Re: Backward compatibility psql 8.1 to 8.2

I'm getting the dreaded psql warning:

WARNING: You are connected to a server with major version 8.1,
but your psql client is major version 8.2. Some backslash commands,
such as \d, might not work properly.

And indeed, most stuff works, but \d for a specific table fails. Has
there been talk of making a backwards compatibility nod here? I don't
want to downgrade my development machine, and I don't control the remote
machine. How fundamentally different is the protocol -- and would it be
feasible to support both?

-Bryce

Bryce Nesbitt wrote:
> And indeed, most stuff works, but \d for a specific table fails. Has
> there been talk of making a backwards compatibility nod here? I don't
> want to downgrade my development machine, and I don't control the remote
> machine. How fundamentally different is the protocol -- and would it be
> feasible to support both?

Feasible no doubt, but fiddly and useless to most.

You can have multiple installations on the same machine. I think most of
the developers do as do many of the rest of us. What platform are you
running? Debian has built-in support for this, but you can do it
yourself for most installations.

--
Richard Huxton
Archonet Ltd

I'm running SUSE 10.3. I have to install something behind the back of
the package manager to keep two versions of psql around. Its not the
end of the world, but it's a hassle... and fiddly in it's own right. A
8.2/8.3 client that could talk to 8.1 would save hassle here.

Richard Huxton wrote:
> Feasible no doubt, but fiddly and useless to most.
>
> You can have multiple installations on the same machine. I think most
> of the developers do as do many of the rest of us. What platform are
> you running? Debian has built-in support for this, but you can do it
> yourself for most installations.

Up until 8.2 I never used packages because I ran RH or FC and built
from source since 6.5.2 or so. I started using packages with ubuntu,
and having 8.0, 8.1, and 8.2 installed at the same time, and it's
wonderful for troubleshooting issues that might crop up between
versions. The Debian / Ubuntu way is really much better than the rpm
one.

Does anyone who know about packaging know if this a limitation of the
packaging spec in rpm, or is there a relatively simple way to get an
rpm based machine to run >1 ver of pgsql at a time?

On Feb 15, 2008 10:32 PM, Bryce Nesbitt <bryce1(at)obviously(dot)com> wrote:
> I'm running SUSE 10.3. I have to install something behind the back of
> the package manager to keep two versions of psql around. Its not the
> end of the world, but it's a hassle... and fiddly in it's own right. A
> 8.2/8.3 client that could talk to 8.1 would save hassle here.
>
> Richard Huxton wrote:
> > Feasible no doubt, but fiddly and useless to most.
> >
> > You can have multiple installations on the same machine. I think most
> > of the developers do as do many of the rest of us. What platform are
> > you running? Debian has built-in support for this, but you can do it
> > yourself for most installations.
>
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Scott Marlowe wrote:
> Does anyone who know about packaging know if this a limitation of the
> packaging spec in rpm, or is there a relatively simple way to get an
> rpm based machine to run >1 ver of pgsql at a time?

The difference is merely that the packaging doesn't support that setup.

--
Peter Eisentraut
http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/