Re: more on initdb

Tom Lane wrote:

>Andrew Dunstan <andrew(at)dunslane(dot)net> writes:
>
>
>>Is there any reason other than historical that the System Views setup
>>isn't a separate script fed to postgres by initdb, like, say, the
>>information schema file? If there isn't a good reason should we unwire
>>it as part of moving to a C version of initdb?
>>
>>
>
>Just historical, and go for it.
>
>
>
I might. :-) Actually, it has struck me that the way we go about doing
initdb is kinda hokey, again probably for historic reasons, and that if
it were being redesigned from scratch today a better way would be to
have an cluster image built at compile time and just copied and tweaked
at runtime. Almost all the required info appears to be known at compile
time, AFAICS. I assume we don't expect people to hack the input files
like postgres.bki or information_schema.sql.

My aim has been to get something that will enable a complete Windows
build (i.e. no shell or other external reliance) when the fork/signal
problems on Windows are solved, and I think I am already at that point,
at least as far as my testing has been able to go - the proof of the
pudding will be in the eating. So making a change like I suggested above
would be a longer term issue. I guess it ain't broke so it doesn't need
to be fixed, so I'm not sure if it would be worth it.

Thoughts?

cheers

andrew