Re: Problem in Pg 8.1.4 with CREATEDB

> -----Original Message-----
> From: pgsql-general-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org
> [mailto:pgsql-general-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org] On Behalf Of
> Alexander Scholz
> Sent: 31 May 2006 09:56
> To: pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org
> Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Problem in Pg 8.1.4 with CREATEDB
>
> Yes, we have the same problem! Refer to the thread with the subject
> "Problem V8.1.4 - providing pwd for commandline tools doesn't
> work anymore".
>
> They seem to have change the old behaviour of the commandline tools,
> which worked well since 8.0! I don't understand why the
> change should be
> "more secure", but I see that nobody took care about the possible
> consequences for installation scripts, third party applications and so
> on. :-(((
>
> At least they should have clearly stated this in the update
> readme. (The
> comment "Fix problem with password prompting on some Win32
> systems" just
> says nothing at all, which could have "alerted" anybody that might
> concern the effect of it)

The reason was that the way it was broken, a number of people had been
completely unable to use psql/pg_dump etc because in certain situations
it would (mistakenly) attempt to read the their password from a file and
not their command prompt window.

I don't think anyone ever imagined that the bug actually allowed people
to use utilities in a way that was useful to them, but unintended by
everyone else. Had we done, we would certainly have made the warnings
more obvious and considered workarounds.

Regards, Dave.