Re: connect by service name in psql

"Stuart" <smcg2297(at)frii(dot)com> writes:
>> I can't find an option in psql to connect to a database
>> by "service" name? Should there be one?

In 8.3 libpq will have code that interprets what's usually the database
name parameter as a "conninfo" string if there's an "=" in it, which
means you can get at the service name as well as a lot of other arcane
options even if the calling application (such as psql) doesn't know they
exist.

For instance,

$ psql "service = foo"
psql: ERROR: service file "/home/postgres/version83/etc/pg_service.conf" not found

(I didn't actually bother to make a service file, but you can see that
the code knew what it was supposed to do.)

I suppose this is more awkward than something like "psql -S foo", but
we're unlikely to want to keep putting connection-related switches into
psql and all the other client apps ...

regards, tom lane