Re: FWD: Re: Updated backslash consistency patch

Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> writes:
>> You *think* you don't want to see system objects.

> I'm still a consultant for a living, so I use the psql command line on a 
> variety of client systems a lot.  And I'll tell you that 80% of the time 
> I use \df it's to look up the exact spelling and parameters of a 
> user-defined function, not a builtin.

And?

It seems to me there are two cases here:

1. You want to just write "\df" because there aren't a whole lot of 
user-defined functions.  Fine, I'm okay with changing the behavior
of that case to show only user-defined functions.

2. You want to write "\df something".  Fine, that's not going to show
any system functions anyway, unless there are system functions that are
also selected by "something".  If there are, it's not apparent to me why
it's a bad idea to show them; as I've already argued, I think not
showing them is a horrid idea, especially if they are an exact match
that will mask the user-defined function.

> So I'm not arguing for this patch ... I'd reject it on messy syntax 
> grounds, and because I think a general \system switch is cleaner ...

I'm unimpressed with the idea of a \system switch, because it will still
be breaking your \df queries hours after you forgot you used it to
adjust \dt.  (This argument holds no matter which way you prefer as
default.)
        regards, tom lane