Re: psql: add \pset true/false

On 11/12/15 4:09 PM, Tom Lane wrote:
> Peter Eisentraut <peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net> writes:
>> Plus we already have \pset numericlocale as a similar feature in psql.
>
> But \pset numericlocale is also a crock. It doesn't affect COPY output
> for instance, and its ability to identify which data types it should apply
> to is really shaky. And it's virtually unused, as demonstrated by the
> fact that serious bugs in it went undetected for many years (cf 4778a0bda,
> 77130fc14). That's a really poor advertisement for the usefulness of the
> proposed feature.

Just because people don't find much use for a feature doesn't mean it's
wrong in principle.

Clearly, people occasionally want to change how a data type displays in
psql. We could implement this in the server. But then we put a burden
on all non-psql clients to begin all their connections with a growing
number of RESET foo_display calls, and that's not very efficient. I
think it's up to each client to figure out how to display stuff and to
customize it if necessary.