I built 8.0.0rc5 on FreeBSD 4.8. It built with no errors. I then
tried psql using another host running postgresql 7.1.3 and I get the
goofy error message shown below. Other backslash commands seem to work
(ie. \? \e \q).

$ psql -h host-running-7.1.3 test
Welcome to psql 8.0.0rc5, the PostgreSQL interactive terminal.

Type: \copyright for distribution terms
\h for help with SQL commands
\? for help with psql commands
\g or terminate with semicolon to execute query
\q to quit

test=> \dt
ERROR: parser: parse error at or near "."
test=> \q
$

Just to see if there might be something funny with the flex generated
parser, I ran flex against psqlscan.l; the output was identical to the
original psqlscan.c.

I built postgresql with:

$ pg_config --configure
'--with-template=freebsd' '--with-pam' '--with-openssl' 'CFLAGS= ' 'CPPFLAGS= ' 'LDFLAGS=-L/usr/local/lib'

I have not installed postgresql previously on this system, so it cannot
be picking up anything from a previous install.

A question: where would I go to check if this problem has already
been reported?

Thanks.

Dave Bodenstab


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TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster

Dave Bodenstab <dave (AT) bodenstab (DOT) org> writes:
psql's backslash commands are only guaranteed to work with a server of
the same version. Trying 8.0 against a prehistoric server like that
is going to result in all kinds of oddness. (Look at the actual
queries with -E to see why.)

regards, tom lane

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That was it, thank you. I've now got 8.0.0rc5 installed and running.
The \dt command of psql works fine.


I wonder if it might be possible to issue an error message that
reflects the incompatible version situation that I encountered.
The message I got led me to believe that there was some sort of
parse error in the input I was typing. Had the error message told
me that the DB versions did not match and that unpredictable results
could occur, I might have figured out the problem myself -- or at
least tried it against 8.0.0rc5 once I got it running.

Anyway, thanks again for your response.

Dave Bodenstab

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