Re: Problems with whitespace-ignoring diff options

Peter Eisentraut <peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net> writes:
> It appears we must not use the options for determining whether the test
> failed, only for creating the diff output. Or does anyone have a better
> idea?

AFAIK, there is no reason to ignore whitespace in determining whether a
test succeeded. However, if a test fails, it is quite likely that a
whitespace-sensitive diff will produce many lines of uninteresting diff,
because of psql's habit of justifying column output --- any difference
in the data value length where the actual difference occurs would impact
all the rest of the query output, even though it's really "the same".

So if you can implement the above behavior easily, go for it.

Keep in mind though that a reported failure accompanied by *no* visible
diff would be highly annoying ;-). Can we arrange to produce a
whitespace-sensitive diff output if the whitespace-insensitive kind
shows nothing?

regards, tom lane