1PSQL(1)                  PostgreSQL 13.3 Documentation                 PSQL(1)
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NAME

6       psql - PostgreSQL interactive terminal
7

SYNOPSIS

9       psql [option...] [dbname [username]]
10

DESCRIPTION

12       psql is a terminal-based front-end to PostgreSQL. It enables you to
13       type in queries interactively, issue them to PostgreSQL, and see the
14       query results. Alternatively, input can be from a file or from command
15       line arguments. In addition, psql provides a number of meta-commands
16       and various shell-like features to facilitate writing scripts and
17       automating a wide variety of tasks.
18

OPTIONS

20       -a
21       --echo-all
22           Print all nonempty input lines to standard output as they are read.
23           (This does not apply to lines read interactively.) This is
24           equivalent to setting the variable ECHO to all.
25
26       -A
27       --no-align
28           Switches to unaligned output mode. (The default output mode is
29           aligned.) This is equivalent to \pset format unaligned.
30
31       -b
32       --echo-errors
33           Print failed SQL commands to standard error output. This is
34           equivalent to setting the variable ECHO to errors.
35
36       -c command
37       --command=command
38           Specifies that psql is to execute the given command string,
39           command. This option can be repeated and combined in any order with
40           the -f option. When either -c or -f is specified, psql does not
41           read commands from standard input; instead it terminates after
42           processing all the -c and -f options in sequence.
43
44           command must be either a command string that is completely parsable
45           by the server (i.e., it contains no psql-specific features), or a
46           single backslash command. Thus you cannot mix SQL and psql
47           meta-commands within a -c option. To achieve that, you could use
48           repeated -c options or pipe the string into psql, for example:
49
50               psql -c '\x' -c 'SELECT * FROM foo;'
51
52           or
53
54               echo '\x \\ SELECT * FROM foo;' | psql
55
56           (\\ is the separator meta-command.)
57
58           Each SQL command string passed to -c is sent to the server as a
59           single request. Because of this, the server executes it as a single
60           transaction even if the string contains multiple SQL commands,
61           unless there are explicit BEGIN/COMMIT commands included in the
62           string to divide it into multiple transactions. (See
63           Section 52.2.2.1 for more details about how the server handles
64           multi-query strings.) Also, psql only prints the result of the last
65           SQL command in the string. This is different from the behavior when
66           the same string is read from a file or fed to psql's standard
67           input, because then psql sends each SQL command separately.
68
69           Because of this behavior, putting more than one SQL command in a
70           single -c string often has unexpected results. It's better to use
71           repeated -c commands or feed multiple commands to psql's standard
72           input, either using echo as illustrated above, or via a shell
73           here-document, for example:
74
75               psql <<EOF
76               \x
77               SELECT * FROM foo;
78               EOF
79
80       --csv
81           Switches to CSV (Comma-Separated Values) output mode. This is
82           equivalent to \pset format csv.
83
84       -d dbname
85       --dbname=dbname
86           Specifies the name of the database to connect to. This is
87           equivalent to specifying dbname as the first non-option argument on
88           the command line. The dbname can be a connection string. If so,
89           connection string parameters will override any conflicting command
90           line options.
91
92       -e
93       --echo-queries
94           Copy all SQL commands sent to the server to standard output as
95           well. This is equivalent to setting the variable ECHO to queries.
96
97       -E
98       --echo-hidden
99           Echo the actual queries generated by \d and other backslash
100           commands. You can use this to study psql's internal operations.
101           This is equivalent to setting the variable ECHO_HIDDEN to on.
102
103       -f filename
104       --file=filename
105           Read commands from the file filename, rather than standard input.
106           This option can be repeated and combined in any order with the -c
107           option. When either -c or -f is specified, psql does not read
108           commands from standard input; instead it terminates after
109           processing all the -c and -f options in sequence. Except for that,
110           this option is largely equivalent to the meta-command \i.
111
112           If filename is - (hyphen), then standard input is read until an EOF
113           indication or \q meta-command. This can be used to intersperse
114           interactive input with input from files. Note however that Readline
115           is not used in this case (much as if -n had been specified).
116
117           Using this option is subtly different from writing psql < filename.
118           In general, both will do what you expect, but using -f enables some
119           nice features such as error messages with line numbers. There is
120           also a slight chance that using this option will reduce the
121           start-up overhead. On the other hand, the variant using the shell's
122           input redirection is (in theory) guaranteed to yield exactly the
123           same output you would have received had you entered everything by
124           hand.
125
126       -F separator
127       --field-separator=separator
128           Use separator as the field separator for unaligned output. This is
129           equivalent to \pset fieldsep or \f.
130
131       -h hostname
132       --host=hostname
133           Specifies the host name of the machine on which the server is
134           running. If the value begins with a slash, it is used as the
135           directory for the Unix-domain socket.
136
137       -H
138       --html
139           Switches to HTML output mode. This is equivalent to \pset format
140           html or the \H command.
141
142       -l
143       --list
144           List all available databases, then exit. Other non-connection
145           options are ignored. This is similar to the meta-command \list.
146
147           When this option is used, psql will connect to the database
148           postgres, unless a different database is named on the command line
149           (option -d or non-option argument, possibly via a service entry,
150           but not via an environment variable).
151
152       -L filename
153       --log-file=filename
154           Write all query output into file filename, in addition to the
155           normal output destination.
156
157       -n
158       --no-readline
159           Do not use Readline for line editing and do not use the command
160           history. This can be useful to turn off tab expansion when cutting
161           and pasting.
162
163       -o filename
164       --output=filename
165           Put all query output into file filename. This is equivalent to the
166           command \o.
167
168       -p port
169       --port=port
170           Specifies the TCP port or the local Unix-domain socket file
171           extension on which the server is listening for connections.
172           Defaults to the value of the PGPORT environment variable or, if not
173           set, to the port specified at compile time, usually 5432.
174
175       -P assignment
176       --pset=assignment
177           Specifies printing options, in the style of \pset. Note that here
178           you have to separate name and value with an equal sign instead of a
179           space. For example, to set the output format to LaTeX, you could
180           write -P format=latex.
181
182       -q
183       --quiet
184           Specifies that psql should do its work quietly. By default, it
185           prints welcome messages and various informational output. If this
186           option is used, none of this happens. This is useful with the -c
187           option. This is equivalent to setting the variable QUIET to on.
188
189       -R separator
190       --record-separator=separator
191           Use separator as the record separator for unaligned output. This is
192           equivalent to \pset recordsep.
193
194       -s
195       --single-step
196           Run in single-step mode. That means the user is prompted before
197           each command is sent to the server, with the option to cancel
198           execution as well. Use this to debug scripts.
199
200       -S
201       --single-line
202           Runs in single-line mode where a newline terminates an SQL command,
203           as a semicolon does.
204
205               Note
206               This mode is provided for those who insist on it, but you are
207               not necessarily encouraged to use it. In particular, if you mix
208               SQL and meta-commands on a line the order of execution might
209               not always be clear to the inexperienced user.
210
211       -t
212       --tuples-only
213           Turn off printing of column names and result row count footers,
214           etc. This is equivalent to \t or \pset tuples_only.
215
216       -T table_options
217       --table-attr=table_options
218           Specifies options to be placed within the HTML table tag. See \pset
219           tableattr for details.
220
221       -U username
222       --username=username
223           Connect to the database as the user username instead of the
224           default. (You must have permission to do so, of course.)
225
226       -v assignment
227       --set=assignment
228       --variable=assignment
229           Perform a variable assignment, like the \set meta-command. Note
230           that you must separate name and value, if any, by an equal sign on
231           the command line. To unset a variable, leave off the equal sign. To
232           set a variable with an empty value, use the equal sign but leave
233           off the value. These assignments are done during command line
234           processing, so variables that reflect connection state will get
235           overwritten later.
236
237       -V
238       --version
239           Print the psql version and exit.
240
241       -w
242       --no-password
243           Never issue a password prompt. If the server requires password
244           authentication and a password is not available from other sources
245           such as a .pgpass file, the connection attempt will fail. This
246           option can be useful in batch jobs and scripts where no user is
247           present to enter a password.
248
249           Note that this option will remain set for the entire session, and
250           so it affects uses of the meta-command \connect as well as the
251           initial connection attempt.
252
253       -W
254       --password
255           Force psql to prompt for a password before connecting to a
256           database, even if the password will not be used.
257
258           If the server requires password authentication and a password is
259           not available from other sources such as a .pgpass file, psql will
260           prompt for a password in any case. However, psql will waste a
261           connection attempt finding out that the server wants a password. In
262           some cases it is worth typing -W to avoid the extra connection
263           attempt.
