Re: One-shot expanded output in psql using \G

From: Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>
To: Stephen Frost <sfrost(at)snowman(dot)net>
Cc: Pavel Stehule <pavel(dot)stehule(at)gmail(dot)com>, Christoph Berg <christoph(dot)berg(at)credativ(dot)de>, Daniel Verite <daniel(at)manitou-mail(dot)org>, PostgreSQL Hackers <pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: One-shot expanded output in psql using \G
Date: 2017-01-30 15:14:36
Message-ID: 24326.1485789276@sss.pgh.pa.us
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Stephen Frost <sfrost(at)snowman(dot)net> writes:
> This particular bike-shedding really doesn't seem to be terribly useful
> or sensible, to me. \gx isn't "consistent" or "descriptive", frankly.

Why not? To me it reads as "\g with an x option". The "x" refers to
the implied "\x", so it's not an arbitrary choice at all.

The main problem I see with \G is that it's a dead end. If somebody
comes along next year and says "I'd like a variant of \g with some other
frammish", what will we do? There are no more case variants to use.

In short, really the direction this ought to go in is \g[options] [file]
which is perfectly consistent with precedents in psql such as \d.
But there isn't any place where we've decided that upper case means
a variant of a lower case command.

regards, tom lane

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