, but by, say 1998?

Same way you would otherwise -- ORDER BY -- after using crosstab.

Michael Glaesemann
grzm seespotcode net

Quick request to the group: we have several members who include bogus or
"humorous" X-Message-Flag headers in their email messages. Could I
request that you _please_ turn them off? Because they come through as
flagged messages in Outlook, it throws off my email rules processing
and the messages end up into the wrong groups. (With the volume of
email these days, I definitely need all the assistance I can get from
things like rules processing to attempt to stay on top of it.)

(Yes, I understand people's personal preferences for not liking Windows
or Outlook or Microsoft, but that isn't going to change the applications
that I need to use for my day-to-day work. Feel free to continue
posting your feelings in email signatures though -- never can tell if it
will indeed influence a change ...)

Much appreciated!

- Bill

On Oct 5, 2007, at 9:05 , Bill Bartlett wrote:

Quick request to the group: we have several members who include
bogus or
"humorous" X-Message-Flag headers in their email messages. Could I
request that you _please_ turn them off?

In all practicality, a request like this is futile:
* Given the number of people on the list, you'll never get everybody
to remove "bogus"
X-Message-Flag headers
* Given it's an X- header, doesn't that mean the meaning of the value
is implementation dependent? What's "bogus" wrt Outlook may not be
wrt another mail system or client
* Doesn't this indicate that Outlook is broken (for some values of
broken)?

Because they come through as
flagged messages in Outlook, it throws off my email rules processing
and the messages end up into the wrong groups. (With the volume of
email these days, I definitely need all the assistance I can get from
things like rules processing to attempt to stay on top of it.)

I sympathize. there *is* a lot of email traffic these days (and not
just from the lists). But rather than request that others bend to
your rules, I'd think a better solution would be to find (or develop)
tools that do what you want. Whether that means better rule handling
or better understanding of various headers, it sounds like Outlook
isn't doing the job for you. Perhaps a hybrid approach would be
helpful: use another email client for mailing lists and Outlook
otherwise.

Hope this gives you some ideas.

Michael Glaesemann
grzm seespotcode net

On 10/5/07, Michael Glaesemann <grzm@seespotcode.net> wrote:

On Oct 5, 2007, at 9:05 , Bill Bartlett wrote:

* Given it's an X- header, doesn't that mean the meaning of the value
is implementation dependent? What's "bogus" wrt Outlook may not be
wrt another mail system or client
* Doesn't this indicate that Outlook is broken (for some values of
broken)?

Ummm. Given that some may contain the group all, I guess that's
technically correct. :)

It's not the only area in which Lookout! make it obvious it's broken.

am Fri, dem 05.10.2007, um 10:05:32 -0400 mailte Bill Bartlett folgendes:

Quick request to the group: we have several members who include bogus or
"humorous" X-Message-Flag headers in their email messages. Could I
request that you _please_ turn them off? Because they come through as

Do you mean me?

flagged messages in Outlook, it throws off my email rules processing
and the messages end up into the wrong groups. (With the volume of

This header is a special Outlook-Feature. If this header realy make
problems in _this_ software, then i think, _this_ software is broken.
But hey, tell news ;-)

And yes: there are any email-software available, without problems.
Including Windows.

(Yes, I understand people's personal preferences for not liking Windows
or Outlook or Microsoft, but that isn't going to change the applications
that I need to use for my day-to-day work. Feel free to continue

Okay, i like this list and i like the people here. I will try to disable
this special header line for this and only this list (okay, for all
postgresql-lists). Let me try, i'm not sure how to disable this
header-line only for *@postgresql.org.

Please, don't beat me if this header are still in this message, the
problem is work in progress... i'm not sure if i change the config
properly.

Andreas
--
Andreas Kretschmer
Kontakt: Heynitz: 035242/47150, D1: 0160/7141639 (mehr: -> Header)
GnuPG-ID: 0x3FFF606C, privat 0x7F4584DA http://wwwkeys.de.pgp.net

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Glaesemann [mailto:grzm@seespotcode.net]
Sent: Friday, October 05, 2007 10:45 AM
To: Bill Bartlett
Cc: pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Request: Anyone using bogus /
"humorous" X-Message-Flag headers, could we please turn them off

On Oct 5, 2007, at 9:05 , Bill Bartlett wrote:

Quick request to the group: we have several members who include
bogus or
"humorous" X-Message-Flag headers in their email messages. Could I
request that you _please_ turn them off?

In all practicality, a request like this is futile:
* Given the number of people on the list, you'll never get everybody
to remove "bogus"
X-Message-Flag headers
* Given it's an X- header, doesn't that mean the meaning of
the value
is implementation dependent? What's "bogus" wrt Outlook may not be
wrt another mail system or client
* Doesn't this indicate that Outlook is broken (for some values of
broken)?

Actually, no -- this is why I listed a specific X- header (
X-Message-Flag ) rather than simply saying "Hey, would everyone please
turn off their X-headers". This specific X- header is designed to have
Outlook "flag" a message and display an extra line of text with the flag
comment above the email. Since this is generally only used to flag
messages for followup actions, having messages come across with the
header already embedded in them simply serves to add an extra
distraction to the already-too-many bits into which I need to slice my
time. (Not that I want more time for things like my having to spend 3
hrs yesterday regenerating sequences after diagnosing a database crash
[bad disk controller on an old SuSE box] and restoring from backup, but
that's my real world...)

Because they come through as
flagged messages in Outlook, it throws off my email rules

processing

and the messages end up into the wrong groups. (With the volume of
email these days, I definitely need all the assistance I

can get from

things like rules processing to attempt to stay on top of it.)

I sympathize. there *is* a lot of email traffic these days (and not
just from the lists). But rather than request that others bend to
your rules, I'd think a better solution would be to find (or
develop)
tools that do what you want. Whether that means better rule handling
or better understanding of various headers, it sounds like Outlook
isn't doing the job for you. Perhaps a hybrid approach would be
helpful: use another email client for mailing lists and Outlook
otherwise.

See above -- the problem isn't with Outlook at a mail client. Outlook is
doing exactly what it's supposed to do when it sees this X- header:
highlighting it and flagging the message for special handling. The
issue is with the headers being used (or misused) as they are. Believe
me, I'm not defending Outlook; however, that's what I (and many other
people) use -- it's just a tool to get a job done.

(For all you non-Outlook people out there, since you aren't seeing the
messages anyway, most of them are generally humorous messages like '
"Windows" is not the answer. "Windows" is the question and the answer is
"no"! ' or ' Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be
a completely unintentional side effect. (Linus Torvalds) ' Yes, they
were funny 2 years ago when I first saw them, but now it's gotten a bit
old -- sorry. [No, I'm not meaning to single out Andreas -- his just
happened to be the first two that I saw in my "listserv items of useful
Postgresql stuff to keep for reference" folder.])

On Oct 5, 2007, at 10:56 , Bill Bartlett wrote:

* Given it's an X- header, doesn't that mean the meaning of
the value
is implementation dependent? What's "bogus" wrt Outlook may not be
wrt another mail system or client
* Doesn't this indicate that Outlook is broken (for some values of
broken)?

Actually, no -- this is why I listed a specific X- header (
X-Message-Flag ) rather than simply saying "Hey, would everyone please
turn off their X-headers". This specific X- header is designed to
have
Outlook "flag" a message and display an extra line of text with the
flag
comment above the email.

If it were a specific *Outlook* header, shouldn't it be namespaced?
e.g., X-Outlook-Message-Flag? Might not other email clients operate
differently when they encounter the X-Message-Flag? For example, in
your message, I see an X-MSMail-Priority flag, which I assume is a
Microsoft-specific X-header. (I may very well be interpreting this
wrong: brief googling didn't turn up anything, and I'm not an email
guru.)

