Re: doc bug for continuous archiving

On Wed, Oct 7, 2020 at 5:47 PM David G. Johnston <david(dot)g(dot)johnston(at)gmail(dot)com>
wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 7, 2020 at 2:35 PM Jeff Janes <jeff(dot)janes(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>
>> Quoting the docs:
>>
>> https://www.postgresql.org/docs/13/continuous-archiving.html
>>
>> "As with base backups, the easiest way to produce a standalone hot backup
>> is to use the pg_basebackup tool. If you include the -X parameter when
>> calling it, all the write-ahead log required to use the backup will be
>> included in the backup automatically, and no special action is required to
>> restore the backup."
>>
>> This makes it sound like -X is a switch option, when in fact it demands
>> an argument. The statement made is incorrect if the supplied argument is
>> "none", but is correct for the other two options. Should this be changed
>> to spell out which options it applies to (or maybe which option it does not
>> apply to).
>>
>
> Just reading the doc page for pg_basebackup: "stream" is the default
> method value for this option. So if you just include "-X" you get "stream"
> which is indeed a mode that just works and the continuous archiving section
> you quote is correct.
>
> I'm not really sure I like the idea that we don't indicate which
> pg_basebackup key-value argument values are optional and which are
> mandatory.
>
> David J.
>
>
Stream is the default if you don't specify -X at all. If you specify -X
but with no argument for it, you get an error.

pg_basebackup: option requires an argument -- 'X'
Try "pg_basebackup --help" for more information.

(Which is also a bit confusing, I would expect a default to apply when the
option is specified without an argument, as opposed to when the
option itself it is not specified )

Cheers,

Jeff