User-Agent: Microsoft-Entourage/11.2.3.060209
Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 20:55:17 +0100
Subject: Re: Possible TODO item: copy to/from pipe
From: Dave Page <dpage@vale-housing.co.uk>
To: Magnus Hagander <mha@sollentuna.net>,
	Andreas Pflug <pgadmin@pse-consulting.de>
CC: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>,
	<pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>
Message-ID: <C0A3B335.D1F4%dpage@vale-housing.co.uk>
Thread-Topic: [HACKERS] Possible TODO item: copy to/from pipe
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In-Reply-To: <6BCB9D8A16AC4241919521715F4D8BCEA3546D@algol.sollentuna.se>
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On 31/5/06 18:28, "Magnus Hagander" <mha@sollentuna.net> wrote:

>>>>> Won't help too much, until gzip's output is piped back too, so a
>>>>> replacement for COPY .. TO STDOUT COMPRESSED  would be
>> COPY ... TO '| 
>>>>> /bin/gzip |' STDOUT, to enable clients to
>>>> 
>>>> receive the
>>>> 
>>>>> reduced stuff.
>>>> 
>>>> Forgot to mention:
>>>> COPY COMPRESSED was also meant to introduce a portable
>> format that's 
>>>> efficient for both text and binary data. Relying on some external
>>>> XYZzip version seems not too portable to me.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> It does have that advantage. Gzip and others are not particularly
>>> Windows friendly for example.
>> 
>> ... as most windows programs are pipe agnostic.
> 
> For the record, gzip on win32 works perfectly fine both as a separate
> program and running in a pipe. No problem at all. The only issue is that
> it's not available by default. (And possible issues with programs
> launching it that don't know how to deal with windows style directory
> naming)

Exactly my point; how many production Windows servers do you have with gzip
anywhere near them? Andreas' point about pipes is also valid though - it's
simply not the norm on Windows as I found when we were porting Slony
(more.exe barfs at >8MB being pipe in).

Regards, Dave.