Anyway, that's all I have to say on the topic: I suggested
alternatives, and as it's not a problem for me — and I don't believe
my emails include X-Message-Flag headers so I'm not contributing to
your problem — hope you find a solution that works for you.

Michael Glaesemann
grzm seespotcode net

-----Original Message-----
From: pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org
[mailto:pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of A. Kretschmer
Sent: Friday, October 05, 2007 10:57 AM
To: pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Request: Anyone using bogus /
"humorous" X-Message-Flag headers, could we please turn them off

am Fri, dem 05.10.2007, um 10:05:32 -0400 mailte Bill
Bartlett folgendes:

Quick request to the group: we have several members who

include bogus

or "humorous" X-Message-Flag headers in their email

messages. Could I

request that you _please_ turn them off? Because they come

through as

Do you mean me?

Not specifically -- yours just happened to be the one that triggered it,
but no, I see this in postings from other people as well. (Didn't mean
to single you out though.)

flagged messages in Outlook, it throws off my email rules

processing

and the messages end up into the wrong groups. (With the volume of

This header is a special Outlook-Feature. If this header
realy make problems in _this_ software, then i think, _this_
software is broken. But hey, tell news ;-)

See other reply -- I'm not complaining that Outlook is broken but rather
that the misuse of this flag slows down my workflow. The issue is that
because this flag is useful when used properly (e.g.: for mail rules
like "take all messages flagged for followup and move them to specific
other folders for different types of followup"), having the flag be
added to emails just for the sake of putting in a "humorous" message
just gets in the way. (I keep needing to go fish the
incorrectly-flagged messages back out of the various followup folders
before I can completely follow the threads in the Postgres listservs.)

And yes: there are any email-software available, without
problems. Including Windows.

Hmm ... I still use "Pine" on some of my really old Linux boxes -- does
this count? (Useful for reading CRON output...)

(Yes, I understand people's personal preferences for not liking
Windows or Outlook or Microsoft, but that isn't going to change the
applications that I need to use for my day-to-day work.

Feel free to

continue

Okay, i like this list and i like the people here. I will try
to disable this special header line for this and only this
list (okay, for all postgresql-lists). Let me try, i'm not
sure how to disable this header-line only for *@postgresql.org.

Please, don't beat me if this header are still in this
message, the problem is work in progress... i'm not sure if i
change the config properly.

Yes, it's working properly now. MUCH thanks!

Andreas
--
Andreas Kretschmer
Kontakt: Heynitz: 035242/47150, D1: 0160/7141639 (mehr: -> Header)
GnuPG-ID: 0x3FFF606C, privat 0x7F4584DA http://wwwkeys.de.pgp.net

---------------------------(end of
broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 3: Have you checked our extensive FAQ?

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq

On 10/5/07, Bill Bartlett <bbartlett@softwareanalytics.com> wrote:

Hmm ... I still use "Pine" on some of my really old Linux boxes -- does
this count? (Useful for reading CRON output...)

If you need / want the familiar interface of pine on a modern linux
box, look for cone.

Note that there's also an open source implementation of pico called nano.

Just FYI. I use both, quite a bit.

-----Original Message-----
From: Scott Marlowe [mailto:scott.marlowe@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, October 05, 2007 12:30 PM
To: Bill Bartlett
Cc: A. Kretschmer; pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Request: Anyone using bogus /
"humorous" X-Message-Flag headers, could we please turn them off

On 10/5/07, Bill Bartlett <bbartlett@softwareanalytics.com> wrote:

Hmm ... I still use "Pine" on some of my really old Linux boxes --
does this count? (Useful for reading CRON output...)

If you need / want the familiar interface of pine on a modern
linux box, look for cone.

Note that there's also an open source implementation of pico
called nano.

Just FYI. I use both, quite a bit.

I just starting using nano, although I still tend to use vi a lot more
than I should. (Never got into the whole emacs thing tho.)

