Re: Boolean output format

Garo Hussenjian <garo(at)xapnet(dot)com> writes:
> Were there any backward compatibility issues for SET DATESTYLE? What were
> the repercussions for the adapters?

Can't say. It's been there for longer than I've been around this
project; and AFAIR no new values of DATESTYLE have been added in a long
time either. You might try asking Tom Lockhart.

> Regarding the existing adapters - I very much agree with what you're saying,
> but such a feature would not necessarily break any existing adapters. The
> default format would remain unchanged

... not if someone decides to set BOOLEANSTYLE at the postgresql.conf
level, or in the per-user or per-database options that are available in
7.3. Realistically, general-purpose client-side code is going to need
to work with any style that the backend might emit.

You might compare the discussions that have gone on in the past month or
so, since I (overhastily) added some backend support for an auto-commit
off mode. I knew very well that the client libraries were mostly not
prepared to work with that, but I figured we could update them over
time. Judging from the volume of complaints, that was a bad decision.
So I'm applying that experience to this issue with booleans ...

regards, tom lane