264
265           Note that this option will remain set for the entire session, and
266           so it affects uses of the meta-command \connect as well as the
267           initial connection attempt.
268
269       -x
270       --expanded
271           Turn on the expanded table formatting mode. This is equivalent to
272           \x or \pset expanded.
273
274       -X,
275       --no-psqlrc
276           Do not read the start-up file (neither the system-wide psqlrc file
277           nor the user's ~/.psqlrc file).
278
279       -z
280       --field-separator-zero
281           Set the field separator for unaligned output to a zero byte. This
282           is equivalent to \pset fieldsep_zero.
283
284       -0
285       --record-separator-zero
286           Set the record separator for unaligned output to a zero byte. This
287           is useful for interfacing, for example, with xargs -0. This is
288           equivalent to \pset recordsep_zero.
289
290       -1
291       --single-transaction
292           This option can only be used in combination with one or more -c
293           and/or -f options. It causes psql to issue a BEGIN command before
294           the first such option and a COMMIT command after the last one,
295           thereby wrapping all the commands into a single transaction. This
296           ensures that either all the commands complete successfully, or no
297           changes are applied.
298
299           If the commands themselves contain BEGIN, COMMIT, or ROLLBACK, this
300           option will not have the desired effects. Also, if an individual
301           command cannot be executed inside a transaction block, specifying
302           this option will cause the whole transaction to fail.
303
304       -?
305       --help[=topic]
306           Show help about psql and exit. The optional topic parameter
307           (defaulting to options) selects which part of psql is explained:
308           commands describes psql's backslash commands; options describes the
309           command-line options that can be passed to psql; and variables
310           shows help about psql configuration variables.
311

EXIT STATUS

313       psql returns 0 to the shell if it finished normally, 1 if a fatal error
314       of its own occurs (e.g., out of memory, file not found), 2 if the
315       connection to the server went bad and the session was not interactive,
316       and 3 if an error occurred in a script and the variable ON_ERROR_STOP
317       was set.
318

USAGE

320   Connecting to a Database
321       psql is a regular PostgreSQL client application. In order to connect to
322       a database you need to know the name of your target database, the host
323       name and port number of the server, and what user name you want to
324       connect as.  psql can be told about those parameters via command line
325       options, namely -d, -h, -p, and -U respectively. If an argument is
326       found that does not belong to any option it will be interpreted as the
327       database name (or the user name, if the database name is already
328       given). Not all of these options are required; there are useful
329       defaults. If you omit the host name, psql will connect via a
330       Unix-domain socket to a server on the local host, or via TCP/IP to
331       localhost on machines that don't have Unix-domain sockets. The default
332       port number is determined at compile time. Since the database server
333       uses the same default, you will not have to specify the port in most
334       cases. The default user name is your operating-system user name, as is
335       the default database name. Note that you cannot just connect to any
336       database under any user name. Your database administrator should have
337       informed you about your access rights.
338
339       When the defaults aren't quite right, you can save yourself some typing
340       by setting the environment variables PGDATABASE, PGHOST, PGPORT and/or
341       PGUSER to appropriate values. (For additional environment variables,
342       see Section 33.14.) It is also convenient to have a ~/.pgpass file to
343       avoid regularly having to type in passwords. See Section 33.15 for more
344       information.
345
346       An alternative way to specify connection parameters is in a conninfo
347       string or a URI, which is used instead of a database name. This
348       mechanism give you very wide control over the connection. For example:
349
350           $ psql "service=myservice sslmode=require"
351           $ psql postgresql://dbmaster:5433/mydb?sslmode=require
352
353       This way you can also use LDAP for connection parameter lookup as
354       described in Section 33.17. See Section 33.1.2 for more information on
355       all the available connection options.
356
357       If the connection could not be made for any reason (e.g., insufficient
358       privileges, server is not running on the targeted host, etc.), psql
359       will return an error and terminate.
360
361       If both standard input and standard output are a terminal, then psql
362       sets the client encoding to “auto”, which will detect the appropriate
363       client encoding from the locale settings (LC_CTYPE environment variable
364       on Unix systems). If this doesn't work out as expected, the client
365       encoding can be overridden using the environment variable
366       PGCLIENTENCODING.
367
368   Entering SQL Commands
369       In normal operation, psql provides a prompt with the name of the
370       database to which psql is currently connected, followed by the string
371       =>. For example:
372
373           $ psql testdb
374           psql (13.3)
375           Type "help" for help.
376
377           testdb=>
378
379       At the prompt, the user can type in SQL commands. Ordinarily, input
380       lines are sent to the server when a command-terminating semicolon is
381       reached. An end of line does not terminate a command. Thus commands can
382       be spread over several lines for clarity. If the command was sent and
383       executed without error, the results of the command are displayed on the
384       screen.
385
386       If untrusted users have access to a database that has not adopted a
387       secure schema usage pattern, begin your session by removing
388       publicly-writable schemas from search_path. One can add
389       options=-csearch_path= to the connection string or issue SELECT
390       pg_catalog.set_config('search_path', '', false) before other SQL
391       commands. This consideration is not specific to psql; it applies to
392       every interface for executing arbitrary SQL commands.
393
394       Whenever a command is executed, psql also polls for asynchronous
395       notification events generated by LISTEN(7) and NOTIFY(7).
396
397       While C-style block comments are passed to the server for processing
398       and removal, SQL-standard comments are removed by psql.
399
400   Meta-Commands
401       Anything you enter in psql that begins with an unquoted backslash is a
402       psql meta-command that is processed by psql itself. These commands make
403       psql more useful for administration or scripting. Meta-commands are
404       often called slash or backslash commands.
405
406       The format of a psql command is the backslash, followed immediately by
407       a command verb, then any arguments. The arguments are separated from
408       the command verb and each other by any number of whitespace characters.
409
410       To include whitespace in an argument you can quote it with single
411       quotes. To include a single quote in an argument, write two single
412       quotes within single-quoted text. Anything contained in single quotes
413       is furthermore subject to C-like substitutions for \n (new line), \t
414       (tab), \b (backspace), \r (carriage return), \f (form feed), \digits
415       (octal), and \xdigits (hexadecimal). A backslash preceding any other
416       character within single-quoted text quotes that single character,
417       whatever it is.
418
419       If an unquoted colon (:) followed by a psql variable name appears
420       within an argument, it is replaced by the variable's value, as
421       described in SQL Interpolation below. The forms :'variable_name' and
422       :"variable_name" described there work as well. The :{?variable_name}
423       syntax allows testing whether a variable is defined. It is substituted
424       by TRUE or FALSE. Escaping the colon with a backslash protects it from
425       substitution.
426
427       Within an argument, text that is enclosed in backquotes (`) is taken as
428       a command line that is passed to the shell. The output of the command
429       (with any trailing newline removed) replaces the backquoted text.
430       Within the text enclosed in backquotes, no special quoting or other
431       processing occurs, except that appearances of :variable_name where
432       variable_name is a psql variable name are replaced by the variable's
433       value. Also, appearances of :'variable_name' are replaced by the
434       variable's value suitably quoted to become a single shell command
435       argument. (The latter form is almost always preferable, unless you are
436       very sure of what is in the variable.) Because carriage return and line
437       feed characters cannot be safely quoted on all platforms, the
438       :'variable_name' form prints an error message and does not substitute
439       the variable value when such characters appear in the value.
440
441       Some commands take an SQL identifier (such as a table name) as
442       argument. These arguments follow the syntax rules of SQL: Unquoted
443       letters are forced to lowercase, while double quotes (") protect
444       letters from case conversion and allow incorporation of whitespace into
445       the identifier. Within double quotes, paired double quotes reduce to a
446       single double quote in the resulting name. For example, FOO"BAR"BAZ is
447       interpreted as fooBARbaz, and "A weird"" name" becomes A weird" name.
448
449       Parsing for arguments stops at the end of the line, or when another
450       unquoted backslash is found. An unquoted backslash is taken as the
451       beginning of a new meta-command. The special sequence \\ (two
452       backslashes) marks the end of arguments and continues parsing SQL
453       commands, if any. That way SQL and psql commands can be freely mixed on
454       a line. But in any case, the arguments of a meta-command cannot
455       continue beyond the end of the line.
456
457       Many of the meta-commands act on the current query buffer. This is
458       simply a buffer holding whatever SQL command text has been typed but
459       not yet sent to the server for execution. This will include previous
460       input lines as well as any text appearing before the meta-command on
461       the same line.