I hadn't heard of cone, so I'll have to take a look for that. Thanks
for the tip! (Long live the console!)

- Bill

Bill Bartlett <bbartlett@softwareanalytics.com> schrieb:

-----Original Message-----
From: pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org
[mailto:pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of A. Kretschmer
Sent: Friday, October 05, 2007 10:57 AM
To: pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Request: Anyone using bogus /
"humorous" X-Message-Flag headers, could we please turn them off

am Fri, dem 05.10.2007, um 10:05:32 -0400 mailte Bill
Bartlett folgendes:

Quick request to the group: we have several members who

include bogus

or "humorous" X-Message-Flag headers in their email

messages. Could I

request that you _please_ turn them off? Because they come

through as

Outlook is a PITA. As you can see, it breaks the lines in quotings. Hard
to read, because any mail readers can colored different quoting planes.
Disgusting.

See other reply -- I'm not complaining that Outlook is broken but rather
that the misuse of this flag slows down my workflow. The issue is that

I think, you have any other problems with this crappy software. For
instance, Outlook can't group messages by Message-IDs (Treading). For
mailing-lists IMHO a no-go.

And yes: there are any email-software available, without
problems. Including Windows.

Hmm ... I still use "Pine" on some of my really old Linux boxes -- does
this count? (Useful for reading CRON output...)

Pine isn't a solution, mutt is a solution for instance. KMail is a
solution, and Thunderbird, both for Linux and Windows.
(and any other software, i'm a mutt-user)

Please, don't beat me if this header are still in this
message, the problem is work in progress... i'm not sure if i
change the config properly.

Yes, it's working properly now. MUCH thanks!

No problem, but i'm not sure, if this the right way. YOU can't force all
other people to omit things that make problems in your crappy software.
And: YOU renounce for nice feature in modern software...

(sorry, english isn't my native language and i know my english is bad)

Andreas
--
Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely
unintentional side effect. (Linus Torvalds)
"If I was god, I would recompile penguin with --enable-fly." (unknow)
Kaufbach, Saxony, Germany, Europe. N 51.05082�, E 13.56889�

-----Original Message-----
From: pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org
[mailto:pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of
Andreas Kretschmer
Sent: Friday, October 05, 2007 12:55 PM
To: pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Request: Anyone using bogus /
"humorous" X-Message-Flag headers, could we please turn them off

Bill Bartlett <bbartlett@softwareanalytics.com> schrieb:

-----Original Message-----
From: pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org
[mailto:pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of

A. Kretschmer

Sent: Friday, October 05, 2007 10:57 AM
To: pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Request: Anyone using bogus /
"humorous" X-Message-Flag headers, could we please turn them off

am Fri, dem 05.10.2007, um 10:05:32 -0400 mailte Bill
Bartlett folgendes:

Quick request to the group: we have several members who

include bogus

or "humorous" X-Message-Flag headers in their email

messages. Could I

request that you _please_ turn them off? Because they come

through as

Outlook is a PITA. As you can see, it breaks the lines in
quotings. Hard
to read, because any mail readers can colored different
quoting planes.
Disgusting.

Agreed - never said it wasn't. But putting time into changing to
something else is time that I just won't have for the foreseeable
future.

See other reply -- I'm not complaining that Outlook is

broken but rather

that the misuse of this flag slows down my workflow. The

issue is that

I think, you have any other problems with this crappy software. For
instance, Outlook can't group messages by Message-IDs (Treading). For
mailing-lists IMHO a no-go.

Agreed - but I'm not debating the merits of Outlook. It's a tool that
does a job, and for all its faults, for what I need right now and for
the very limited time I have avaiable, it does the job.

And yes: there are any email-software available, without
problems. Including Windows.

Hmm ... I still use "Pine" on some of my really old Linux

boxes -- does

this count? (Useful for reading CRON output...)

