Re: psql and Postgres 7.2

On 1/21/22 10:49 AM, Tom Lane wrote:
> Adrian Klaver <adrian(dot)klaver(at)aklaver(dot)com> writes:
>> src/bin/psql/command.c
>> /*
>> * Ideally we should treat the arguments as SQL identifiers. But for
>> * backwards compatibility with 7.2 and older pg_dump files, we have to
>> * take unquoted arguments verbatim (don't downcase them). For now,
>> * double-quoted arguments may be stripped of double quotes (as if SQL
>> * identifiers). By 7.4 or so, pg_dump files can be expected to
>> * double-quote all mixed-case \connect arguments, and then we can get rid
>> * of OT_SQLIDHACK.
>> */
>
>> Since Postgres 14 pg_dump only goes back to 8.0 and the \d commands in
>> psql go back to 7.4, is this something that needs to hang on?
>
> Yeah, I was wondering about that the other day. I agree that we
> probably don't need to worry anymore about reading 7.2 pg_dump
> output. However, people may be used to/depending on the current
> behavior in other ways. It's hard to be sure, but it is worth
> noting that it's been a long time since \connect arguments were
> only identifiers. We'd have to consider the impact on the
> connstring case, too.

Maybe at this point it comes down to a revision to the documentation
that indicates the downcasing rules don't apply to identifiers in \connect.

>
> regards, tom lane
>

--
Adrian Klaver
adrian(dot)klaver(at)aklaver(dot)com