Re: Possible to run the server with ANSI/ISO string escapeing

Bruce Momjian <pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us> writes:
>> Does anyone know if it will be possible to run the server with ANSI/ISO
>> string escaping instead of C-style escapes? The C style escaping is a
>> shoot-down for our adoption of postgres, since its non-standard.

> Uh, yea, this is going to require quite a bit of discussion in the
> group, and I am concerned how it will affect other apps using
> PostgreSQL. (The mode isn't going to be useful if it breaks plug-in
> extensions and stuff.)

The hard part of this isn't turning off backslash quoting; the code
changes to do that would be pretty trivial. The hard part is not
breaking vast quantities of existing client code. After our experience
with autocommit, no one is going to want to solve it with a GUC variable
that can be flipped on and off at random. That would make the
compatibility problems that autocommit caused look like a day at the
beach :-(

I don't actually know a way to solve this that wouldn't impose
impossible amounts of pain on our existing users, and I'm afraid that
I rank that consideration higher than acquiring new users who won't
consider changing their own code.

If you can show me a way to provide this behavior without risk of
breaking existing code, I'm all ears.

regards, tom lane