Re: Beta2 Wrap Up ...

> > > I thought we'd more or less dropped that idea based on Andreas'
> > > responses.
> >
> > I've heard no argument against renaming
> pg_complete_relation_size() to
> > pg_total_relation_size()
>
> Having spent days, no, weeks deciding on that name on list I
> do not want to see it change this late, especially as we'll
> now need to go and update pgAdmin again!
>
> > and changing the functions that return an integer status
> code to make
> > them return a boolean (but I'm content with not making them return
> > void and report errors via elog).
>
> Similarly I'm not overly keen on seeing these changed again.
> These functions were discussed to death earlier in the cycle,
> and this is what everyone finally agreed on.

(Sorry I haven't spoken up on this earlier, been out of town)

I agree in not really liking the change-of-names during beta. Then
again, if it's ever going to get done, better to do it now than for 8.2.

Also, the change to pg_cancel_backend breaks backwards compatibility
with 8.0, which is a whole lot worse than breaking it with 8.1-beta1.

For example, it'll break one of my scripts. I can easily code around it,
sure, but it's still breaking backwards compatibility for what I can see
as only cosmetic reasons.

Somewhat hacked up query example of something that breaks:
SELECT sum(pg_cancel_backend(procpid)) FROM pg_stat_activity WHERE
......

Sure, can be fairly easily recoded with CASE, but... If nothing else
this needs to go in as a "backwards incompatible change" in the release
notes.

Also, please do *not* make it return void and elog(ERROR) in the future!
That will break exactly the above kind of applications in a way that
cannot be coded around. IIRC this specific scenario was discussed back
when the function was originally added.

//Magnus