Re: [PATCHES] Current-stream read for psql's \copy

On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, Tom Lane wrote:

> Bruce Momjian <pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us> writes:
> > Tom Lane wrote:
> >> No it doesn't. EOF will do fine. The source program doesn't
> >> necessarily have to know anything about COPY, as long as its output is
> >> in a format COPY can cope with (eg, tab-delimited).
>
> > The current behavior seems quite strange and counter-intuitive. We
> > might break the code for 1-2 people, but we will make it more
> > predicable for everyone using it.
>
> I don't think it's acceptable to simply remove the functionality.
> If you wanted to argue about swapping the meanings of STDIN and -
> (as defined by the patch) then we could debate about which way is
> more consistent and whether it's worth breaking backwards compatibility
> to improve consistency. I could probably be talked into supporting
> that; as you say, we've done that before. But taking out a useful
> behavior that has been there a long time, simply because you've decided
> it's unintuitive, is not okay.

Why not make a -i switch (for input file) that does it the way Bruce wants
and leave -f alone so people who depend on it behaving the way it does
won't get a surprise in their next upgrade?