Re: Proposal: Implement failover on libpq connect level.

Shulgin, Oleksandr wrote:

> > Alternatively, change the rules for parsing the existing host=X
> > parameter so that we split it on some separator that isn't a valid
> > hostname character, and then strip off an optional :port syntax from
> > each entry; that value, if present, overrides port=X for that entry.
> 
> It's tempting to use ':' as the separator here, but it's still valid for
> directory names and host can be one in case of UN*X sockets.

I think that's rare enough that we could just say that if you want to
have a : in a directory name used for local connections, you have to
escape the : character.  This is going to be pretty easy to detect as a
problem because of the obvious error message ("cannot parse "pg" in
/usr/sockets:pg as a port number"), except in the even rarer case that
the only stuff after the colon is digits.

-- 
Álvaro Herrera                http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Remote DBA, Training & Services