Re: suggestion for improving TMPDIR and "--format" docs for pg_dump

Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> Am Freitag, 9. März 2007 03:30 schrieb Mark Stosberg:
>> The tar format needs some space to create temporary files. By default
>> "/tmp" is used. On systems with small "/tmp" partitions, set the
>> "TMPDIR" environment variable to a location with more space, such as
>> "/usr/tmp".
>
> That is really standard operating system behavior.  We don't need to duplicate
> that information.

So is

 ./configure
 make
 make install

These are all external, standard programs, but they are common and
useful to document with applications. I think a small amount of
redundancy is documentation is a good thing.

When I wanted to use a different tmp dir, I searched the PostgreSQL docs
for how to do that, because I was using a PostgreSQL tool. I had no why
of knowing whether PostgreSQL was even using standard conventions of
tmpdir handling, of if it did it's own thing. Also, after several years
of being professional involved with Unix system maintenance, I was not
aware that this was a standard feature. Surely then, less advanced users
would benefit from the documentation.

>> It woud also be nice to document that the full names "custom" and "tar" are
>> supported. Longer names can be nice for clarity.
>
> They are.  You must be looking at an older version.

You are correct. Sorry about that.

>> ( Unfortunately, wrong formats like "txx" also work instead of throwing
>> an error. )
>
> Send a patch.

I appreciate the sentiment, by my C skills are weak.

       Mark