Re: Exporting PGINTERVALSTYLE prevents access to older server versions

I wrote:
> Peter Eisentraut <peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net> writes:
>> (What is the use case for this variable anyway? Is it there just
>> because PGDATESTYLE was there previously?)

> Pretty much. I'd be fine with taking it out entirely.

Actually ... I started to take this out and replace

*** pgsql/src/test/regress/pg_regress.c.orig Tue Nov 25 09:18:16 2008
--- pgsql/src/test/regress/pg_regress.c Tue Nov 25 09:29:46 2008
***************
*** 716,722 ****
*/
putenv("PGTZ=PST8PDT");
putenv("PGDATESTYLE=Postgres, MDY");
! putenv("PGINTERVALSTYLE=postgres_verbose");

if (temp_install)
{
--- 716,722 ----
*/
putenv("PGTZ=PST8PDT");
putenv("PGDATESTYLE=Postgres, MDY");
! putenv("PGOPTIONS=--intervalstyle=postgres_verbose");

if (temp_install)
{

when it struck me that that's going to still cause pg_regress to fail to
connect to older servers, which I suppose is the case that prompted you
to complain originally. So I guess the real question is what is the
use case for having pg_regress talk to older servers?

I looked at whether we could send the value conditionally, but this
doesn't really work because libpq sends this stuff in the startup
packet; it doesn't know the exact server version at that point.

regards, tom lane