Re: MySQL-ism help patch for psql - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

On tis, 2010-01-19 at 16:00 -0600, David Christensen wrote:
> Currently, a session will look like the following:
> 
>    machack:machack:5485=# show tables;
>    See:
>           \d
>           or \? for general help with psql commands
>    machack:machack:5485=#

I think if you make "show tables" and the others actually execute \d and
then possibly print a notice about what the "better" command would have
been, you actually *help* people do their work instead of appearing to
be a smartass -- "See, we took the time to research what you want to do,
and here is why it's wrong."

Moreover, the backslash is really hard to type on some keyboards, so I'd
expect significant uptake for people to use the SHOW variants as their
primary method.