462
463       The following meta-commands are defined:
464
465       \a
466           If the current table output format is unaligned, it is switched to
467           aligned. If it is not unaligned, it is set to unaligned. This
468           command is kept for backwards compatibility. See \pset for a more
469           general solution.
470
471       \c or \connect [ -reuse-previous=on|off ] [ dbname [ username ] [ host
472       ] [ port ] | conninfo ]
473           Establishes a new connection to a PostgreSQL server. The connection
474           parameters to use can be specified either using a positional syntax
475           (one or more of database name, user, host, and port), or using a
476           conninfo connection string as detailed in Section 33.1.1. If no
477           arguments are given, a new connection is made using the same
478           parameters as before.
479
480           Specifying any of dbname, username, host or port as - is equivalent
481           to omitting that parameter.
482
483           The new connection can re-use connection parameters from the
484           previous connection; not only database name, user, host, and port,
485           but other settings such as sslmode. By default, parameters are
486           re-used in the positional syntax, but not when a conninfo string is
487           given. Passing a first argument of -reuse-previous=on or
488           -reuse-previous=off overrides that default. If parameters are
489           re-used, then any parameter not explicitly specified as a
490           positional parameter or in the conninfo string is taken from the
491           existing connection's parameters. An exception is that if the host
492           setting is changed from its previous value using the positional
493           syntax, any hostaddr setting present in the existing connection's
494           parameters is dropped. Also, any password used for the existing
495           connection will be re-used only if the user, host, and port
496           settings are not changed. When the command neither specifies nor
497           reuses a particular parameter, the libpq default is used.
498
499           If the new connection is successfully made, the previous connection
500           is closed. If the connection attempt fails (wrong user name, access
501           denied, etc.), the previous connection will be kept if psql is in
502           interactive mode. But when executing a non-interactive script,
503           processing will immediately stop with an error. This distinction
504           was chosen as a user convenience against typos on the one hand, and
505           a safety mechanism that scripts are not accidentally acting on the
506           wrong database on the other hand.
507
508           Examples:
509
510               => \c mydb myuser host.dom 6432
511               => \c service=foo
512               => \c "host=localhost port=5432 dbname=mydb connect_timeout=10 sslmode=disable"
513               => \c -reuse-previous=on sslmode=require    -- changes only sslmode
514               => \c postgresql://tom@localhost/mydb?application_name=myapp
515
516       \C [ title ]
517           Sets the title of any tables being printed as the result of a query
518           or unset any such title. This command is equivalent to \pset title
519           title. (The name of this command derives from “caption”, as it was
520           previously only used to set the caption in an HTML table.)
521
522       \cd [ directory ]
523           Changes the current working directory to directory. Without
524           argument, changes to the current user's home directory.
525
526               Tip
527               To print your current working directory, use \! pwd.
528
529       \conninfo
530           Outputs information about the current database connection.
531
532       \copy { table [ ( column_list ) ] } from { 'filename' | program
533       'command' | stdin | pstdin } [ [ with ] ( option [, ...] ) ] [ where
534       condition ]
535       \copy { table [ ( column_list ) ] | ( query ) } to { 'filename' |
536       program 'command' | stdout | pstdout } [ [ with ] ( option [, ...] ) ]
537           Performs a frontend (client) copy. This is an operation that runs
538           an SQL COPY(7) command, but instead of the server reading or
539           writing the specified file, psql reads or writes the file and
540           routes the data between the server and the local file system. This
541           means that file accessibility and privileges are those of the local
542           user, not the server, and no SQL superuser privileges are required.
543
544           When program is specified, command is executed by psql and the data
545           passed from or to command is routed between the server and the
546           client. Again, the execution privileges are those of the local
547           user, not the server, and no SQL superuser privileges are required.
548
549           For \copy ... from stdin, data rows are read from the same source
550           that issued the command, continuing until \.  is read or the stream
551           reaches EOF. This option is useful for populating tables in-line
552           within a SQL script file. For \copy ... to stdout, output is sent
553           to the same place as psql command output, and the COPY count
554           command status is not printed (since it might be confused with a
555           data row). To read/write psql's standard input or output regardless
556           of the current command source or \o option, write from pstdin or to
557           pstdout.
558
559           The syntax of this command is similar to that of the SQL COPY(7)
560           command. All options other than the data source/destination are as
561           specified for COPY(7). Because of this, special parsing rules apply
562           to the \copy meta-command. Unlike most other meta-commands, the
563           entire remainder of the line is always taken to be the arguments of
564           \copy, and neither variable interpolation nor backquote expansion
565           are performed in the arguments.
566
567               Tip
568               Another way to obtain the same result as \copy ... to is to use
569               the SQL COPY ... TO STDOUT command and terminate it with \g
570               filename or \g |program. Unlike \copy, this method allows the
571               command to span multiple lines; also, variable interpolation
572               and backquote expansion can be used.
573
574               Tip
575               These operations are not as efficient as the SQL COPY command
576               with a file or program data source or destination, because all
577               data must pass through the client/server connection. For large
578               amounts of data the SQL command might be preferable.
579
580       \copyright
581           Shows the copyright and distribution terms of PostgreSQL.
582
583       \crosstabview [ colV [ colH [ colD [ sortcolH ] ] ] ]
584           Executes the current query buffer (like \g) and shows the results
585           in a crosstab grid. The query must return at least three columns.
586           The output column identified by colV becomes a vertical header and
587           the output column identified by colH becomes a horizontal header.
588           colD identifies the output column to display within the grid.
589           sortcolH identifies an optional sort column for the horizontal
590           header.
591
592           Each column specification can be a column number (starting at 1) or
593           a column name. The usual SQL case folding and quoting rules apply
594           to column names. If omitted, colV is taken as column 1 and colH as
595           column 2.  colH must differ from colV. If colD is not specified,
596           then there must be exactly three columns in the query result, and
597           the column that is neither colV nor colH is taken to be colD.
598
599           The vertical header, displayed as the leftmost column, contains the
600           values found in column colV, in the same order as in the query
601           results, but with duplicates removed.
602
603           The horizontal header, displayed as the first row, contains the
604           values found in column colH, with duplicates removed. By default,
605           these appear in the same order as in the query results. But if the
606           optional sortcolH argument is given, it identifies a column whose
607           values must be integer numbers, and the values from colH will
608           appear in the horizontal header sorted according to the
609           corresponding sortcolH values.
610
611           Inside the crosstab grid, for each distinct value x of colH and
612           each distinct value y of colV, the cell located at the intersection
613           (x,y) contains the value of the colD column in the query result row
614           for which the value of colH is x and the value of colV is y. If
615           there is no such row, the cell is empty. If there are multiple such
616           rows, an error is reported.
617
618       \d[S+] [ pattern ]
619           For each relation (table, view, materialized view, index, sequence,
620           or foreign table) or composite type matching the pattern, show all
621           columns, their types, the tablespace (if not the default) and any
622           special attributes such as NOT NULL or defaults. Associated
623           indexes, constraints, rules, and triggers are also shown. For
624           foreign tables, the associated foreign server is shown as well.
625           (“Matching the pattern” is defined in Patterns below.)
626
627           For some types of relation, \d shows additional information for
628           each column: column values for sequences, indexed expressions for
629           indexes, and foreign data wrapper options for foreign tables.
630
631           The command form \d+ is identical, except that more information is
632           displayed: any comments associated with the columns of the table
633           are shown, as is the presence of OIDs in the table, the view
634           definition if the relation is a view, a non-default replica
635           identity setting.
636
637           By default, only user-created objects are shown; supply a pattern
638           or the S modifier to include system objects.
639
640               Note
641               If \d is used without a pattern argument, it is equivalent to
642               \dtvmsE which will show a list of all visible tables, views,
643               materialized views, sequences and foreign tables. This is
644               purely a convenience measure.
645
646       \da[S] [ pattern ]
647           Lists aggregate functions, together with their return type and the
648           data types they operate on. If pattern is specified, only
649           aggregates whose names match the pattern are shown. By default,
650           only user-created objects are shown; supply a pattern or the S
651           modifier to include system objects.
652
653       \dA[+] [ pattern ]
654           Lists access methods. If pattern is specified, only access methods
655           whose names match the pattern are shown. If + is appended to the
656           command name, each access method is listed with its associated
657           handler function and description.
658
659       \dAc[+] [access-method-pattern [input-type-pattern]]
660           Lists operator classes (see Section 37.16.1). If
661           access-method-pattern is specified, only operator classes
662           associated with access methods whose names match that pattern are
663           listed. If input-type-pattern is specified, only operator classes
664           associated with input types whose names match that pattern are
665           listed. If + is appended to the command name, each operator class
666           is listed with its associated operator family and owner.
