I just upgraded from postgres 7.x.x to 8.1.0 and am getting the
following error from cmd-line psql:

could not save history to file "<my_home_dir>/.psql_history":
Invalid argument

Searching the archives, I found a thread about this error wherein the
poster "solved" the problem by commenting out the reporting code in
the source file. Tom's reply (*) suggests a discrepancy in libraries
on MacOSX. Nonetheless, I *seem* to have the intended functionality
(readline history on the cmd-line), in spite of the error msg.

Questions:

- Is the error msg ignorable?

- Else, is there a post-compile fix for the problem?

- Does the correct lib exist on MacOSX? If so, is there doco on how
to specify its use on compiling?

My platform:

MacOSX v10.4.2
PostgreSQL v8.1.0

Thanks in advance!
Scott


(*) [ from Tom Lane, via archives search ]
The Postgres code in that area hasn't changed at all. Maybe in this
build you linked against Apple's builtin libedit instead of libreadline?
libedit seems to have a bizarre definition of the result value from
write_history()

Scott Frankel <leknarf@pacbell.net> writes:
> [ Mac OS X ]
> could not save history to file "<my_home_dir>/.psql_history":
> Invalid argument

> Searching the archives, I found a thread about this error wherein the
> poster "solved" the problem by commenting out the reporting code in
> the source file.

If you look back further, there is more discussion of this several
months back. It seems that libedit and libreadline are not compatible
about how write_history() reports errors. We haven't figured out a
nice solution for this yet.

> - Is the error msg ignorable?

Pretty much.

> - Does the correct lib exist on MacOSX?

You can grab libreadline and install it into /usr/local, or use the
version from Fink.

regards, tom lane

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OK. Thanks!
Scott


On Nov 10, 2005, at 10:20 AM, Tom Lane wrote:

> Scott Frankel <leknarf@pacbell.net> writes:
>
>> [ Mac OS X ]
>> could not save history to file "<my_home_dir>/.psql_history":
>> Invalid argument
>>
>
>
>> Searching the archives, I found a thread about this error wherein the
>> poster "solved" the problem by commenting out the reporting code in
>> the source file.
>>
>
> If you look back further, there is more discussion of this several
> months back. It seems that libedit and libreadline are not compatible
> about how write_history() reports errors. We haven't figured out a
> nice solution for this yet.
>
>
>> - Is the error msg ignorable?
>>
>
> Pretty much.
>
>
>> - Does the correct lib exist on MacOSX?
>>
>
> You can grab libreadline and install it into /usr/local, or use the
> version from Fink.
>
> regards, tom lane
>
> ---------------------------(end of
> broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
>


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