NAME
slonik - Slony-I command processor
SYNOPSIS
slonik [filename]
DESCRIPTION
slonik is the command processor application that is used to set up and
modify configurations of Slony-I replication clusters.
OUTLINE
The slonik command line utility is supposed to be used embedded into
shell scripts; it reads commands from files or stdin.
It reads a set of Slonik statements, which are written in a scripting
language with syntax similar to that of SQL, and performs the set of
configuration changes on the slony nodes specified in the script.
Nearly all of the real configuration work is actually done by calling
stored procedures after loading the Slony-I support base into a
database. Slonik was created because these stored procedures have
special requirements as to on which particular node in the replication
system they are called. The absence of named parameters for stored
procedures makes it rather hard to do this from the psql prompt, and
psql lacks the ability to maintain multiple connections with open
transactions to multiple databases.
The format of the Slonik ‘language’ is very similar to that of SQL, and
the parser is based on a similar set of formatting rules for such
things as numbers and strings. Note that slonik is declarative, using
literal values throughout. It is anticipated that Slonik scripts will
typically be generated by scripts, such as Bash or Perl, and these
sorts of scripting languages already have perfectly good ways of
managing variables, doing iteration, and such.
See also Slonik Command Language reference [“Slonik Command Summary”
[not available as a man page]].
EXIT STATUS
slonik returns 0 to the shell if it finished normally. Scripts may
specify return codes.