Re: [HACKERS] Bug in WAL backup documentation

"Simon Riggs" <simon(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com> writes:
>> On Fri, Nov 03, 2006 at 11:25:09AM -0500, Tom Lane wrote:
>>> Since 8.1 has done this all along and no one's actually complained about
>>> it, I guess no one is using scripts that do "cd". I'm inclined to go
>>> with Bernd's suggestion to change the docs to match the code, but does
>>> anyone have a contrary opinion?

> +1 Doc bug for 8.2, feature request for 8.3, unless Windows bites.

Looking back in the archives, I note that one of the arguments for
making the server use relative paths everywhere was so that it'd be
robust against things like DBAs moving directories that contain live
postmasters. If we provide a %P option, or otherwise encourage people
to write scripts that depend on the absolute path of $PGDATA, we'd lose
some of this robustness. So that might be an argument for leaving the
code as-is indefinitely ... not a very strong argument maybe, but it's
more than just we're-too-lazy-to-add-%P.

Anyway, I've corrected the documentation in HEAD and 8.1.

regards, tom lane