Re: Regression testing for psql

Stephen Frost <sfrost@snowman.net> writes:
> * alvherre (alvherre@commandprompt.com) wrote:
>> (And if we want something like this, I think we should not have a single
>> huge file for the complete test, but a set of smaller files.  I'd even
>> put the bunch in src/bin/psql/regress rather than the main regress dir.)

> The actual set of tests is rather small.  The output is large, but
> that's just because we have alot of things in the catalog.

It sounds to me like this is going to be like the rules regression test
writ large; specifically the part that dumps out view definitions for
all the built-in views.  And that, quite frankly, has been a huge
maintenance burden and AFAIR has never once had any redeeming social
value in terms of catching a bug.  If you're testing things that way,
don't.  There might be some value in psql backslash command tests that
are designed to depend on just one or a few tables (or other appropriate
objects).  Dumping large fractions of the catalogs will just be a net
loss.
        regards, tom lane