Re: multi-backend psql

On Mon, 2003-10-20 at 23:15, Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote:
> > I suppose if all you want is backward compatibility which makes sense
> > for pg_dump, but surely psql should be forward thinking.
> >
> > Normally it's old clients with new server, not the other way around --
> > at least with big companies it seems easier to get a server upgraded
> > than everyones desktop.
> >
> > Forward looking means pulling the available commands, queries, etc from
> > the backend. It actually works quite well (submitted a patch quite a
> > while ago) in all respects except string translation.
>
> Hmmm...string translation really is the bugger, isn't it. I had only
> planned to do backwards compatibility really...

The way around it is to have a 'description' query that describes how to
draw the table (title, field names) and the content query that supplies
the content for the table.

I just haven't tried it out yet.

> Then all we do is load the appropriate lib and call functions in it. To
> support a newer version of postgres, you just need to drop in the latest
> .so or something.

That really isn't different than putting queries into the client.