Re: FWD: Re: Updated backslash consistency patch

"David E. Wheeler" <david(at)kineticode(dot)com> writes:
> On Jan 16, 2009, at 10:43 AM, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>>> but are we willing to change \d and \dt to work that way too?
>>> Or should we leave them inconsistent?
>>
>> I would prefer them consistent.

> I think that people will hate the changed behavior to \d and \dt.

Yeah, one of the advantages of the simpler proposal is that the behavior
of plain \df doesn't change from what it was, so there's no surprise
factor, just a couple of new options. But if we apply that same
behavior to \d and \dt then we do have a change in default behavior.
The point of "assume U for no pattern" was to preserve the default
behavior of those two commands.

Actually, now that I look at the code, the historical behavior of
\d is even weirder than I thought:

\d or \d+ *with no pattern* is equivalent to \dtvs(+)
(and hence shows all user tables and no system tables)

\d or \d+ *with a pattern* takes a completely different
code path that has no system-vs-user special behavior,
ie it's about like the historical \df behavior

which means that Robert's complaint about treating no-pattern
differently from pattern falls to the ground. It's exactly what
\d has done for years, and nobody has complained about that.

regards, tom lane