On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 05:38:35PM +0200, Magnus Hagander wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 17:30, Thom Brown <thombrown@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 15 July 2010 16:20, Simon Riggs <simon@2ndquadrant.com> wrote:
> >> On Thu, 2010-07-15 at 11:05 -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> >>> Simon Riggs <simon@2ndQuadrant.com> writes:
> >>> > The biggest turn off that most people experience when using PostgreSQL
> >>> > is that psql does not support memorable commands.
> >>>
> >>> > I would like to implement the following commands as SQL, allowing them
> >>> > to be used from any interface.
> >>>
> >>> > SHOW TABLES
> >>> > SHOW COLUMNS
> >>> > SHOW DATABASES
> >>>
> >>> This has been discussed before, and rejected before. Please see
> >>> archives.
> >>
> >> Many years ago. I think it's worth revisiting now in light of the number
> >> of people now joining the PostgreSQL community and the greater
> >> prevalence other ways of doing it. The world has changed, we have not.
> >>
> >> I'm not proposing any change in function, just a simpler syntax to allow
> >> the above information to be available, for newbies.
> >>
> >> Just for the record, I've never ever met anyone that said "Oh, this \d
> >> syntax makes so much sense. I'm a real convert to Postgres now you've
> >> shown me this". The reaction is always the opposite one; always
> >> negative. Which detracts from our efforts elsewhere.
> >>
> >> --
> >
> > Looks like the last time this was discussed, there wasn't any clear
> > conclusion. Someone created a patch and it's still on the TODO list:
> > http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers/2010-01/msg01845.php
>
> That one is about:
> a) doing it in psql., not the backend
> b) not actually implementing the command, but implementing hints for
> the user telling them which is the correct command
>
> Is there an actual common use-case for having these commands available
> for *non-psql* interfaces?
In a word, YES!
In two words, HELL, YES!
Cheers,
David.
--
David Fetter <david@fetter.org> http://fetter.org/
Phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666 Yahoo!: dfetter
Skype: davidfetter XMPP: david.fetter@gmail.com
iCal: webcal://www.tripit.com/feed/ical/people/david74/tripit.ics
Remember to vote!
Consider donating to Postgres: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate