Re: WIP: a way forward on bootstrap data

> On Mar 26, 2018, at 10:44 PM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote

> Layout of .dat files seems generally reasonable, but I don't understand
> the proposed make rule:
>
> +reformat-dat-files:
> + $(PERL) -I $(catalogdir) $< catalog/rewrite_dat.pl -o catalog catalog/pg_*.dat
>
> This rule has no prerequisite, so what's $< supposed to be? Also, I think
> the rule probably ought to be located in src/include/catalog/Makefile,
> because that's typically where you'd be cd'd to when messing with the
> .dat files, I'd think. (Hm, I see no such makefile, but maybe it's time
> for one. A convenience rule located one level up doesn't seem very
> convenient.)
>

Oops, copy-pasto. And I’ll see about a new Makefile.

>> It seems like with that, it'd be good to split off the data-format
>> section of the README into a new file, maybe README.data, which will
>> contain code snippets and some example scenarios. I'll include the
>> example pg_proc.prokind merger among those.
>
> It would be more work, but maybe we should move this into the main
> SGML docs. It seems rather silly to have SGML documentation for the
> .BKI file format, which now will be an internal matter that hardly
> any developers need worry about, but not for the .DAT file format.
> But I understand if that seems a bridge too far for today --- certainly
> a README file is way better than nothing.

Makes sense on all points. I’m not optimistic about creating a new sgml doc on time, but I’ll keep it in mind.

-John Naylor