Re: Renaming of pg_xlog and pg_clog

Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> On Thu, Oct 20, 2016 at 2:09 PM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
>> We have the two precedents "pg_subtrans" and "pg_multixact", so
>> unless we want to get into renaming those too, I think "pg_trans"
>> and "pg_xact" are really the only options worth considering.
>>
>> Personally I'd go for "pg_trans", but it's only a weak preference.

> Heaven forfend we actually use enough characters to make it self-documenting.

$ ls $PGDATA
PG_VERSION pg_dynshmem/ pg_notify/ pg_stat_tmp/ postgresql.auto.conf
base/ pg_hba.conf pg_replslot/ pg_subtrans/ postgresql.conf
global/ pg_ident.conf pg_serial/ pg_tblspc/ postmaster.opts
pg_clog/ pg_logical/ pg_snapshots/ pg_twophase/ postmaster.pid
pg_commit_ts/ pg_multixact/ pg_stat/ pg_wal/

I don't see one single one of those subdirectory names that I'd call
self-documenting. Are you proposing we rename them all with carpal-
tunnel-syndrome-promoting names?

There's certainly some case to be made for renaming at least one of
"pg_subtrans" and "pg_multixact" so that these three similarly-purposed
subdirectories can all have similar names. But I think on the whole
that's (a) fixing what ain't broken, and (b) making it even more unlikely
that we'll ever get to consensus on changing anything. We've managed to
agree that we need to change the names ending in "log"; let's do that
and be happy that we've removed one foot-gun from the system.

regards, tom lane