667
668       \dAf[+] [access-method-pattern [input-type-pattern]]
669           Lists operator families (see Section 37.16.5). If
670           access-method-pattern is specified, only operator families
671           associated with access methods whose names match that pattern are
672           listed. If input-type-pattern is specified, only operator families
673           associated with input types whose names match that pattern are
674           listed. If + is appended to the command name, each operator family
675           is listed with its owner.
676
677       \dAo[+] [access-method-pattern [operator-family-pattern]]
678           Lists operators associated with operator families (see
679           Section 37.16.2). If access-method-pattern is specified, only
680           members of operator families associated with access methods whose
681           names match that pattern are listed. If operator-family-pattern is
682           specified, only members of operator families whose names match that
683           pattern are listed. If + is appended to the command name, each
684           operator is listed with its sort operator family (if it is an
685           ordering operator).
686
687       \dAp[+] [access-method-pattern [operator-family-pattern]]
688           Lists support functions associated with operator families (see
689           Section 37.16.3). If access-method-pattern is specified, only
690           functions of operator families associated with access methods whose
691           names match that pattern are listed. If operator-family-pattern is
692           specified, only functions of operator families whose names match
693           that pattern are listed. If + is appended to the command name,
694           functions are displayed verbosely, with their actual parameter
695           lists.
696
697       \db[+] [ pattern ]
698           Lists tablespaces. If pattern is specified, only tablespaces whose
699           names match the pattern are shown. If + is appended to the command
700           name, each tablespace is listed with its associated options,
701           on-disk size, permissions and description.
702
703       \dc[S+] [ pattern ]
704           Lists conversions between character-set encodings. If pattern is
705           specified, only conversions whose names match the pattern are
706           listed. By default, only user-created objects are shown; supply a
707           pattern or the S modifier to include system objects. If + is
708           appended to the command name, each object is listed with its
709           associated description.
710
711       \dC[+] [ pattern ]
712           Lists type casts. If pattern is specified, only casts whose source
713           or target types match the pattern are listed. If + is appended to
714           the command name, each object is listed with its associated
715           description.
716
717       \dd[S] [ pattern ]
718           Shows the descriptions of objects of type constraint, operator
719           class, operator family, rule, and trigger. All other comments may
720           be viewed by the respective backslash commands for those object
721           types.
722
723           \dd displays descriptions for objects matching the pattern, or of
724           visible objects of the appropriate type if no argument is given.
725           But in either case, only objects that have a description are
726           listed. By default, only user-created objects are shown; supply a
727           pattern or the S modifier to include system objects.
728
729           Descriptions for objects can be created with the COMMENT(7) SQL
730           command.
731
732       \dD[S+] [ pattern ]
733           Lists domains. If pattern is specified, only domains whose names
734           match the pattern are shown. By default, only user-created objects
735           are shown; supply a pattern or the S modifier to include system
736           objects. If + is appended to the command name, each object is
737           listed with its associated permissions and description.
738
739       \ddp [ pattern ]
740           Lists default access privilege settings. An entry is shown for each
741           role (and schema, if applicable) for which the default privilege
742           settings have been changed from the built-in defaults. If pattern
743           is specified, only entries whose role name or schema name matches
744           the pattern are listed.
745
746           The ALTER DEFAULT PRIVILEGES (ALTER_DEFAULT_PRIVILEGES(7)) command
747           is used to set default access privileges. The meaning of the
748           privilege display is explained in Section 5.7.
749
750       \dE[S+] [ pattern ]
751       \di[S+] [ pattern ]
752       \dm[S+] [ pattern ]
753       \ds[S+] [ pattern ]
754       \dt[S+] [ pattern ]
755       \dv[S+] [ pattern ]
756           In this group of commands, the letters E, i, m, s, t, and v stand
757           for foreign table, index, materialized view, sequence, table, and
758           view, respectively. You can specify any or all of these letters, in
759           any order, to obtain a listing of objects of these types. For
760           example, \dti lists tables and indexes. If + is appended to the
761           command name, each object is listed with its persistence status
762           (permanent, temporary, or unlogged), physical size on disk, and
763           associated description if any. If pattern is specified, only
764           objects whose names match the pattern are listed. By default, only
765           user-created objects are shown; supply a pattern or the S modifier
766           to include system objects.
767
768       \des[+] [ pattern ]
769           Lists foreign servers (mnemonic: “external servers”). If pattern is
770           specified, only those servers whose name matches the pattern are
771           listed. If the form \des+ is used, a full description of each
772           server is shown, including the server's access privileges, type,
773           version, options, and description.
774
775       \det[+] [ pattern ]
776           Lists foreign tables (mnemonic: “external tables”). If pattern is
777           specified, only entries whose table name or schema name matches the
778           pattern are listed. If the form \det+ is used, generic options and
779           the foreign table description are also displayed.
780
781       \deu[+] [ pattern ]
782           Lists user mappings (mnemonic: “external users”). If pattern is
783           specified, only those mappings whose user names match the pattern
784           are listed. If the form \deu+ is used, additional information about
785           each mapping is shown.
786
787               Caution
788               \deu+ might also display the user name and password of the
789               remote user, so care should be taken not to disclose them.
790
791       \dew[+] [ pattern ]
792           Lists foreign-data wrappers (mnemonic: “external wrappers”). If
793           pattern is specified, only those foreign-data wrappers whose name
794           matches the pattern are listed. If the form \dew+ is used, the
795           access privileges, options, and description of the foreign-data
796           wrapper are also shown.
797
798       \df[anptwS+] [ pattern ]
799           Lists functions, together with their result data types, argument
800           data types, and function types, which are classified as “agg”
801           (aggregate), “normal”, “procedure”, “trigger”, or “window”. To
802           display only functions of specific type(s), add the corresponding
803           letters a, n, p, t, or w to the command. If pattern is specified,
804           only functions whose names match the pattern are shown. By default,
805           only user-created objects are shown; supply a pattern or the S
806           modifier to include system objects. If the form \df+ is used,
807           additional information about each function is shown, including
808           volatility, parallel safety, owner, security classification, access
809           privileges, language, source code and description.
810
811               Tip
812               To look up functions taking arguments or returning values of a
813               specific data type, use your pager's search capability to
814               scroll through the \df output.
815
816       \dF[+] [ pattern ]
817           Lists text search configurations. If pattern is specified, only
818           configurations whose names match the pattern are shown. If the form
819           \dF+ is used, a full description of each configuration is shown,
820           including the underlying text search parser and the dictionary list
821           for each parser token type.
822
823       \dFd[+] [ pattern ]
824           Lists text search dictionaries. If pattern is specified, only
825           dictionaries whose names match the pattern are shown. If the form
826           \dFd+ is used, additional information is shown about each selected
827           dictionary, including the underlying text search template and the
828           option values.
829
830       \dFp[+] [ pattern ]
831           Lists text search parsers. If pattern is specified, only parsers
832           whose names match the pattern are shown. If the form \dFp+ is used,
833           a full description of each parser is shown, including the
834           underlying functions and the list of recognized token types.
835
836       \dFt[+] [ pattern ]
837           Lists text search templates. If pattern is specified, only
838           templates whose names match the pattern are shown. If the form
839           \dFt+ is used, additional information is shown about each template,
840           including the underlying function names.
841
842       \dg[S+] [ pattern ]
843           Lists database roles. (Since the concepts of “users” and “groups”
844           have been unified into “roles”, this command is now equivalent to
845           \du.) By default, only user-created roles are shown; supply the S
846           modifier to include system roles. If pattern is specified, only
847           those roles whose names match the pattern are listed. If the form
848           \dg+ is used, additional information is shown about each role;
849           currently this adds the comment for each role.
850
851       \dl
852           This is an alias for \lo_list, which shows a list of large objects.
853
854       \dL[S+] [ pattern ]
855           Lists procedural languages. If pattern is specified, only languages
856           whose names match the pattern are listed. By default, only
857           user-created languages are shown; supply the S modifier to include
858           system objects. If + is appended to the command name, each language
859           is listed with its call handler, validator, access privileges, and
860           whether it is a system object.
861
862       \dn[S+] [ pattern ]
863           Lists schemas (namespaces). If pattern is specified, only schemas
864           whose names match the pattern are listed. By default, only
865           user-created objects are shown; supply a pattern or the S modifier
866           to include system objects. If + is appended to the command name,
867           each object is listed with its associated permissions and
868           description, if any.
