public inbox for [email protected]  

help / color / mirror / Atom feed

From: Josh Kupershmidt <[email protected]>
To: pgsql-docs <[email protected]>
Subject: CREATE EXTENSION: documenting prereqs
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 18:52:12 -0400
Message-ID: <[email protected]> (raw)

Hi all,

I think users of 9.1 will be interested in quickly seeing what
extensions are all about. Looking at the CREATE EXTENSION page[2],
there's a brief example showing the command:
|  CREATE EXTENSION hstore;

When I try this, I see something like:
|   ERROR:  could not open extension control file
"/Users/josh/runtime/share/postgresql/extension/hstore.control": No
such file or directory

Well, obviously I need to go into ./contrib/hstore/ and run make &&
make install (or install the appropriate -contrib package if I were
using a packaged build of Postgres). I think it'd be nice to give
users some hint about this prerequisite. Appendix F [1] discusses
this, but there's currently no link from [2] to [1]. The way the
CREATE EXTENSION page reads right now, I could forgive a new user
thinking he shouldn't need to install any dependencies.

A complementary approach would be to add an errhint to the "could not
open extension control file..." error suggesting that the user install
the contrib package himself, though I'm not sure offhand about the
wording, especially since a user might be trying to install
who-knows-what extension.

A possible patch for the CREATE EXTENSION page is attached.

Josh

--
[1] http://developer.postgresql.org/pgdocs/postgres/contrib.html
[2] http://developer.postgresql.org/pgdocs/postgres/sql-createextension.html


Attachments:

  [text/x-patch] create_extension.v4.patch (783B, 2-create_extension.v4.patch)
  download | inline diff:
diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/ref/create_extension.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/ref/create_extension.sgml
index 818bc0c..e862c7f 100644
*** a/doc/src/sgml/ref/create_extension.sgml
--- b/doc/src/sgml/ref/create_extension.sgml
*************** CREATE EXTENSION hstore;
*** 153,158 ****
--- 153,169 ----
  </programlisting>
    </para>
  
+   <note>
+    <para>
+     For more information on how to use
+     <command>CREATE EXTENSION</command> to install modules
+     found in <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>'s
+     <literal>contrib</literal> directory, such as the hstore
+     extension, please see
+     <link linkend="contrib">Additional Supplied Modules</link>.
+    </para>
+   </note>
+ 
    <para>
     Update a pre-9.1 installation of <literal>hstore</> into
     extension style:

view thread (3+ messages)  latest in thread

reply

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Reply to all the recipients using the --to and --cc options:
  reply via email

  To: [email protected]
  Cc: [email protected]
  Subject: Re: CREATE EXTENSION: documenting prereqs
  In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

This inbox is served by agora; see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox