Re: Terminal width for help output

Joshua D. Drake wrote:
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> On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 16:04:46 -0500
> Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
> 
> > Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> writes:
> > > Do we care to maintain a maximum width for programs' --help output
> > > (and psql's \?)?  I think 79 characters was once a recommendation
> > > (or perhaps 72), but we have a couple of violations either way,
> > > which I'd like to fix, but what to?
> > 
> > I think 79 is still a reasonable maximum.  AFAIK 80 columns is still a
> > pretty standard terminal window width, but if you try to print in the
> > last column you may get unexpected extra blank lines.
> 
> O.k. this might be offtopic if it is feel free to smack me... but I
> have noticed that psql really breaks on terminals that are wide.. \df
> works fine, but \df+ is completely broke.
> 
> Can't we just ask the terminal?

Peter is talking about --help text that is hard-coded into the binary,
meaning you don't run it through some filter before output.

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http://postgres.enterprisedb.com
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