Re: WIP: a way forward on bootstrap data

John Naylor <jcnaylor(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> -I shortened the data example in the README so it would comfortably
> fit on two lines. Spreading it out over three lines doesn't match
> what's in the data files. It's valid syntax, but real data is
> formatted to at most two lines (See rewrite_dat.pl. Hmm, maybe I
> should make that more explicit elsewhere in the README)

Well, as I said, I hadn't really reviewed the .dat files, but if that's
what you're doing I'm going to request a change. Project style is to
fit in 80 columns as much as possible. I do not see a reason to exempt
the .dat files from that, especially not since it would presumably be a
trivial change in rewrite_dat.pl to insert extra newlines between fields
when needed. (Obviously, if a field value is so wide it runs past 80
columns on its own, it's not rewrite_dat.pl's charter to fix that.)

> Open items:
> -Test MSVC.

Again, while I'd be happy if someone did that manually, I'm prepared
to let the buildfarm do it.

> -Arrange for rewrite_dat.pl to run when perltidy does.

What I was thinking we should have is a convenience target in
include/Makefile to do this, say "make reformat-dat-files".
I'm not that excited about bundling it into pgindent runs.

> -Maybe document examples of how to do bulk-editing of data files?

+1. In the end, that's the reason we're doing all this work, so showing
people how to benefit seems like a good thing.

regards, tom lane