Re: PGPASSWORD and client tools

Andrew Dunstan <andrew(at)dunslane(dot)net> writes:
> How about an environment variable that points to a .pgpass type file.

You can do that today: point $HOME at some temp directory or other.
AFAIR pg_dump doesn't make any other use of $HOME ...

> Or we could even play games with PGPASSWORD - if it names an existing file
> that satisfies the .pgpass criteria then it will be taken as the
> location of the .pgpass file instead of $HOME/.pgpass - otherwise its
> value will be considered to be the password itself.

Gaack... if you want a separate variable, we can talk about that, but
let's not overload PGPASSWORD like that. Consider even just the
implications of whether libpq error messages should echo back the
"filename" ...

regards, tom lane