tech-userlevel archive

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index][Old Index]

Re: Alternative to hash-bang



"D'Arcy J.M. Cain" <darcy%NetBSD.org@localhost> writes:

> There is currently a discussion in the PostgreSQL list about how to get
> unix systems to read an SQL script and run it without choking on
> invalid statements such as "#! usr/whatever/bin/psql" at the top of the
> file.  It occurred to me that the old hash-bang thing was a little
> restrictive and perhaps it is time to add to the list of magic numbers
> that run commands using alternative commenting character.  I am
> thinking "--!!" for SQL scripts.  The ';' character is also common so
> perhaps ";!" as well.  Those two, with "#!" probably cover 99% of the
> possible commenting methods.  Would doing this interfere with anything
> else?  Or should it be PostgreSQL's job to ignore the shebang if it sees
> it at the start of its input?

Once --!! happens, then there will be requests to add all sorts of
things, and this seems like a mess.  Surely it's easy enough to teach
psql to ignore the first line if it starts with #!, because that's
obviously not valid sql.  Then it would work everywhere.

Attachment: pgpcJL9pYJFiy.pgp
Description: PGP signature



Home | Main Index | Thread Index | Old Index