Bug #18989 http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/backup.html: 'extant' is prolix
Submitted: 10 Apr 2006 20:27 Modified: 10 Apr 2006 20:42
Reporter: Roland Bouman Email Updates:
Status: Closed Impact on me:
None 
Category:MySQL Server Severity:S4 (Feature request)
Version:5.0 OS:na
Assigned to: CPU Architecture:Any

[10 Apr 2006 20:27] Roland Bouman 
Description:
The page http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/backup.html, paragraph 2:

To make an SQL-level backup of a table, you can use SELECT INTO ... OUTFILE. For this statement, the output file cannot previously exist because allowing extant files to be overwritten would constitute a security risk. See Section 13.2.7, “SELECT Syntax”. 

second sentence, "extant" is a bit prolix; either "existing" or "existent"  seems more appropriate.

(according to my dictionary, extant means 'still in existence in spite of being very old'. INTO OUTFILE does not care about how old the existing files are - it simply wont overwrite them no matter what)

How to repeat:
Navigate to http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/backup.html and read the second paragraph

Suggested fix:
change extant to existing or existent
[10 Apr 2006 20:35] Paul DuBois 
Thank you for your bug report. This issue has been addressed in the
documentation. The updated documentation will appear on our website
shortly, and will be included in the next release of the relevant
product(s).

Additional info:

Changed to:

For this statement,
the output file cannot already exist because allowing files to
be overwritten would constitute a security risk.

No word at all is necessary.
[10 Apr 2006 20:36] Paul DuBois 
By the way, "prolix" means "lengthy."  One word is not lengthy.
[10 Apr 2006 20:42] Roland Bouman 
Whoops, my bad. Sorry about that, I should've looked up 'prolix' too.