Re: MySQL-ism help patch for psql

Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> On tis, 2010-01-19 at 16:00 -0600, David Christensen wrote:
> > Currently, a session will look like the following:
> >
> > machack:machack:5485=# show tables;
> > See:
> > \d
> > or \? for general help with psql commands
> > machack:machack:5485=#
>
> I think if you make "show tables" and the others actually execute \d and
> then possibly print a notice about what the "better" command would have
> been, you actually *help* people do their work instead of appearing to
> be a smartass -- "See, we took the time to research what you want to do,
> and here is why it's wrong."
>
> Moreover, the backslash is really hard to type on some keyboards, so I'd
> expect significant uptake for people to use the SHOW variants as their
> primary method.

I disagree. No one has complained that we are being a "smartass" by
reporting this for "help" in psql:

You are using psql, the command-line interface to PostgreSQL.
Type: \copyright for distribution terms
\h for help with SQL commands
\? for help with psql commands
\g or terminate with semicolon to execute query
\q to quit

while to be really helpful we would display \?. After extensive
discussion we chose against that because we wanted to steer people to
the proper commands, rather than have them consider 'help' as a valid
command. The same is true for the MySQL commands --- we just want to
point people to the proper commands.

--
Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> http://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com

+ If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +