Re: Re: csv format for psql - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

        Pavel Stehule wrote:

> implemented in attached patch

Consider your initial output of \pset, when no option is specified
=================
$ ./psql
psql (11devel)
Type "help" for help.

postgres=# \pset
border                   1
columns                  0
expanded                 off
fieldsep                 not used
fieldsep_zero            ERROR
footer                   on
format                   aligned
linestyle                ascii
null                     ''
numericlocale            off
pager                    1
pager_min_lines          0
recordsep                '\n'
recordsep_zero           off
reset                    ERROR
tableattr
title
tuples_only              off
unicode_border_linestyle single
unicode_column_linestyle single
unicode_header_linestyle single
================

These entries with ERROR correspond in fact to no error at all,
or we have to pretend that the default state of psql is erroneous,
which doesn't make sense.

Also "reset" is not a variable, it seems to be a command,
so it probably shouldn't be there in the first place.

More generally, I'd think the point of reusing "fieldsep" was to
reuse the concept, not reimplement it, let alone changing
bits of behavior of the unaligned mode along the way.

With this patch, again without specifying any option, just looking
at what fieldsep is leads to this:

postgres=# \pset fieldsep
User didn't specified field separator.
Current format doesn't specify default field separator.

If this is the way to "solve" the fact that a user has to do
 \pset fieldsep ','
to get commas in csv mode, then IMV the proposed solution
is clearly worse than the stated problem, and worse than
simply adding fieldsep_csv to be independant from the
unaligned mode.

Best regards,
--
Daniel Vérité
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