Re: psql and output from \?

On Monday 11 March 2002 19:26, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> > Something that's also annoyed me for a while is that the PLACEHOLDER
> > strings are inconsistent in whether they describe the data type or the
> > semantics of the argument.  I think the data type is ultimately more
> > useful, as the semantics come from the documentation string by
> > definition.
> >
> > So instead of \C TITLE maybe better \C STRING, and instead of \d TABLE
> > use \d IDENTIFIER (or maybe NAME).  The latter has two advantages:  First
> > you're not passing \d a table descriptor, if there was such a thing.  And
> > second, it informs the user that the SQL identifier quoting rules will
> > apply to the argument.  I guess FILENAME and DIRNAME are ok as "data
> > types", but all the other stuff can go, I think.
>
> I can understand a more formal indicator in the documentation, but for
> \? it is really just quick help, and showing SEPARATOR rather than the more
> generic STRING is clearer, I think.

My first reaction would be "now what counts as a separator?", because it 
sounds like some kind of special character, whereas with STRING it's
clear to me I can use any set of characters I like.

This is not an issue I would lose sleep over however.

Ian Barwick