Re: [HACKERS] renaming "transaction log"

On 5/2/17 9:09 PM, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> Most documentation and error messages still uses the term "transaction
> log" to refer to the write-ahead log.  Here is a patch to rename that,
> which I think should be done, to match the xlog -> wal renaming in APIs.

+1 for the idea.

The documentation changes look good to me, but the error message changes
are a random mix of "WAL" and "write-ahead log", even when referring to
the same thing.  For example:

- errmsg("could not open transaction log directory \"%s\": %m",
+ errmsg("could not open write-ahead log directory \"%s\": %m",

and:

- fprintf(stderr, _("%s: failed to remove transaction log directory\n"),
+ fprintf(stderr, _("%s: failed to remove WAL directory\n"),

It seems like they should be one or the other.  I think "write-ahead
log" is good in the documentation since it is more explanatory, but the
error messages should either be all "write-ahead log" or all "WAL".

Personally I favor "WAL" for brevity in the error messages, but I would
be OK with "write-ahead log", too.

-- 
-David
david@pgmasters.net