Is there a reason thet you don't want to change the the code to parse the new 
output from explain verbose? It seems like it is the best option. As time 
passes it should be less likely to change - the fact that it is no longer a 
NOTICE makes me feel better about it already.

Chris

Quoting David Blasby <dblasby@refractions.net>:

> I recently changed mappostgis.c so its a bit wiser about how it
> determines the columns in a query.  Previously, it did this:
> 
> EXPLAIN VERBOSE <query>;
> 
> The advantage of this is that it is extreamly quick.  Unfortunately, the
> EXPLAIN VERBOSE command changes its output with different versions of
> postgresql.  For example, in 7.1 and 7.2, the EXPLAIN VERBOSE is set as
> a NOTICE message.  In 7.3 its sent as a query result (and is formated
> differently).




