First patch proposal

Hi

I am a keen Postgres user and I run my local PUG (JNBPUG in Gauteng,
South Africa), but I have found the idea of contributing on a code
level daunting.

Having read the many warnings along the lines of "It's still on the
todo because it isn't trivial" I have identified what I believe is a
manageble task for my first patch and expect to have the time to
tackle it at the end of the month. I think the proposed changes are
small enough for a first attempt and I don't find anything in the
archives suggesting that the outcome I am proposing was deliberately
avoided.

I am proposing altering psql to raise certain errors and exit before
prompting for a password. These errors would have to be on items which
didn't leak any information, my current list is:
- Does the input file (-f) exist and is it readable
- Do paths to the output files ( -o and -l) exist and are they writable
- Is the host/socket listening (-h)

This is obviously scratching an itch of my own - I end up capturing
passwords and then getting errors from mistyped input files on a
regular basis. I don't think that I'm the only person to have the
problem though (at least I hope not).

Does this sound like a sane, desirable set of changes?

Regards

Alastair "Bell" Turner

Technical Lead
^F5