869
870       \do[S+] [ pattern ]
871           Lists operators with their operand and result types. If pattern is
872           specified, only operators whose names match the pattern are listed.
873           By default, only user-created objects are shown; supply a pattern
874           or the S modifier to include system objects. If + is appended to
875           the command name, additional information about each operator is
876           shown, currently just the name of the underlying function.
877
878       \dO[S+] [ pattern ]
879           Lists collations. If pattern is specified, only collations whose
880           names match the pattern are listed. By default, only user-created
881           objects are shown; supply a pattern or the S modifier to include
882           system objects. If + is appended to the command name, each
883           collation is listed with its associated description, if any. Note
884           that only collations usable with the current database's encoding
885           are shown, so the results may vary in different databases of the
886           same installation.
887
888       \dp [ pattern ]
889           Lists tables, views and sequences with their associated access
890           privileges. If pattern is specified, only tables, views and
891           sequences whose names match the pattern are listed.
892
893           The GRANT(7) and REVOKE(7) commands are used to set access
894           privileges. The meaning of the privilege display is explained in
895           Section 5.7.
896
897       \dP[itn+] [ pattern ]
898           Lists partitioned relations. If pattern is specified, only entries
899           whose name matches the pattern are listed. The modifiers t (tables)
900           and i (indexes) can be appended to the command, filtering the kind
901           of relations to list. By default, partitioned tables and indexes
902           are listed.
903
904           If the modifier n (“nested”) is used, or a pattern is specified,
905           then non-root partitioned relations are included, and a column is
906           shown displaying the parent of each partitioned relation.
907
908           If + is appended to the command name, the sum of the sizes of each
909           relation's partitions is also displayed, along with the relation's
910           description. If n is combined with +, two sizes are shown: one
911           including the total size of directly-attached leaf partitions, and
912           another showing the total size of all partitions, including
913           indirectly attached sub-partitions.
914
915       \drds [ role-pattern [ database-pattern ] ]
916           Lists defined configuration settings. These settings can be
917           role-specific, database-specific, or both.  role-pattern and
918           database-pattern are used to select specific roles and databases to
919           list, respectively. If omitted, or if * is specified, all settings
920           are listed, including those not role-specific or database-specific,
921           respectively.
922
923           The ALTER ROLE (ALTER_ROLE(7)) and ALTER DATABASE
924           (ALTER_DATABASE(7)) commands are used to define per-role and
925           per-database configuration settings.
926
927       \dRp[+] [ pattern ]
928           Lists replication publications. If pattern is specified, only those
929           publications whose names match the pattern are listed. If + is
930           appended to the command name, the tables associated with each
931           publication are shown as well.
932
933       \dRs[+] [ pattern ]
934           Lists replication subscriptions. If pattern is specified, only
935           those subscriptions whose names match the pattern are listed. If +
936           is appended to the command name, additional properties of the
937           subscriptions are shown.
938
939       \dT[S+] [ pattern ]
940           Lists data types. If pattern is specified, only types whose names
941           match the pattern are listed. If + is appended to the command name,
942           each type is listed with its internal name and size, its allowed
943           values if it is an enum type, and its associated permissions. By
944           default, only user-created objects are shown; supply a pattern or
945           the S modifier to include system objects.
946
947       \du[S+] [ pattern ]
948           Lists database roles. (Since the concepts of “users” and “groups”
949           have been unified into “roles”, this command is now equivalent to
950           \dg.) By default, only user-created roles are shown; supply the S
951           modifier to include system roles. If pattern is specified, only
952           those roles whose names match the pattern are listed. If the form
953           \du+ is used, additional information is shown about each role;
954           currently this adds the comment for each role.
955
956       \dx[+] [ pattern ]
957           Lists installed extensions. If pattern is specified, only those
958           extensions whose names match the pattern are listed. If the form
959           \dx+ is used, all the objects belonging to each matching extension
960           are listed.
961
962       \dy[+] [ pattern ]
963           Lists event triggers. If pattern is specified, only those event
964           triggers whose names match the pattern are listed. If + is appended
965           to the command name, each object is listed with its associated
966           description.
967
968       \e or \edit [ filename ] [ line_number ]
969           If filename is specified, the file is edited; after the editor
970           exits, the file's content is copied into the current query buffer.
971           If no filename is given, the current query buffer is copied to a
972           temporary file which is then edited in the same fashion. Or, if the
973           current query buffer is empty, the most recently executed query is
974           copied to a temporary file and edited in the same fashion.
975
976           The new contents of the query buffer are then re-parsed according
977           to the normal rules of psql, treating the whole buffer as a single
978           line. Any complete queries are immediately executed; that is, if
979           the query buffer contains or ends with a semicolon, everything up
980           to that point is executed and removed from the query buffer.
981           Whatever remains in the query buffer is redisplayed. Type semicolon
982           or \g to send it, or \r to cancel it by clearing the query buffer.
983
984           Treating the buffer as a single line primarily affects
985           meta-commands: whatever is in the buffer after a meta-command will
986           be taken as argument(s) to the meta-command, even if it spans
987           multiple lines. (Thus you cannot make meta-command-using scripts
988           this way. Use \i for that.)
989
990           If a line number is specified, psql will position the cursor on the
991           specified line of the file or query buffer. Note that if a single
992           all-digits argument is given, psql assumes it is a line number, not
993           a file name.
994
995               Tip
996               See Environment, below, for how to configure and customize your
997               editor.
998
999       \echo text [ ... ]
1000           Prints the evaluated arguments to standard output, separated by
1001           spaces and followed by a newline. This can be useful to intersperse
1002           information in the output of scripts. For example:
1003
1004               => \echo `date`
1005               Tue Oct 26 21:40:57 CEST 1999
1006
1007           If the first argument is an unquoted -n the trailing newline is not
1008           written (nor is the first argument).
1009
1010               Tip
1011               If you use the \o command to redirect your query output you
1012               might wish to use \qecho instead of this command. See also
1013               \warn.
1014
1015       \ef [ function_description [ line_number ] ]
1016           This command fetches and edits the definition of the named function
1017           or procedure, in the form of a CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION or CREATE
1018           OR REPLACE PROCEDURE command. Editing is done in the same way as
1019           for \edit. After the editor exits, the updated command is executed
1020           immediately if you added a semicolon to it. Otherwise it is
1021           redisplayed; type semicolon or \g to send it, or \r to cancel.
1022
1023           The target function can be specified by name alone, or by name and
1024           arguments, for example foo(integer, text). The argument types must
1025           be given if there is more than one function of the same name.
1026
1027           If no function is specified, a blank CREATE FUNCTION template is
1028           presented for editing.
1029
1030           If a line number is specified, psql will position the cursor on the
1031           specified line of the function body. (Note that the function body
1032           typically does not begin on the first line of the file.)
1033
1034           Unlike most other meta-commands, the entire remainder of the line
1035           is always taken to be the argument(s) of \ef, and neither variable
1036           interpolation nor backquote expansion are performed in the
1037           arguments.
1038
1039               Tip
1040               See Environment, below, for how to configure and customize your
1041               editor.
1042
1043       \encoding [ encoding ]
1044           Sets the client character set encoding. Without an argument, this
1045           command shows the current encoding.
1046
1047       \errverbose
1048           Repeats the most recent server error message at maximum verbosity,
1049           as though VERBOSITY were set to verbose and SHOW_CONTEXT were set
1050           to always.
1051
1052       \ev [ view_name [ line_number ] ]
1053           This command fetches and edits the definition of the named view, in
1054           the form of a CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW command. Editing is done in
1055           the same way as for \edit. After the editor exits, the updated
1056           command is executed immediately if you added a semicolon to it.
1057           Otherwise it is redisplayed; type semicolon or \g to send it, or \r
1058           to cancel.
1059
1060           If no view is specified, a blank CREATE VIEW template is presented
1061           for editing.
1062
1063           If a line number is specified, psql will position the cursor on the
1064           specified line of the view definition.
1065
1066           Unlike most other meta-commands, the entire remainder of the line
1067           is always taken to be the argument(s) of \ev, and neither variable
1068           interpolation nor backquote expansion are performed in the
1069           arguments.
1070
1071       \f [ string ]
1072           Sets the field separator for unaligned query output. The default is
1073           the vertical bar (|). It is equivalent to \pset fieldsep.
1074
1075       \g [ (option=value [...]) ] [ filename ]
1076       \g [ (option=value [...]) ] [ |command ]
1077           Sends the current query buffer to the server for execution.
1078
1079           If parentheses appear after \g, they surround a space-separated
1080           list of option=value formatting-option clauses, which are
1081           interpreted in the same way as \pset option value commands, but
1082           take effect only for the duration of this query. In this list,
1083           spaces are not allowed around = signs, but are required between
1084           option clauses. If =value is omitted, the named option is changed
1085           in the same way as for \pset option with no explicit value.
