Re: about EDITOR_LINENUMBER_SWITCH

On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 5:35 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
> Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
>> On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 5:47 PM, Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> wrote:
>>> I noticed the 9.1 release notes claim that the new
>>> EDITOR_LINENUMBER_SWITCH thing is an environment variable, whereas it is
>>> actually a psql variable.
>>> This is perhaps sort of a Freudian slip.
>
>> It's probably the result of drift between the original patch and what
>> was eventually committed.  IIRC, Pavel had it as an environment
>> variable originally, but Tom and I didn't feel the feature was
>> important enough to merit that treatment.
>
> BTW, the above is merest historical revisionism: there was never a
> version of the patch that did it that way.

Even if you were correct, that's a snarky way to put it, and the point
is trivial anyway.  But I don't think I'm imagining the getenv() call
in this version of the patch:

http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers/2010-07/msg01253.php

> Also, while we're on the subject, I'm not real sure why we don't allow
> the code to provide a default value when EDITOR has a well-known value
> like "vi" or "emacs".  As long as there is a way to override that,
> where's the harm in a default?

Well, the question is how many people it'll help.  Some people might
have a full pathname, others might called it vim...

--
Robert Haas
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