Re: postgres --help-config

Tom Lane writes:

> It'd be better if we could get it right the first time, with the
> understanding that the output format is not very negotiable at this
> late hour. But as best I can tell, most of the unhappiness is with the
> design of the switch set, which is not something I want to defend in
> detail. There's a lot there that isn't needed for the RHDB tool as I
> understand it, and I think that altering the switches used to get the
> output that the tool does need would still be a feasible change from the
> tool's point of view.

I have some more questions:

- When the set of GUC properties (when to set, how to set, etc.) change,
what is the upgrade path? Remember that we change those a lot.

- Who is going to maintain the descriptions in this very special "GNU
trick" format? I can happily agree if we had a short description that
is shown in an overview list, and an long description that is shown when
the option is opened up in its own window, but I don't agree with with
the current format. At least not in the way it was explained to me,
maybe I'm misunderstanding.

> I would be in favor of simplifying the supported switch set to the
> minimum needed by Red Hat's tool (the equivalent of -G -M if I
> understood Fernando correctly), and re-adding complexity in future
> when and if it's shown to be needed. But we need to make a decision
> about this now. Preferably yesterday.

I propose we rip out everything except --help-config -m that shows the
information in the "machine-readable" tab separated format without
headers. If someone can answer the two questions above.

--
Peter Eisentraut peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net