Hello Craig,
I still haven't really grasped why this isn't done by embedding a
client-side scripting language interpreter, giving us vastly greater
capabilities with only the maintenance of the glue instead of writing our
own ad-hoc scripting tool. Something confine-able like JavaScript or Lua.
ISTM that what you are asking for cannot work well: Pg needs a client the
primary language of which is SQL, so that:
calvin> SELECT * FROM Stuff;
Does what you expect.
How would you mix/embedded another language with that? The answer is not
obvious to me because you need some lexical convention to switch between
SQL and the "other" language. PHP-looking solution or putting all SQL in
strings would not be that great in interactive mode.
Moreover, I do not think that a full language (including loops) is
desirable for interactive scripting and simple database creations. The
needed level is more like cpp, i.e. not really a "full" language.
Also, which language should it be? I've been practicing perl, tcl, python,
bash... do I want to learn lua as well?
So ISTM that the current solution is the reasonable one: limited
SQL-language tools (psql & pgbench) for basic and interactive operations,
and if you really need scripting you can always write a script in your
favorite language which is interfaced with SQL through some API.
The limit between what can be done with the client tool and with scripting
is a fuzzy one.
--
Fabien.
