Re: \ef should probably append semicolons

On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 7:10 PM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
> "Joshua Tolley" <eggyknap(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
>> The new \ef psql command creates nicely usable "CREATE OR REPLACE
>> FUNCTION ..." text based on the function I tell it to edit, but the
>> text it creates *doesn't* include a final semicolon, so when I exit my
>> editor-of-choice after messing with my function, it doesn't run the
>> code I've given it until I type one of my own. This is annoying.
>
> This is intentional.
>
> If the semicolon is there, the command will be squirted to the backend
> instantaneously upon your exiting the $EDITOR. The potential bad
> consequences of that seem to me to outweigh the annoyance factor of
> typing ; and return.

Something in the back of my mind told me this might have been on
purpose -- despite a number of us around a table at PG West agreeing
current behavior was a pain.

> Now, if you want to fix psql so that even with a semicolon there it
> will redisplay the command buffer and wait for a return, then I'd agree
> that that's an improvement. I couldn't figure out how to get readline
> to cooperate with that ... but I didn't spend a lot of time looking.

Mmm... but that's so much harder than a 2 line patch :) Thanks for
commenting. I may consider that in the (admittedly unlikely) event I
feel like getting personal with readline.

- Josh / eggyknap