Re: Version number in psql banner

On Thu, Sep 01, 2005 at 05:30:34PM +0200, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> A release or two ago we added the version number to the psql welcome banner.
> I noticed that quite a few people interpret that as the server version.
> Somehow, the explicit display of the version numbers leads them to make
> inferences that they would otherwise not bother about. Has anyone else
> experienced that? I suppose there was a reason we added the version number
> there, but I can't recall it. Could we make that more clear?

I think the rationale for not adding the server version is that you
could tell people to do "select version()", so it would be unneeded
verbosity, but certainly a lot of people doesn't even know they can do
that.

I think by far the easiest and clearest is to show both psql's version
and the server version. Not the whole "version()" string, as that is
too verbose -- just the version number.

--
Alvaro Herrera -- Valdivia, Chile Architect, www.EnterpriseDB.com
"Cuando miro a alguien, ms me atrae cmo cambia que quin es" (J. Binoche)