Re: psql show URL with help

Euler Taveira <euler(at)timbira(dot)com(dot)br> writes:
> Em qui, 21 de fev de 2019 às 14:28, Peter Eisentraut
> <peter(dot)eisentraut(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com> escreveu:
>> URL: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/12/sql-analyze.html

> What happen if I connect to an old server? Did it print URL according
> to psql version or server version? psql prints help about its version
> and if user wants details about a command, clicks in the URL but what
> is shown is 12 docs but user is accessing a 9.4 server.

The syntax summary that psql is showing is for its own version, and
I'd say the URL must be too. You can't even be sure that a corresponding
URL would exist in another version, so blindly inserting the server's
major version into a URL string that psql has doesn't seem like a bright
idea.

(I'm assuming that the implementation Peter has in mind is that these
URLs would just be part of the prefab help text that psql has for
various commands. If we somehow involved the server in it, then
maybe things could be different; but I doubt that's possible without
a protocol change, which it's probably not worth.)

In the end, if you are using a server version that's different from
your psql version, there are lots of ways things could go wrong.
I think it's up to the user to take psql's help with a grain of salt
in such cases.

regards, tom lane