Re: FWD: Re: Updated backslash consistency patch

Tom Lane wrote:
> Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> writes:
> > Tom Lane wrote:
> >> I think people use \df all the time to check the argument list, verify
> >> whether they remember the function name correctly, etc.  It's not for
> >> "learning about" stuff you never heard of, it's for remembering details
> >> (as indeed is the usage for user-defined functions too).
> 
> > Which means my patch will work perfectly for them (because of the
> > pattern), and hopefully for you.  ;-)
> 
> I can agree that it's reasonable for the default behavior with no
> arguments (no pattern) to be to show only user-defined objects.
> Otherwise you're going to get quite a long list, which doesn't
> seem particularly useful --- and if you really want that, you can
> say '*.*' so there's no loss of functionality if we change it.
> 
> However, if we don't have that restriction when a pattern is given,
> I wonder whether we need the 'S' modifier at all.  If you really
> want to see only system objects, there's 'pg_catalog.*', but this
> doesn't seem like a case that's so common that it needs a command
> modifier letter.
> 
> So my proposal at the moment is to get rid of 'S', have the behavior
> with a pattern be the same as it was before, and only change the
> behavior with no pattern.

Well, this is psql and it should be easy;  I am not sure pg_catalog.*
fits that requirement.  Right now if you do \dt you see user tables, and
\dtS shows system tables;  I don't see removing 'S' as being a great
usability gain.

I think searching for both user and system stuff with a pattern is a
no-brainer.

--  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB
http://enterprisedb.com
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