Pine isn't a solution, mutt is a solution for instance. KMail is a
solution, and Thunderbird, both for Linux and Windows.
(and any other software, i'm a mutt-user)

Again, for what I need and how I need to use it, pine is a perfectly
good solution that works (although in looking at cone, that definitely
looks like a much better solution). For the specific cases where I use
pine, neither KMail nor Thunderbird is a workable solution at all, since
I need to use a console-mode mail reader running on remote servers being
accessed via SSH and without being able to forward X-Windows so anything
graphical is out. (I always need to match an appropriate solution to
the problem, and part of that is realizing that one single solution does
not always fit every problem.)

Please, don't beat me if this header are still in this
message, the problem is work in progress... i'm not sure if i
change the config properly.

Yes, it's working properly now. MUCH thanks!

No problem, but i'm not sure, if this the right way. YOU
can't force all
other people to omit things that make problems in your crappy
software.
And: YOU renounce for nice feature in modern software...

Never mind -- it's not that big a deal, certainly not as much as
everyone has turned it into. I assumed that this would be a simple
request about a simple problem, but I didn't realize I'd have to spend
so much time trying to justify to so many people on the listserv the
tools I have to use to do my job. (btw: The heading is back on in this
reply, so there must be some other setting somewhere in your mail
program that needs to be tweaked. But don't worry about trying to
change anything else -- my effort involved in correcting the misdirected
emails is probably less than your effort in trying to configure
different headers for different groups, so I wouldn't want you to waste
any more time on it.)

Anyway - to those people still slogging through this thread who haven't
moved on to something more productive: no more emails on this please;
I'm done with this subject. (Makes me have to think twice about raising
any _real_ issues though, like why my VACUUMs periodically keep getting
into lock contentions with my JDBC connections and ultimately causing me
to have to shut down Postgres w/ "pg_ctl stop -m immediate", or how to
properly handle postmaster errors that don't appear to be documented
anywhere except in the source code... [No, it's not the absolutely most
recent version of Postgres; No, I can't upgrade it.])

(sorry, english isn't my native language and i know my english is bad)

Andreas
--
Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a
completely
unintentional side effect.
(Linus Torvalds)
"If I was god, I would recompile penguin with --enable-fly."
(unknow)
Kaufbach, Saxony, Germany, Europe. N 51.05082°,
E 13.56889°

---------------------------(end of
broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 3: Have you checked our extensive FAQ?

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq

(Makes me have to think twice about raising
any _real_ issues though, like why my VACUUMs periodically keep
getting
into lock contentions with my JDBC connections and ultimately
causing me
to have to shut down Postgres w/ "pg_ctl stop -m immediate", or how to
properly handle postmaster errors that don't appear to be documented
anywhere except in the source code... [No, it's not the absolutely
most
recent version of Postgres; No, I can't upgrade it.])

This isn't fair, Bill. Your original question concerned posts your
email client has trouble processing, which isn't the primary topic of
the list. You also knew that it was somewhat contentious, given that
you've made comments such as "Believe me, I'm not defending Outlook",
so you probably weren't overly surprised at some of the responses you
got. Also note that the responses you got were attempts to solve your
problem: I don't see any that only belittled your choice of software.

If you *are* having issues with PostgreSQL, it would behoove you to
at least post them and see what kind of response you get, rather than
judge the list as a whole due to the response you got to an off-topic
post. Many of the people on the lists have been here for years and
have gotten lots of helpful advice, which is why they've stuck
around, and are many others that are happy to share their advice and
experience. You never know: you might be pleasantly surprised.

Best,

Michael Glaesemann
grzm seespotcode net

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Glaesemann [mailto:grzm@seespotcode.net]
Sent: Friday, October 05, 2007 3:25 PM
To: Bill Bartlett
Cc: 'Andreas Kretschmer'; pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Request: Anyone using bogus /
"humorous" X-Message-Flag headers, could we please turn them off

(Makes me have to think twice about raising
any _real_ issues though, like why my VACUUMs periodically keep

getting

into lock contentions with my JDBC connections and ultimately

causing me

to have to shut down Postgres w/ "pg_ctl stop -m immediate", or how

to

properly handle postmaster errors that don't appear to be documented
anywhere except in the source code... [No, it's not the absolutely

most recent version of Postgres; No, I can't upgrade it.])