1086
1087           If a filename or |command argument is given, the query's output is
1088           written to the named file or piped to the given shell command,
1089           instead of displaying it as usual. The file or command is written
1090           to only if the query successfully returns zero or more tuples, not
1091           if the query fails or is a non-data-returning SQL command.
1092
1093           If the current query buffer is empty, the most recently sent query
1094           is re-executed instead. Except for that behavior, \g without any
1095           arguments is essentially equivalent to a semicolon. With arguments,
1096           \g provides a “one-shot” alternative to the \o command, and
1097           additionally allows one-shot adjustments of the output formatting
1098           options normally set by \pset.
1099
1100           When the last argument begins with |, the entire remainder of the
1101           line is taken to be the command to execute, and neither variable
1102           interpolation nor backquote expansion are performed in it. The rest
1103           of the line is simply passed literally to the shell.
1104
1105       \gdesc
1106           Shows the description (that is, the column names and data types) of
1107           the result of the current query buffer. The query is not actually
1108           executed; however, if it contains some type of syntax error, that
1109           error will be reported in the normal way.
1110
1111           If the current query buffer is empty, the most recently sent query
1112           is described instead.
1113
1114       \gexec
1115           Sends the current query buffer to the server, then treats each
1116           column of each row of the query's output (if any) as a SQL
1117           statement to be executed. For example, to create an index on each
1118           column of my_table:
1119
1120               => SELECT format('create index on my_table(%I)', attname)
1121               -> FROM pg_attribute
1122               -> WHERE attrelid = 'my_table'::regclass AND attnum > 0
1123               -> ORDER BY attnum
1124               -> \gexec
1125               CREATE INDEX
1126               CREATE INDEX
1127               CREATE INDEX
1128               CREATE INDEX
1129
1130           The generated queries are executed in the order in which the rows
1131           are returned, and left-to-right within each row if there is more
1132           than one column. NULL fields are ignored. The generated queries are
1133           sent literally to the server for processing, so they cannot be psql
1134           meta-commands nor contain psql variable references. If any
1135           individual query fails, execution of the remaining queries
1136           continues unless ON_ERROR_STOP is set. Execution of each query is
1137           subject to ECHO processing. (Setting ECHO to all or queries is
1138           often advisable when using \gexec.) Query logging, single-step
1139           mode, timing, and other query execution features apply to each
1140           generated query as well.
1141
1142           If the current query buffer is empty, the most recently sent query
1143           is re-executed instead.
1144
1145       \gset [ prefix ]
1146           Sends the current query buffer to the server and stores the query's
1147           output into psql variables (see Variables below). The query to be
1148           executed must return exactly one row. Each column of the row is
1149           stored into a separate variable, named the same as the column. For
1150           example:
1151
1152               => SELECT 'hello' AS var1, 10 AS var2
1153               -> \gset
1154               => \echo :var1 :var2
1155               hello 10
1156
1157           If you specify a prefix, that string is prepended to the query's
1158           column names to create the variable names to use:
1159
1160               => SELECT 'hello' AS var1, 10 AS var2
1161               -> \gset result_
1162               => \echo :result_var1 :result_var2
1163               hello 10
1164
1165           If a column result is NULL, the corresponding variable is unset
1166           rather than being set.
1167
1168           If the query fails or does not return one row, no variables are
1169           changed.
1170
1171           If the current query buffer is empty, the most recently sent query
1172           is re-executed instead.
1173
1174       \gx [ (option=value [...]) ] [ filename ]
1175       \gx [ (option=value [...]) ] [ |command ]
1176           \gx is equivalent to \g, except that it forces expanded output mode
1177           for this query, as if expanded=on were included in the list of
1178           \pset options. See also \x.
1179
1180       \h or \help [ command ]
1181           Gives syntax help on the specified SQL command. If command is not
1182           specified, then psql will list all the commands for which syntax
1183           help is available. If command is an asterisk (*), then syntax help
1184           on all SQL commands is shown.
1185
1186           Unlike most other meta-commands, the entire remainder of the line
1187           is always taken to be the argument(s) of \help, and neither
1188           variable interpolation nor backquote expansion are performed in the
1189           arguments.
1190
1191               Note
1192               To simplify typing, commands that consists of several words do
1193               not have to be quoted. Thus it is fine to type \help alter
1194               table.
1195
1196       \H or \html
1197           Turns on HTML query output format. If the HTML format is already
1198           on, it is switched back to the default aligned text format. This
1199           command is for compatibility and convenience, but see \pset about
1200           setting other output options.
1201
1202       \i or \include filename
1203           Reads input from the file filename and executes it as though it had
1204           been typed on the keyboard.
1205
1206           If filename is - (hyphen), then standard input is read until an EOF
1207           indication or \q meta-command. This can be used to intersperse
1208           interactive input with input from files. Note that Readline
1209           behavior will be used only if it is active at the outermost level.
1210
1211               Note
1212               If you want to see the lines on the screen as they are read you
1213               must set the variable ECHO to all.
1214
1215       \if expression
1216       \elif expression
1217       \else
1218       \endif
1219           This group of commands implements nestable conditional blocks. A
1220           conditional block must begin with an \if and end with an \endif. In
1221           between there may be any number of \elif clauses, which may
1222           optionally be followed by a single \else clause. Ordinary queries
1223           and other types of backslash commands may (and usually do) appear
1224           between the commands forming a conditional block.
1225
1226           The \if and \elif commands read their argument(s) and evaluate them
1227           as a boolean expression. If the expression yields true then
1228           processing continues normally; otherwise, lines are skipped until a
1229           matching \elif, \else, or \endif is reached. Once an \if or \elif
1230           test has succeeded, the arguments of later \elif commands in the
1231           same block are not evaluated but are treated as false. Lines
1232           following an \else are processed only if no earlier matching \if or
1233           \elif succeeded.
1234
1235           The expression argument of an \if or \elif command is subject to
1236           variable interpolation and backquote expansion, just like any other
1237           backslash command argument. After that it is evaluated like the
1238           value of an on/off option variable. So a valid value is any
1239           unambiguous case-insensitive match for one of: true, false, 1, 0,
1240           on, off, yes, no. For example, t, T, and tR will all be considered
1241           to be true.
1242
1243           Expressions that do not properly evaluate to true or false will
1244           generate a warning and be treated as false.
1245
1246           Lines being skipped are parsed normally to identify queries and
1247           backslash commands, but queries are not sent to the server, and
1248           backslash commands other than conditionals (\if, \elif, \else,
1249           \endif) are ignored. Conditional commands are checked only for
1250           valid nesting. Variable references in skipped lines are not
1251           expanded, and backquote expansion is not performed either.
1252
1253           All the backslash commands of a given conditional block must appear
1254           in the same source file. If EOF is reached on the main input file
1255           or an \include-ed file before all local \if-blocks have been
1256           closed, then psql will raise an error.
1257
1258           Here is an example:
1259
1260               -- check for the existence of two separate records in the database and store
1261               -- the results in separate psql variables
1262               SELECT
1263                   EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM customer WHERE customer_id = 123) as is_customer,
1264                   EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM employee WHERE employee_id = 456) as is_employee
1265               \gset
1266               \if :is_customer
1267                   SELECT * FROM customer WHERE customer_id = 123;
1268               \elif :is_employee
1269                   \echo 'is not a customer but is an employee'
1270                   SELECT * FROM employee WHERE employee_id = 456;
1271               \else
1272                   \if yes
1273                       \echo 'not a customer or employee'
1274                   \else
1275                       \echo 'this will never print'
1276                   \endif
1277               \endif
1278
1279       \ir or \include_relative filename
1280           The \ir command is similar to \i, but resolves relative file names
1281           differently. When executing in interactive mode, the two commands
1282           behave identically. However, when invoked from a script, \ir
1283           interprets file names relative to the directory in which the script
1284           is located, rather than the current working directory.
1285
1286       \l[+] or \list[+] [ pattern ]
1287           List the databases in the server and show their names, owners,
1288           character set encodings, and access privileges. If pattern is
1289           specified, only databases whose names match the pattern are listed.
1290           If + is appended to the command name, database sizes, default
1291           tablespaces, and descriptions are also displayed. (Size information
1292           is only available for databases that the current user can connect
1293           to.)
