Abhijit Menon-Sen wrote: > P.S. Trivia: I can't find any other options in Postgres where the > argument is mandatory but the option is optional.
psql behaves similarly with its -d and -U switches also; note --help: Usage: psql [OPTION]... [DBNAME [USERNAME]] ... -d, --dbname=DBNAME database name to connect to (default: "alvherre") ... -U, --username=USERNAME database user name (default: "alvherre") Both are optional and have defaults. Datadir for pg_controldata is also optional and --help contains this blurb: If no data directory (DATADIR) is specified, the environment variable PGDATA is used. I think you could replace those lines with -D data directory blah (default: "value of $PGDATA") But psql --help doesn't use $PGUSER to expand the default value for -U; I'm not clear if this means we shouldn't expand PGDATA in the help line for pg_controldata, or need to fix psql to expand PGUSER in -U. -- Álvaro Herrera http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/ PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training & Services -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers