Re: alpha2 initdb PG_CONTROL_VERSION incompatibility?

On Wed, 4 Nov 2009, Lou Picciano wrote:

> Is it just that the PG_CONTROL_VERSIONs don't follow the binary
> numbering, and this point I simply haven't run into before?

They match on official releases, but nobody worried about that detail for
the first 8.5 alpha.  It's basically impossible for an official release to
make it all the way out the door without *something* causing a "catalog
version bump", the thing that causes that number to be updated so the
first couple of digits look right.  There just didn't happen to be any
such changes between the 8.4 release and the first 8.5 alpha.

> > We're still making catalog changes.
> PS -  (Are you both speaking here - 'we' - as authors of PostgreSQL?)

That's specifically "we" as in "everyone who authors a change commited to
PostgreSQL", which essentially includes everyone who might submit a patch.
The committers have very strict rules for making changes to this version
number during the course of official releases because it causes your old
database installation to be incompatible (summary:  don't do that; it has
happened extremely rarely to fix serious bugs).  This treadmill where you
have to keep running initdb is essentially limited to pre-release testing,
those who build regularly from CVS snapshots have to do this all the time.

--
* Greg Smith gsmith@gregsmith.com http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD