Thread: Re: default locale considered harmful? (was Re: [GENERAL]
Peter Eisentraut wrote: > Bruce Momjian writes: > > > How are people going to know to use these special LIKE indexes? > > The same way they presumably find out about anything else: RTFM. A couple > of more cross-references and index entries need to be added, though. Well, this isn't one of those, "How do I do X" but rather something they will only know they need if they wonder why their LIKE queries are slow --- that isn't going to be obvious to too many people. An FAQ may be required for this --- fortunately we already have an item for indexes. That is one thing I liked about the initdb mention --- it clearly told them to watch out for something they might not have been looking for. -- Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001+ If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road + Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania19073
Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> writes:
> That is one thing I liked about the initdb mention --- it clearly told
> them to watch out for something they might not have been looking for.
Only if they read the message, though. People who are running RPM
installations probably never get to see what initdb has to say ...
so I can't put much faith in the usefulness of warnings emitted by
initdb.
regards, tom lane
On Wed, 4 Jun 2003, Tom Lane wrote: > Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> writes: > > That is one thing I liked about the initdb mention --- it clearly told > > them to watch out for something they might not have been looking for. > > Only if they read the message, though. People who are running RPM > installations probably never get to see what initdb has to say ... > so I can't put much faith in the usefulness of warnings emitted by > initdb. > Yes, I mentioned this when this thread was going a few weeks ago. I only caught the locale setting being wrong on a system before it went into production because I happened to install on another system and noticed the message. I then had to ask the hosting company's SA to first check and then re-initdb. I was even sat watching/directing what he was doing and missed it. He was using Redhat with RPMs I was doing it properly from source. Those RPMs are dangerous, they turn you mind off. I voted for setting 'C' by default. -- Nigel J. Andrews
On Wed, Jun 04, 2003 at 11:05:03PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote: > Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> writes: > > That is one thing I liked about the initdb mention --- it clearly told > > them to watch out for something they might not have been looking for. > > Only if they read the message, though. People who are running RPM > installations probably never get to see what initdb has to say ... > so I can't put much faith in the usefulness of warnings emitted by > initdb. It'd be nice if the RPM installation mailed initdb's messages to someone (root@localhost maybe). It's not impossible, and while it's likely that RedHat would remove the feature, at least PGDG's RPM would do it. Same for DEBs and other binary packages... -- Alvaro Herrera (<alvherre[a]dcc.uchile.cl>) "Nunca confiaré en un traidor. Ni siquiera si el traidor lo he creado yo" (Barón Vladimir Harkonnen)
Tom Lane wrote: > Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> writes: > > That is one thing I liked about the initdb mention --- it clearly told > > them to watch out for something they might not have been looking for. > > Only if they read the message, though. People who are running RPM > installations probably never get to see what initdb has to say ... > so I can't put much faith in the usefulness of warnings emitted by > initdb. True, but for people who _do_ see initdb output, is it helpful, and what other places can we put it? -- Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001+ If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road + Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania19073
On Thu, 5 Jun 2003, Nigel J. Andrews wrote: > On Wed, 4 Jun 2003, Tom Lane wrote: > > > Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> writes: > > > That is one thing I liked about the initdb mention --- it clearly told > > > them to watch out for something they might not have been looking for. > > > > Only if they read the message, though. People who are running RPM > > installations probably never get to see what initdb has to say ... > > so I can't put much faith in the usefulness of warnings emitted by > > initdb. > > > > Yes, I mentioned this when this thread was going a few weeks ago. I only caught > the locale setting being wrong on a system before it went into production > because I happened to install on another system and noticed the message. I then > had to ask the hosting company's SA to first check and then re-initdb. I was > even sat watching/directing what he was doing and missed it. He was using > Redhat with RPMs I was doing it properly from source. > > Those RPMs are dangerous, they turn you mind off. > > I voted for setting 'C' by default. Everything Nigel just wrote plus one thing. If it comes down to it, we could always require a --locale setting and refuse to initdb without it. That way, whether it's in an RPM or from source, somebody somewhere along the line has to choose something. Or would that break RPM / automated installs in too nasty a way?
On Thu, Jun 05, 2003 at 09:44:21AM -0600, scott.marlowe wrote: > On Thu, 5 Jun 2003, Nigel J. Andrews wrote: > Everything Nigel just wrote plus one thing. > > If it comes down to it, we could always require a --locale setting and > refuse to initdb without it. That way, whether it's in an RPM or from > source, somebody somewhere along the line has to choose something. Yeah, that way the RPM guys would put the --locale taking the locale from the environment and you're back to ground zero. There's no point in forcing things down the throat of users using this kind of mechanisms, because someone is going to automate the thing along the way. What is needed is a way to make the user aware of his system's configuration. -- Alvaro Herrera (<alvherre[@]dcc.uchile.cl>)
scott.marlowe writes: > If it comes down to it, we could always require a --locale setting and > refuse to initdb without it. That way, whether it's in an RPM or from > source, somebody somewhere along the line has to choose something. By default, you choose when you install or configure your operating system. In most cases, the region where you install your operating system and the region where you run your database is the same, so equating these settings by default is reasonable. -- Peter Eisentraut peter_e@gmx.net