This isn't fair, Bill. Your original question concerned posts your
email client has trouble processing, which isn't the primary
topic of the list. You also knew that it was somewhat contentious,

given that

you've made comments such as "Believe me, I'm not defending
Outlook", so you probably weren't overly surprised at some of the
responses you got. Also note that the responses you got were attempts

to

solve your problem: I don't see any that only belittled your choice of

software.

Most people didn't completely read my email and thus unfortunately
completely missed the point, in many cases seemingly because they were
too quick to jump on my use of Outlook as an email client (thus assuming
I was just one of "those" terrible horrible know-nothing Windows users).
It's obvious from 3 years of reading these forums that there is a "Linux
Postgres users good, Windows Postgres users bad" bias by many (but not
all) of the members rather than them realizing that " 'we' are all
Postgres users, 'those' other horrible people are MySQL / Oracle / etc
users". I forgot that by posting about a header flag which could be
traced back to a Microsoft product, I'd be stepping right smack into
that muck.

Rereading my original email, you can see that the problem I was trying
to address was not my choice of email software but rather that several
people in these Postgres listservs (like other people in other
listservs) were intentionally misusing a specific header flag that is
used by specific email programs (only the various "Outlook"-related
ones, as far as I've been able to determine) to highlight messages for
special handling. Granted that they were using it for "joking"
purposes, but after a while, all jokes get old. (After spending 4 days
in a row dealing with significant Postgres system crashes on several
different servers, "old" just happened to rub me the wrong way whereas I
normally just grit my teeth and ignore it.) After researching this flag
further (after seeing the feedback I got on this forum), I've discovered
that this type of misuse is frequently used, and even recommended on
many Linux-oriented web sites as a means, to annoy Outlook-based users
(as a means to annoy Windows users). As I mentioned above, I think in a
forum such as this, where "we" need to all be Postgres users, I don't
think it's appropriate to intentionally annoy any of our group. (That
may not have been the intent, but after seeing the many Linux-oriented
web sites and forums recommending its use for specifically this purpose,
now it does annoy me even more.)

(Just for the record, not that I should have to justify my background
and biases [or hopefully lack thereof] to the group: I gave up fighting
platform wars a LOOONG time ago, back when I used to try to get the
corporate world to bring in Macs instead of Windows 3.x. Now I
generally use the best tool for the job, or the tools I have to use when
that's not an option. Insofar as systems and OS's, I am currently
handling 140+ servers running a pretty much even split between Win2K3
and various versions of Linux (primarily several SuSE 9.x versions, a
few Red Hats and at least one Debian), with VMware instances of 2 SuSE
"servers" running inside this specific XP development desktop, managing
pretty much everything remotely via SSH and bash (via Cygwin on the
Windows servers). I may be using Windows on my desktop, but I don't
think I'd put myself into the category of being merely one of "those
terrible horrible know-nothing Windows users".)

If you *are* having issues with PostgreSQL, it would behoove you to
at least post them and see what kind of response you get,
rather than judge the list as a whole due to the response you got to

an

off-topic post. Many of the people on the lists have been here for

years and

have gotten lots of helpful advice, which is why they've stuck
around, and are many others that are happy to share their advice and
experience. You never know: you might be pleasantly surprised.

I agree that the majority of the responses that I've seen over the last
3 years of reading several of the Postgres listservs were indeed
attempts to help (including several replies that I've posted to people's
problems). However, I've also seen too many times where instead of the
reply being an attempt to help the person solve their problem given
their situation, the responses instead were of the "you're a fool for
using that version / that OS / that database schema / that program
design / etc" variety. (Notice that all the responses that I got other
than Andreas's offer to turn off his use of that header flag were
"change your email program", even though my email program is working
exactly as it is supposed to. Helpful if the program was the issue, but
instead the replies missed the point.)

