Re: psql: add \pset true/false

On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 6:50 AM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:

> Marko Tiikkaja <marko(at)joh(dot)to> writes:
> > On 10/29/15 11:51 AM, Daniel Verite wrote:
> >> Personally I think it would be worth having, but how about
> >> booleans inside ROW() or composite types ?
>
> > There's not enough information sent over to do that in the client.
> > Note that this works the same way as \pset null with SELECT
> > ROW(NULL), so I don't consider it a show stopper for the patch.
>
> The problem with that argument is that \pset null is already a kluge
> (but at least a datatype-independent one). Now you've added a datatype
> specific kluge of the same ilk. It might be useful, it might be short,
> but that doesn't make it not a kluge.
>
> The really key argument that hasn't been addressed here is why does such
> a behavior belong in psql, rather than elsewhere? Surely legibility
> problems aren't unique to psql users. Moreover, there are exactly
> parallel facilities for other datatypes on the server side: think
> DateStyle

​Which provides a finite set of possible values.
​

> or bytea_output.

​Wasn't this added mostly for performance as opposed to dealing with
"locale/style" considerations?​

So if you were trying to follow precedent
> rather than invent a kluge, you'd have submitted a patch to create a GUC
> that changes the output of boolout().
>
>
​I'm leaning toward doing this in the client if its offered at all. An
unobtrusive usability enhancement - even if limited to non-embedded
situations - that seems like little effort for a measurable gain.

​David J.