Re: Possible TODO item: copy to/from pipe

[Dave Page <dpage(at)vale-housing(dot)co(dot)uk>]

On 31/5/06 18:28, "Magnus Hagander" <mha(at)sollentuna(dot)net> wrote:

>>>>> Won't help too much, until gzip's output is piped back too, so a
>>>>> replacement for COPY .. TO STDOUT COMPRESSED  would be
>> COPY ... TO '| 
>>>>> /bin/gzip |' STDOUT, to enable clients to
>>>> 
>>>> receive the
>>>> 
>>>>> reduced stuff.
>>>> 
>>>> Forgot to mention:
>>>> COPY COMPRESSED was also meant to introduce a portable
>> format that's 
>>>> efficient for both text and binary data. Relying on some external
>>>> XYZzip version seems not too portable to me.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> It does have that advantage. Gzip and others are not particularly
>>> Windows friendly for example.
>> 
>> ... as most windows programs are pipe agnostic.
> 
> For the record, gzip on win32 works perfectly fine both as a separate
> program and running in a pipe. No problem at all. The only issue is that
> it's not available by default. (And possible issues with programs
> launching it that don't know how to deal with windows style directory
> naming)

Exactly my point; how many production Windows servers do you have with gzip
anywhere near them? Andreas' point about pipes is also valid though - it's
simply not the norm on Windows as I found when we were porting Slony
(more.exe barfs at >8MB being pipe in).

Regards, Dave.