I think this leads to people not asking questions because they don't
want to deal with having to justify _why_ they are having the problem or
_why_ they are still using the Postgres version or OS version or tools
that they are using or _why_ their program is updating data that way.
(I have one coworker in exactly this situation. He used to be a regular
reader of several Postgres listservs and an occasional poster, but after
receiving too many responses of the "change your program because CLEARLY
it's wrong" variety, where the person posting the response had no idea
of why the program was written that way or didn't care that it needed to
operate that way to fulfill a business need, he stopped reading all
Postgres listservs. He no longer posts requests for assistance because
he thinks its more aggravating than it's worth, but he now also just
assumes that when Postgres breaks, it's just because the database
doesn't work properly.)

To be fair to these listservs though, they are MUCH better than many in
terms of providing support, and I can't remember the last time I saw a
flame war erupt. (But I'm still not going to post the problem I've been
hitting recently running Postgres 7.4.1 on a SuSE 9.0 box -- somehow I
think the first few responses might be "get OFF that version".
[Hopefully will upgrade very soon, but can't just yet on that specific
machine. Meanwhile it's a production server so I'll just have to deal
with it...])

On 10/8/07, Bill Bartlett <bbartlett@softwareanalytics.com> wrote:

Most people didn't completely read my email and thus unfortunately
completely missed the point, in many cases seemingly because they were
too quick to jump on my use of Outlook as an email client (thus assuming
I was just one of "those" terrible horrible know-nothing Windows users).

Just to be fair, this can also affect evolution email client on linux as well.

But I quit using it a while back in favor of thunderbird so haven't
seen these headers cause problems in quite some time.

It's obvious from 3 years of reading these forums that there is a "Linux
Postgres users good, Windows Postgres users bad" bias by many (but not
all) of the members rather than them realizing that " 'we' are all
Postgres users

I wouldn't quite go that far, but there are definitely plenty of
people of the attitude of "you chose windows, you deal with it"
attitude. I tend to be that way on very specific windows just because
I don't know enough about it to be helpful, but I generally just keep
that to myself.

To be fair to these listservs though, they are MUCH better than many in
terms of providing support, and I can't remember the last time I saw a
flame war erupt.

Even when they do, they're usually pretty polite flame wars. :)

(But I'm still not going to post the problem I've been
hitting recently running Postgres 7.4.1 on a SuSE 9.0 box -- somehow I
think the first few responses might be "get OFF that version".
[Hopefully will upgrade very soon, but can't just yet on that specific
machine. Meanwhile it's a production server so I'll just have to deal
with it...])

You'll notice that most of the time that that's posted, it's also
accompanied by other advice. But running 7.4.1 is like driving a
pinto in a demolition derby, you're just asking for big trouble, and
no one wants to see you burst into flames, metaphorically speaking.

I wonder if there's a way of having your MTA scrape the headers of
incoming mail so those x-headers can be removed. I'd imagine it's a
simple hack in sendmail / qmail etc... on unix. Don't know about
Windows.

"Scott Marlowe" <scott.marlowe@gmail.com> writes:

On 10/8/07, Bill Bartlett <bbartlett@softwareanalytics.com> wrote:

(But I'm still not going to post the problem I've been
hitting recently running Postgres 7.4.1 on a SuSE 9.0 box -- somehow I
think the first few responses might be "get OFF that version".
[Hopefully will upgrade very soon, but can't just yet on that specific
machine. Meanwhile it's a production server so I'll just have to deal
with it...])

Why can't you? We're talking about order of 5 minutes downtime in exchange you
avoid the risk of several data loss, data corruption, server cash, and
security holes.

Actually there are a few changes in 7.4.x that could require more work to
upgrade. If your database locale is something like Hungarian or if you have
invalidly encoded UTF8 strings in your database you might have some issues
having upgraded.

--
Gregory Stark
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com