Limits of backwards compatibility for psql's \d commands

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I didn't see a simple fix right away. This seems a bit more work than
is justified for a server version that the community has officially
dropped support for, but I wonder if anyone feels hot about it?

Pre-7.3 server versions seem entirely out of the realm of reason because
they lack schema support, meaning all of those "pg_catalog." prefixes
break, not to mention the joins to pg_namespace and the "schema" output
columns. So it's just 7.3 that's worth debating, I think.

As a huge long-time supporter of backwards compatibility in psql, I say
abandon 7.3 support completely, and good riddance.

- --
Greg Sabino Mullane greg@turnstep.com
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200807012354
http://biglumber.com/x/web?pk=2529DF6AB8F79407E94445B4BC9B906714964AC8
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On Tue, 2008-07-01 at 22:33 -0400, Tom Lane wrote:

Pre-7.3 server versions seem entirely out of the realm of reason
because they lack schema support, meaning all of those "pg_catalog."
prefixes break, not to mention the joins to pg_namespace and the
"schema" output columns. So it's just 7.3 that's worth debating, I
think.

We already abandoned 7.3 , so IMHO we should not worry
about compatibility with it anymore, unless we are strongly forced to.

Regards,
--
Devrim GÜNDÜZ
devrim~gunduz.org, devrim~PostgreSQL.org, devrim.gunduz~linux.org.tr
http://www.gunduz.org

Tom Lane wrote:

I'm fooling around with Guillaume Lelarge's patch to make psql's \d
commands work with older server versions. The patch as submitted
works with servers back to 7.4 (modulo a small bug or two). I tried
to see what it'd take to make it work with 7.3. I count about a dozen
trivial diffs and about three nontrivial ones --- nontrivial meaning
I didn't see a simple fix right away. This seems a bit more work than
is justified for a server version that the community has officially
dropped support for, but I wonder if anyone feels hot about it?

Pre-7.3 server versions seem entirely out of the realm of reason because
they lack schema support, meaning all of those "pg_catalog." prefixes
break, not to mention the joins to pg_namespace and the "schema" output
columns. So it's just 7.3 that's worth debating, I think.

EOL is EOL, why is the question even being asked?

Joshua D. Drake

"Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com> writes:

Tom Lane wrote:

... So it's just 7.3 that's worth debating, I think.

EOL is EOL, why is the question even being asked?

Well, pg_dump still supports servers back to 7.0 (and yes I do test that
now and again). psql probably doesn't need to support interactive query
operations quite so far back, but I think the boundary of what's needed
is pretty squishy. Hence my query about what people really want.

regards, tom lane

Tom Lane a �crit :

I'm fooling around with Guillaume Lelarge's patch to make psql's \d
commands work with older server versions. The patch as submitted
works with servers back to 7.4 (modulo a small bug or two). I tried
to see what it'd take to make it work with 7.3. I count about a dozen
trivial diffs and about three nontrivial ones --- nontrivial meaning
I didn't see a simple fix right away. This seems a bit more work than
is justified for a server version that the community has officially
dropped support for, but I wonder if anyone feels hot about it?

I don't think we should add support for pre-7.4 releases.

I even didn't try to look at 7.3 release because it's not maintained
anymore. Anyways, if someone thinks it should be done, I can work on it.

Pre-7.3 server versions seem entirely out of the realm of reason because
they lack schema support, meaning all of those "pg_catalog." prefixes
break, not to mention the joins to pg_namespace and the "schema" output
columns. So it's just 7.3 that's worth debating, I think.

--
Guillaume.
http://www.postgresqlfr.org
http://dalibo.com

At 2008-07-02 09:16:30 +0200, guillaume@lelarge.info wrote:

I don't think we should add support for pre-7.4 releases.

I agree. It's not worth the effort.

-- ams

On Jul 2, 2008, at 1:23 AM, Tom Lane wrote:

"Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com> writes:

Tom Lane wrote:

... So it's just 7.3 that's worth debating, I think.

EOL is EOL, why is the question even being asked?

Well, pg_dump still supports servers back to 7.0 (and yes I do test
that
now and again). psql probably doesn't need to support interactive
query
operations quite so far back, but I think the boundary of what's
needed
is pretty squishy. Hence my query about what people really want.

Being able to get your data out of 7.3 is a lot more important than
\d commands... :)
--
Decibel!, aka Jim C. Nasby, Database Architect decibel@decibel.org
Give your computer some brain candy! www.distributed.net Team #1828

On Wed, 2008-07-02 at 18:39 -0500, Decibel! wrote:

On Jul 2, 2008, at 1:23 AM, Tom Lane wrote:

"Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com> writes:

Tom Lane wrote:

... So it's just 7.3 that's worth debating, I think.

EOL is EOL, why is the question even being asked?

Well, pg_dump still supports servers back to 7.0 (and yes I do test
that
now and again). psql probably doesn't need to support interactive
query
operations quite so far back, but I think the boundary of what's
needed
is pretty squishy. Hence my query about what people really want.

Being able to get your data out of 7.3 is a lot more important than
\d commands... :)

It may seem peculiar but I would consider adding support for \d commands
to 8.4 for 7.3 a feature for 7.3 not 8.4. Let's stick with upgrade
support on that one, not backward compatibility :)

Joshua D. Drake