Re: pgbench -f and vacuum

Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 2:00 PM, Jeff Janes <jeff(dot)janes(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>> But as far as what has been discussed on the central topic of this thread, I
>> think that doing the vacuum and making the failure for non-existent tables
>> be non-fatal when -f is provided would be an improvement. Or maybe just
>> making it non-fatal at all times--if the table is needed and not present,
>> the session will fail quite soon anyway. I don't see the other changes as
>> being improvements. I would rather just learn to add the -n when I use -f
>> and don't have the default tables in place, than have to learn new methods
>> for saying "no really, I left -n off on purpose" when I have a custom file
>> which does use the default tables and I want them vacuumed.

> So, discussion seems to have died off here. I think what Jeff is
> proposing here is a reasonable compromise. Patch for that attached.

+1 as to the basic behavior, but I'm not convinced that this is
user-friendly reporting:

+ if (PQresultStatus(res) != PGRES_COMMAND_OK)
+ fprintf(stderr, "%s", PQerrorMessage(con));

I would be a bit surprised to see pgbench report an ERROR and then
continue on anyway; I might think that was a bug, even. I am not
sure exactly what it should print instead though. Some perhaps viable
proposals:

* don't print anything at all, just chug along.

* do something like
fprintf(stderr, "Ignoring: %s", PQerrorMessage(con));

* add something like "(Ignoring this error and continuing anyway)"
on a line after the error message.

(I realize this takes us right back into the bikeshedding game, but
I do think that what's displayed is important.)

regards, tom lane