On Sun, 2005-02-27 at 18:25 -0700, Ken Johanson wrote: > >>Uh, yea, this is going to require quite a bit of discussion in the > >>group, and I am concerned how it will affect other apps using > >>PostgreSQL. (The mode isn't going to be useful if it breaks plug-in > >>extensions and stuff.) > >> > >> > > > >The hard part of this isn't turning off backslash quoting; the code > >changes to do that would be pretty trivial. The hard part is not > >breaking vast quantities of existing client code. After our experience > >with autocommit, no one is going to want to solve it with a GUC variable > >that can be flipped on and off at random. That would make the > >compatibility problems that autocommit caused look like a day at the > >beach :-( > > > >I don't actually know a way to solve this that wouldn't impose > >impossible amounts of pain on our existing users, and I'm afraid that > >I rank that consideration higher than acquiring new users who won't > >consider changing their own code. > > > >If you can show me a way to provide this behavior without risk of > >breaking existing code, I'm all ears. > > > > regards, tom lane > > > > > I feel somewhat confident (very actually) that a config option that > disabled the backslash behavior globally(*) would be acceptable, BUT > leave the current backslash behavior turned on by default so that > current users are not impacted at all. Only a conscientious decision by > the db admin to turn it on could cause problems, but _only_ if he/she > didn't warn all his/her users beforehand of the impending change and its > consequences (rtm). > I'm a little worried about PostgreSQL having the same problems as PHP. In PHP, every time you want to download an application, you never see "This application works on php 4+". Instead, you see "This application works on php4+ with the following config options set <long list>". Sometimes these applications have conflicting requirements. From an administrator's standpoint, it's a mess. In PostgreSQL I think it would actually be much worse. Right now many applications build a PostgreSQL layer, but will they build two? I think this would cause a divide in the application support (some for config option A some for config option B) in the already smaller-than-we'd-like set of software that supports PostgreSQL. Regards, Jeff Davis ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
