Re: Is analyze_new_cluster.sh still useful?

Christoph Berg <christoph(dot)berg(at)credativ(dot)de> writes:
> now that we have vacuumdb --all --analyze-in-stages in 9.4, wouldn't
> it make sense to get rid of the analyze_new_cluster.sh file which
> pg_upgrade writes? The net content is a single line which could as
> well be printed by pg_upgrade itself. Instead of an lengthy
> explanation how to invoke that manually, there should be a short note
> and a pointer to some manual section. I think the chances of people
> reading that would even be increased.

> Similary, I don't really see the usefulness of delete_old_cluster.sh
> as a file, when "rm -rf" could just be presented on the console for
> the admin to execute by cut-and-paste.

There are contexts where pg_upgrade is executed by some wrapper script
and the user doesn't normally see its output directly. This is the
case in the Red Hat packaging (unless Honza changed it since I left ;-))
and I think Debian might be similar.

I generally don't like the amount of cruft pg_upgrade leaves lying
around, so I'd be glad to see these script files go away if possible;
but we need to think about how this will play when there's a wrapper
script between pg_upgrade and the human user.

In the Red Hat wrapper script, the pg_upgrade output is dumped into a
log file, which the user can look at if he wants, but I'd bet the
average user doesn't read it --- that was certainly the expectation.
Of course, said user probably never notices the separate shell
scripts either, so maybe it's a wash.

Another angle is that some folks might have tried to automate things
even more, with a wrapper script that starts up the new postmaster
and runs analyze_new_cluster.sh all by itself. I guess they could
make the wrapper do "vacuumdb --all --analyze-in-stages" directly,
though, so maybe that's not a fatal objection either.

regards, tom lane