Re: BUG #4040: psql should provide option to not prompt for password

Mika Fischer [2008-03-17 10:19 +0000]:
> Description: psql should provide option to not prompt for password
> Details:
>
> Hi,
>
> I'm currently working on the bash-completion package. The problem with
> postgresql is that psql cannot safely be called because there is no way to
> know whether it will prompt for a password and there is also no way to avoid
> the prompt.
>
> Needless to say a password prompt is very bad in the context of
> tab-completion.
>
> Ideally, psql should provide an option --no-password which would cause it to
> never promt for a password, and in case one is needed, fail as if a wrong
> one was given.
>
> However if you can think of an easier way to accomplish this, I'd be
> grateful for pointers.

Indeed I have a similar problem. I use psql to probe for actual
availability of cluster startup in the integration scripts (pg_ctl
does not provide that) and also stumbled over this.

Earlier versions did not prompt if PGPASSWD was supplied, 8.3 changed
this behaviour. That's why I applied the attached patch to the
Debian/Ubuntu packages to restore the older behaviour, which works
pretty well.

I already proposed that some months ago [1], but didn't get very far.

Martin

[1] http://www.mail-archive.com/pgsql-bugs(at)postgresql(dot)org/msg18440.html

--
Martin Pitt | http://www.piware.de
Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org)