1294
1295       \lo_export loid filename
1296           Reads the large object with OID loid from the database and writes
1297           it to filename. Note that this is subtly different from the server
1298           function lo_export, which acts with the permissions of the user
1299           that the database server runs as and on the server's file system.
1300
1301               Tip
1302               Use \lo_list to find out the large object's OID.
1303
1304       \lo_import filename [ comment ]
1305           Stores the file into a PostgreSQL large object. Optionally, it
1306           associates the given comment with the object. Example:
1307
1308               foo=> \lo_import '/home/peter/pictures/photo.xcf' 'a picture of me'
1309               lo_import 152801
1310
1311           The response indicates that the large object received object ID
1312           152801, which can be used to access the newly-created large object
1313           in the future. For the sake of readability, it is recommended to
1314           always associate a human-readable comment with every object. Both
1315           OIDs and comments can be viewed with the \lo_list command.
1316
1317           Note that this command is subtly different from the server-side
1318           lo_import because it acts as the local user on the local file
1319           system, rather than the server's user and file system.
1320
1321       \lo_list
1322           Shows a list of all PostgreSQL large objects currently stored in
1323           the database, along with any comments provided for them.
1324
1325       \lo_unlink loid
1326           Deletes the large object with OID loid from the database.
1327
1328               Tip
1329               Use \lo_list to find out the large object's OID.
1330
1331       \o or \out [ filename ]
1332       \o or \out [ |command ]
1333           Arranges to save future query results to the file filename or pipe
1334           future results to the shell command command. If no argument is
1335           specified, the query output is reset to the standard output.
1336
1337           If the argument begins with |, then the entire remainder of the
1338           line is taken to be the command to execute, and neither variable
1339           interpolation nor backquote expansion are performed in it. The rest
1340           of the line is simply passed literally to the shell.
1341
1342           “Query results” includes all tables, command responses, and notices
1343           obtained from the database server, as well as output of various
1344           backslash commands that query the database (such as \d); but not
1345           error messages.
1346
1347               Tip
1348               To intersperse text output in between query results, use
1349               \qecho.
1350
1351       \p or \print
1352           Print the current query buffer to the standard output. If the
1353           current query buffer is empty, the most recently executed query is
1354           printed instead.
1355
1356       \password [ username ]
1357           Changes the password of the specified user (by default, the current
1358           user). This command prompts for the new password, encrypts it, and
1359           sends it to the server as an ALTER ROLE command. This makes sure
1360           that the new password does not appear in cleartext in the command
1361           history, the server log, or elsewhere.
1362
1363       \prompt [ text ] name
1364           Prompts the user to supply text, which is assigned to the variable
1365           name. An optional prompt string, text, can be specified. (For
1366           multiword prompts, surround the text with single quotes.)
1367
1368           By default, \prompt uses the terminal for input and output.
1369           However, if the -f command line switch was used, \prompt uses
1370           standard input and standard output.
1371
1372       \pset [ option [ value ] ]
1373           This command sets options affecting the output of query result
1374           tables.  option indicates which option is to be set. The semantics
1375           of value vary depending on the selected option. For some options,
1376           omitting value causes the option to be toggled or unset, as
1377           described under the particular option. If no such behavior is
1378           mentioned, then omitting value just results in the current setting
1379           being displayed.
1380
1381           \pset without any arguments displays the current status of all
1382           printing options.
1383
1384           Adjustable printing options are:
1385
1386           border
1387               The value must be a number. In general, the higher the number
1388               the more borders and lines the tables will have, but details
1389               depend on the particular format. In HTML format, this will
1390               translate directly into the border=...  attribute. In most
1391               other formats only values 0 (no border), 1 (internal dividing
1392               lines), and 2 (table frame) make sense, and values above 2 will
1393               be treated the same as border = 2. The latex and
1394               latex-longtable formats additionally allow a value of 3 to add
1395               dividing lines between data rows.
1396
1397           columns
1398               Sets the target width for the wrapped format, and also the
1399               width limit for determining whether output is wide enough to
1400               require the pager or switch to the vertical display in expanded
1401               auto mode. Zero (the default) causes the target width to be
1402               controlled by the environment variable COLUMNS, or the detected
1403               screen width if COLUMNS is not set. In addition, if columns is
1404               zero then the wrapped format only affects screen output. If
1405               columns is nonzero then file and pipe output is wrapped to that
1406               width as well.
1407
1408           csv_fieldsep
1409               Specifies the field separator to be used in CSV output format.
1410               If the separator character appears in a field's value, that
1411               field is output within double quotes, following standard CSV
1412               rules. The default is a comma.
1413
1414           expanded (or x)
1415               If value is specified it must be either on or off, which will
1416               enable or disable expanded mode, or auto. If value is omitted
1417               the command toggles between the on and off settings. When
1418               expanded mode is enabled, query results are displayed in two
1419               columns, with the column name on the left and the data on the
1420               right. This mode is useful if the data wouldn't fit on the
1421               screen in the normal “horizontal” mode. In the auto setting,
1422               the expanded mode is used whenever the query output has more
1423               than one column and is wider than the screen; otherwise, the
1424               regular mode is used. The auto setting is only effective in the
1425               aligned and wrapped formats. In other formats, it always
1426               behaves as if the expanded mode is off.
1427
1428           fieldsep
1429               Specifies the field separator to be used in unaligned output
1430               format. That way one can create, for example, tab-separated
1431               output, which other programs might prefer. To set a tab as
1432               field separator, type \pset fieldsep '\t'. The default field
1433               separator is '|' (a vertical bar).
1434
1435           fieldsep_zero
1436               Sets the field separator to use in unaligned output format to a
1437               zero byte.
1438
1439           footer
1440               If value is specified it must be either on or off which will
1441               enable or disable display of the table footer (the (n rows)
1442               count). If value is omitted the command toggles footer display
1443               on or off.
1444
1445           format
1446               Sets the output format to one of aligned, asciidoc, csv, html,
1447               latex, latex-longtable, troff-ms, unaligned, or wrapped. Unique
1448               abbreviations are allowed.
1449
1450               aligned format is the standard, human-readable, nicely
1451               formatted text output; this is the default.
1452
1453               unaligned format writes all columns of a row on one line,
1454               separated by the currently active field separator. This is
1455               useful for creating output that might be intended to be read in
1456               by other programs, for example, tab-separated or
1457               comma-separated format. However, the field separator character
1458               is not treated specially if it appears in a column's value; so
1459               CSV format may be better suited for such purposes.
1460
1461               csv format
1462
1463               writes column values separated by commas, applying the quoting
1464               rules described in RFC 4180. This output is compatible with the
1465               CSV format of the server's COPY command. A header line with
1466               column names is generated unless the tuples_only parameter is
1467               on. Titles and footers are not printed. Each row is terminated
1468               by the system-dependent end-of-line character, which is
1469               typically a single newline (\n) for Unix-like systems or a
1470               carriage return and newline sequence (\r\n) for Microsoft
1471               Windows. Field separator characters other than comma can be
1472               selected with \pset csv_fieldsep.
1473
1474               wrapped format is like aligned but wraps wide data values
1475               across lines to make the output fit in the target column width.
1476               The target width is determined as described under the columns
1477               option. Note that psql will not attempt to wrap column header
1478               titles; therefore, wrapped format behaves the same as aligned
1479               if the total width needed for column headers exceeds the
1480               target.
1481
1482               The asciidoc, html, latex, latex-longtable, and troff-ms
1483               formats put out tables that are intended to be included in
1484               documents using the respective mark-up language. They are not
1485               complete documents! This might not be necessary in HTML, but in
1486               LaTeX you must have a complete document wrapper. The latex
1487               format uses LaTeX's tabular environment. The latex-longtable
1488               format requires the LaTeX longtable and booktabs packages.
1489
1490           linestyle
1491               Sets the border line drawing style to one of ascii, old-ascii,
1492               or unicode. Unique abbreviations are allowed. (That would mean
1493               one letter is enough.) The default setting is ascii. This
1494               option only affects the aligned and wrapped output formats.
1495
1496               ascii style uses plain ASCII characters. Newlines in data are
1497               shown using a + symbol in the right-hand margin. When the
1498               wrapped format wraps data from one line to the next without a
1499               newline character, a dot (.) is shown in the right-hand margin
1500               of the first line, and again in the left-hand margin of the
1501               following line.
1502
1503               old-ascii style uses plain ASCII characters, using the
1504               formatting style used in PostgreSQL 8.4 and earlier. Newlines
1505               in data are shown using a : symbol in place of the left-hand
1506               column separator. When the data is wrapped from one line to the
1507               next without a newline character, a ; symbol is used in place
1508               of the left-hand column separator.
