Re: Survey: renaming/removing script binaries (createdb, createuser...)

On Thu, 27 Mar 2008, Leif B. Kristensen wrote:

> I figure something like the more or less standard options for modern
> *nixes, with short and long options like eg.
> pgc -C, --createdb ...

The idea thrown out was to use something like the CVS/svn model where a
single command gets called followed by either the name of the subcommand
or a very short abbreviation for it.  Here's a first cut of how I would
translate the current names, with the things I use more given the shorter
abbreviations in cases where there's some overlap in characters:

pgc cluster
pgc createdb    cd
pgc createlang    cl
pgc createuser    cu
pgc dropdb    dd    Not sure about short versions for any drop command
pgc droplang    dl
pgc dropuser    du
pgc init    i    initdb is careful not to overwrite anything
pgc oid        o
pgc config
pgc controldata
pgc ctl        c
pgc dump    d
pgc dumpall    da
pgc resetxlog    rx    Requires data dir before it doesn anything
pgc restore    r
pgc reindexdb    ri
pgc vacuum    v
pgc vacuumlo    vl

I'd also add these two:

pgc start    (pg_ctl start)
pgc stop    (pg_ctl stop)

ecpg, pg_standby, pgbench, pltcl*, postgres, postmaster, psql seem like
they really should keep their current names.

Do not take any of the above as an endorsement of this idea; I think it's
awful to even consider messing with anything when there are so many actual
important things that time could be spent on instead.  But if someone is
going to argue for a redesign of the command names, I'd at least like to
be talking about a good remapping.

--
* Greg Smith gsmith@gregsmith.com http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD