Re: PostgreSQL pollutes the file system

On 3/20/19 7:08 PM, Alvaro Herrera wrote:
> On 2019-Mar-20, Euler Taveira wrote:
>
>> Em qua, 20 de mar de 2019 às 14:57, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> escreveu:
>>>
>>> We managed to get rid of createlang and droplang in v10, and there
>>> hasn't been that much push-back about it. So maybe there could be
>>> a move to remove createuser/dropuser? Or at least rename them to
>>> pg_createuser and pg_dropuser. But I think this was discussed
>>> (again) during the v10 cycle, and we couldn't agree to do more than
>>> get rid of createlang/droplang.
>
> Previous discussion:
> https://postgr.es/m/CABUevExPrfPH5K5qM=zsT7tvfyACe+i5qjA6bfWCKKYrh8MJLw@mail.gmail.com
>
>> Votes? +1 to remove createuser/dropuser (and also createdb/dropdb as I
>> said in the other email). However, if we don't have sufficient votes,
>> let's at least consider a 'pg_' prefix.
>
> I vote to keep these rename these utilities to have a pg_ prefix and to
> simultaneously install symlinks for their current names, so that nothing
> breaks.
>

I don't really understand what issue are we trying to solve here.

Can someone describe a scenario where this (name of the binary not
clearly indicating it's related postgres) causes issues in practice? On
my system, there are ~1400 binaries in /usr/bin, and for the vast
majority of them it's rather unclear where do they come from.

But it's not really an issue, because we have tools to do that

1) man

2) -h/--help

3) rpm -qf $file (and similarly for other packagers)

4) set --prefix to install binaries so separate directory (which some
distros already do anyway)

So to me this seems like a fairly invasive change (potentially breaking
quite a few scripts/tools) just to address a minor inconvenience.

regards

--
Tomas Vondra http://www.2ndQuadrant.com
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Remote DBA, Training & Services