Re: Re: [COMMITTERS] pgsql: Don't use "cp -i" in the example WAL archive_command.

Bruce Momjian wrote:
> Andrew Dunstan wrote:
> >
> >
> > On 06/18/2011 09:19 AM, Tom Lane wrote:
> > > Thom Brown<thom(at)linux(dot)com> writes:
> > >> On 18 June 2011 04:13, Bruce Momjian<bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> wrote:
> > >>> I tested on FreeBSD 7.4 and saw a 1 error return:
> > >> And on a Mac (so through Darwin 10.7.0 a BSD version too):
> > > Yeah, see yesterday's discussion on pgsql-admin. I think the behavior
> > > with the error return may be a BSD-ism. In any case, GNU cp does *not*
> > > do what we want, and that accounts for a sufficiently large fraction of
> > > machines in the field that I think it's just unsafe to suggest using
> > > "cp -i" so prominently. There are too many people who'll just copy and
> > > paste the first example provided, especially if the warning to test it
> > > is buried several paragraphs later.
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Yeah, I'm glad to see this go anyway. I always thought the example was
> > too cute by half. Using an explicit test is much nicer and more obvious.
>
> I think the only real risk to the 'test' example is the possibility that
> they will mistype the pathname in one of the two places it is required,
> or forget to change both of them at the same time.

Perhaps we should recommend:

cd /path && test ! -f %f && cp %p %f

That is shorter and removes the duplicate problem.

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

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