Re: Survey: renaming/removing script binaries (createdb, createuser...)

Steve Atkins wrote:

> There are no existing clashes with system tools that I'm aware of. Are
> there any? Most of the clashes are with other installations of
> postgresql installed on the same machine, so if name clashes is the real
> reason for the change, then the version number or port number of the
> installation should be part of the command name - pg_8.3.1_psql, and so
> on.

Eeek!

If we really want to go down that route, I would suggest that psql needs
to become a bridge program that calls another program in
$PREFIX/share/libexec. So 8.3 installs share/libexec/psql-8.3 and 8.2
installs share/libexec/psql-8.2. So bin/psql gets the server version
and then execv() the appropriate executable from share/libexec.

I "strongly object" to the idea of renaming the main binary to add a
version number to the name.

> The normal way of dealing with multiple installations and name clashes
> would be to set your shell path appropriately, though, surely? It's a
> more normal way of dealing with that than renaming the actual binaries.

That's what I do, for one. Not necessarily the best design, but it's
easy to do.

> Perhaps something like changing "postmaster" to "postgresqld",

It is already called "postgres" on newer versions.

> "pg_ctl" to "safe_postgresqld",

Now that's plain weird.

--
Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support