Re: Glitch in handling of postmaster -o options

Hi all,

There seem to be a few namespace conflicts for the options of postgres
and postmaster. The one's I could identify from the man pages are :

-i -N -o -p -S -s

If we are going to deprecate -o, then we'll need to make sure we also
introduce replacement names where these conflicts are. This way, in the
future -o can be treated like a 'no-option' and everything would work.

If we notify of the impending deprecation now, to actually occur in 7.3,
would we be best intoducing alternative option names somewhere in the
7.2 beta cycle so people writing scripts for 7.2 can use the new names
and know their scripts will work into the future?

???

Regards and best wishes,

Justin Clift

Tom Lane wrote:
>
> Marko Kreen <marko(at)l-t(dot)ee> writes:
> > I am suggesting this.
> > [ code snipped ]
>
> Okay, that would mean that "-o '-S nnn'" still works, but "-o -F"
> doesn't.
>
> But ... the thing is, there is no reason for -o to exist anymore other
> than backwards compatibility with existing startup scripts. -o doesn't
> do anything you can't do more cleanly and sanely with GUC options
> (--sort_mem, etc). So, I don't really see much value in keeping it
> if you're going to break one of the more common usages --- which I'm
> sure -o -F is.
>
> Since the problem I identified is not likely to bite very many people,
> my vote is not to try to apply a code solution now. I think we should
> leave the code alone, and instead document in 7.2 that -o is deprecated
> (and explain what to do instead), with the intention of removing it in
> 7.3. Giving people a release cycle's worth of notice seems sufficient.
>
> Possibly we could also take this opportunity to deprecate -S and the
> other options that are standing in the way of unified command line
> options for postmasters and backends.
>
> regards, tom lane
>
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