Re: VACUUM FULL name is very confusing to some people (or to most nonexpert people)

Hi all,

For most beginners (and even a lot of advanced users)  there is a strong confusion between simple VACUUM and VACUUM FULL. They think "full" is simply an option to the maintenance operation vacuum while it's not. It's a complete different  operation.

I have a hard time explaining it when I teach PostgreSQL Administration (even if I stress the matter) and I constantly meet customer that are wrong about it.

I think that the way we name this two operations is not helping them. I had to work with SQL Server some years ago and they use the word "SHRINK" to do something similar to "VACUUM FULL". I don't know if it's the best option, I think others can be found (COMPACT, DEFRAGMENT...)

Of course, for compatibility reasons, VACUUM FULL should always be available, but I think an alias that is less confusing for people could be a good thing.

What do you think ?

Cheers,

Lætitia