Re: pg_ctl strangeness under msys

[Andrew Dunstan <andrew(at)dunslane(dot)net>]

Bruce Momjian wrote:

> Magnus Hagander wrote:
>  
>
> > > I have seen some strange things using pg_ctl under MSys:
> > >
> > > . "pg_ctl status" from the command line logs to the event log. 
> > > Apparently it thinks it's not on a tty. Works fine from 
> > > Windows cmd prompt.
> > > . this hangs: perl -e '@foo=`pg_ctl -w start`;'
> > >  but this doesn't: perl -e 'system("pg_ctl -w start");'
> > >
> > > Finding the problem with the last one has cost me hours in 
> > > trying to get the buildfarm to run.
> > >
> > > Anyone have ideas about ways to fix? Or do we just note it 
> > > and live with it?
> > >      
> > As I'm sure you are already aware we've had a lot of problems with the
> > msys console. Buffernig and others. I think we at some point decided to
> > say that minor issues on the win32 consoles isn't really something we're
> > concerned about, people will run things from the cmd console in 99.9% of
> > all cases.
> >
> > Not sure how to fix it. The eventlog checking code uses isatty() IIRC,
> > and that one is clearly returning the wrong thing on msys. Not sure how
> > to code around that.
> >    
>
> We actually added the ability to turn the psql pager always on to fix a
> problem with a Win32 user running psql inside some kind of application
> (emacs?) where isatty returned the wrong value.  I don't see any clean
> workaround here though.
>  

It might be useful to have such a switch on pg_ctl too ("Use 
stdout/stderr even if you think it isn't a tty"). I can't see why it 
couldn't be done. None of this is critical, it was just confusing and 
time-consuming to find workarounds.

cheers

andrew