Re: psql 8.2 client vs pg 8.1 server problem

Dave Page wrote:
> Alban Hertroys wrote:
>> We have psql 8.2 clients on our workstations, while we still have pg 8.1
>> on our development and production servers. This causes problems like the
>> following:
>>
>> database> \d table
>> ERROR: column i.indisvalid does not exist
>> database>
>>
>> We can log into the server and use the local client of course, but this
>> problem is causing some confusion among our new employees and doesn't
>> exactly inspire them with the reliability we know PostgreSQL has...
>>
>> Is there a better workaround, or may this be a bug even?
>
> Install the 8.1 version of psql on your workstations (and symlink it to
> psql81 or something if necessary). psql doesn't make any promises about
> backward compatibility - for that, you'll need to use something like
> pgAdmin (even that may need to be pointed at the older versions of
> pg_dump etc if you're going to run backups from the workstations).

But wouldn't it suffice to issue the "old" versions of the command
queries on an "old" server? It shouldn't be that hard to keep backward
compatibility among minor versions of psql. Even the server version is
known... They're just queries, right? How hard can it be to keep various
versions around so as to match the server version?

I can understand that new psql client features wouldn't be backward
compatible, but normal commands like \d should keep working.

--
Alban Hertroys
alban(at)magproductions(dot)nl

magproductions b.v.

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