Re: Slightly improve initdb --sync-only option's help message

On 7/6/21, 7:02 PM, "Gurjeet Singh" <gurjeet(at)singh(dot)im> wrote:
> I think it would be helpful if the help message was slightly more
> descriptive. Some options:
>
> Used in patch:
> only sync data directory; does not modify any data
>
> To match the wording of --sync-only option:
> write contents of data directory to disk; helpful after --no-sync option
>
> Clearly specify the system operation used for the option
> perform fsync on data directory; helpful after --no-sync option

I think the help message should say exactly what the option does and
should avoid saying what it does not do or how it may be useful. I
would suggest the following to match the initdb docs [0]:

-S, --sync-only safely write all database files to disk and exit

IMO the note about the option being helpful after using the --no-sync
option would fit better in the docs, but I'm struggling to think of a
use case for using --no-sync and then calling initdb again with
--sync-only. Why wouldn't you just leave out --no-sync the first
time?

Nathan

[0] https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/app-initdb.html