Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> writes:
> On tis, 2011-05-24 at 15:34 -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
>> I would argue that -Z ought to turn on "gzip" without my having to write
>> -z as well (at least when the argument is greater than zero; possibly
>> -Z0 should be allowed as meaning "no compression").
> My concern with that is that if we ever add another compression method,
> would we then add another option to control the compression level of
> that method?
Um ... what's your point? Forcing the user to type two switches instead
of one isn't going to make that hypothetical future extension any
easier, AFAICS.
But if you want to take such an extension into account right now, maybe
we ought to design that feature now. What are you seeing it as looking
like?
My thought is that "-z" should just mean "give me compression; a good
default compression setting is fine". "-Zn" could mean "I want gzip
with exactly this compression level" (thus making the presence or
absence of -z moot). If you want to specify some other compression
method altogether, use something like --lzma=N. It seems unlikely to me
that somebody who wants to override the default compression method
wouldn't want to pick the settings for it too.
regards, tom lane