Re: [COMMITTERS] pgsql-server/src backend/tcop/postgres.cbacke

On Tue, 13 Aug 2002, Tom Lane wrote:

> Bruce Momjian <pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us> writes:
> > OK, seeing as no one voted, and only Tom and I objected originally, we
> > will keep the code as Thomas has applied it, namely that PGXLOG/-X is
> > recognized by initdb, postmaster, postgres, and pg_ctl.
>
> We will? It looks to me like Thomas lost the vote 2-to-1.
>
> Unless there are more votes, I'm going to *insist* that this code be
> changed. It's dangerous and offers no offsetting benefit. XLOG
> location should be settable at initdb, noplace later.

Okay, I'm going to pop up here and side with Thomas ... I think ... I may
have missed some issues here, but, quite frankly, I hate symlinks, as I've
seen it create more evil then good .. hardlinks is a different story ...

And for that reason, I will side with Thomas ...

initdb should allow you to specify a seperate location, which I don't
think anyone disagrees with ... but, what happens if, for some reason, I
have to move it to another location? I have to then dump/reload after
doing a new initdb?

One thought at the back of my mind is why not have something like a
'PG_VERSION' for XLOG? Maybe something so simple as a text file in both
the data and xlog directory that just contains a timestamp from the
initdb? then, when you startup postmaster with a -X option, it compares
the two files and makes sure that they belong to each other?

Bruce, if I'm missing something, could you post a summary/scorecard for
pros-cons on this issue?