1509
1510               unicode style uses Unicode box-drawing characters. Newlines in
1511               data are shown using a carriage return symbol in the right-hand
1512               margin. When the data is wrapped from one line to the next
1513               without a newline character, an ellipsis symbol is shown in the
1514               right-hand margin of the first line, and again in the left-hand
1515               margin of the following line.
1516
1517               When the border setting is greater than zero, the linestyle
1518               option also determines the characters with which the border
1519               lines are drawn. Plain ASCII characters work everywhere, but
1520               Unicode characters look nicer on displays that recognize them.
1521
1522           null
1523               Sets the string to be printed in place of a null value. The
1524               default is to print nothing, which can easily be mistaken for
1525               an empty string. For example, one might prefer \pset null
1526               '(null)'.
1527
1528           numericlocale
1529               If value is specified it must be either on or off which will
1530               enable or disable display of a locale-specific character to
1531               separate groups of digits to the left of the decimal marker. If
1532               value is omitted the command toggles between regular and
1533               locale-specific numeric output.
1534
1535           pager
1536               Controls use of a pager program for query and psql help output.
1537               If the environment variable PSQL_PAGER or PAGER is set, the
1538               output is piped to the specified program. Otherwise a
1539               platform-dependent default program (such as more) is used.
1540
1541               When the pager option is off, the pager program is not used.
1542               When the pager option is on, the pager is used when
1543               appropriate, i.e., when the output is to a terminal and will
1544               not fit on the screen. The pager option can also be set to
1545               always, which causes the pager to be used for all terminal
1546               output regardless of whether it fits on the screen.  \pset
1547               pager without a value toggles pager use on and off.
1548
1549           pager_min_lines
1550               If pager_min_lines is set to a number greater than the page
1551               height, the pager program will not be called unless there are
1552               at least this many lines of output to show. The default setting
1553               is 0.
1554
1555           recordsep
1556               Specifies the record (line) separator to use in unaligned
1557               output format. The default is a newline character.
1558
1559           recordsep_zero
1560               Sets the record separator to use in unaligned output format to
1561               a zero byte.
1562
1563           tableattr (or T)
1564               In HTML format, this specifies attributes to be placed inside
1565               the table tag. This could for example be cellpadding or
1566               bgcolor. Note that you probably don't want to specify border
1567               here, as that is already taken care of by \pset border. If no
1568               value is given, the table attributes are unset.
1569
1570               In latex-longtable format, this controls the proportional width
1571               of each column containing a left-aligned data type. It is
1572               specified as a whitespace-separated list of values, e.g., '0.2
1573               0.2 0.6'. Unspecified output columns use the last specified
1574               value.
1575
1576           title (or C)
1577               Sets the table title for any subsequently printed tables. This
1578               can be used to give your output descriptive tags. If no value
1579               is given, the title is unset.
1580
1581           tuples_only (or t)
1582               If value is specified it must be either on or off which will
1583               enable or disable tuples-only mode. If value is omitted the
1584               command toggles between regular and tuples-only output. Regular
1585               output includes extra information such as column headers,
1586               titles, and various footers. In tuples-only mode, only actual
1587               table data is shown.
1588
1589           unicode_border_linestyle
1590               Sets the border drawing style for the unicode line style to one
1591               of single or double.
1592
1593           unicode_column_linestyle
1594               Sets the column drawing style for the unicode line style to one
1595               of single or double.
1596
1597           unicode_header_linestyle
1598               Sets the header drawing style for the unicode line style to one
1599               of single or double.
1600
1601           Illustrations of how these different formats look can be seen in
1602           Examples, below.
1603
1604               Tip
1605               There are various shortcut commands for \pset. See \a, \C, \f,
1606               \H, \t, \T, and \x.
1607
1608       \q or \quit
1609           Quits the psql program. In a script file, only execution of that
1610           script is terminated.
1611
1612       \qecho text [ ... ]
1613           This command is identical to \echo except that the output will be
1614           written to the query output channel, as set by \o.
1615
1616       \r or \reset
1617           Resets (clears) the query buffer.
1618
1619       \s [ filename ]
1620           Print psql's command line history to filename. If filename is
1621           omitted, the history is written to the standard output (using the
1622           pager if appropriate). This command is not available if psql was
1623           built without Readline support.
1624
1625       \set [ name [ value [ ... ] ] ]
1626           Sets the psql variable name to value, or if more than one value is
1627           given, to the concatenation of all of them. If only one argument is
1628           given, the variable is set to an empty-string value. To unset a
1629           variable, use the \unset command.
1630
1631           \set without any arguments displays the names and values of all
1632           currently-set psql variables.
1633
1634           Valid variable names can contain letters, digits, and underscores.
1635           See Variables below for details. Variable names are case-sensitive.
1636
1637           Certain variables are special, in that they control psql's behavior
1638           or are automatically set to reflect connection state. These
1639           variables are documented in Variables, below.
1640
1641               Note
1642               This command is unrelated to the SQL command SET(7).
1643
1644       \setenv name [ value ]
1645           Sets the environment variable name to value, or if the value is not
1646           supplied, unsets the environment variable. Example:
1647
1648               testdb=> \setenv PAGER less
1649               testdb=> \setenv LESS -imx4F
1650
1651       \sf[+] function_description
1652           This command fetches and shows the definition of the named function
1653           or procedure, in the form of a CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION or CREATE
1654           OR REPLACE PROCEDURE command. The definition is printed to the
1655           current query output channel, as set by \o.
1656
1657           The target function can be specified by name alone, or by name and
1658           arguments, for example foo(integer, text). The argument types must
1659           be given if there is more than one function of the same name.
1660
1661           If + is appended to the command name, then the output lines are
1662           numbered, with the first line of the function body being line 1.
1663
1664           Unlike most other meta-commands, the entire remainder of the line
1665           is always taken to be the argument(s) of \sf, and neither variable
1666           interpolation nor backquote expansion are performed in the
1667           arguments.
1668
1669       \sv[+] view_name
1670           This command fetches and shows the definition of the named view, in
1671           the form of a CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW command. The definition is
1672           printed to the current query output channel, as set by \o.
1673
1674           If + is appended to the command name, then the output lines are
1675           numbered from 1.
1676
1677           Unlike most other meta-commands, the entire remainder of the line
1678           is always taken to be the argument(s) of \sv, and neither variable
1679           interpolation nor backquote expansion are performed in the
1680           arguments.
1681
1682       \t
1683           Toggles the display of output column name headings and row count
1684           footer. This command is equivalent to \pset tuples_only and is
1685           provided for convenience.
1686
1687       \T table_options
1688           Specifies attributes to be placed within the table tag in HTML
1689           output format. This command is equivalent to \pset tableattr
1690           table_options.
1691
1692       \timing [ on | off ]
1693           With a parameter, turns displaying of how long each SQL statement
1694           takes on or off. Without a parameter, toggles the display between
1695           on and off. The display is in milliseconds; intervals longer than 1
1696           second are also shown in minutes:seconds format, with hours and
1697           days fields added if needed.
1698
1699       \unset name
1700           Unsets (deletes) the psql variable name.
1701
1702           Most variables that control psql's behavior cannot be unset;
1703           instead, an \unset command is interpreted as setting them to their
1704           default values. See Variables below.
1705
1706       \w or \write filename
1707       \w or \write |command
1708           Writes the current query buffer to the file filename or pipes it to
1709           the shell command command. If the current query buffer is empty,
1710           the most recently executed query is written instead.
1711
1712           If the argument begins with |, then the entire remainder of the
1713           line is taken to be the command to execute, and neither variable
1714           interpolation nor backquote expansion are performed in it. The rest
1715           of the line is simply passed literally to the shell.
1716
1717       \warn text [ ... ]
1718           This command is identical to \echo except that the output will be
1719           written to psql's standard error channel, rather than standard
1720           output.
1721
1722       \watch [ seconds ]
1723           Repeatedly execute the current query buffer (as \g does) until
1724           interrupted or the query fails. Wait the specified number of
1725           seconds (default 2) between executions. Each query result is
1726           displayed with a header that includes the \pset title string (if
1727           any), the time as of query start, and the delay interval.
1728
1729           If the current query buffer is empty, the most recently sent query
1730           is re-executed instead.
1731
1732       \x [ on | off | auto ]
1733           Sets or toggles expanded table formatting mode. As such it is
1734           equivalent to \pset expanded.
1735
1736       \z [ pattern ]
1737           Lists tables, views and sequences with their associated access
1738           privileges. If a pattern is specified, only tables, views and
1739           sequences whose names match the pattern are listed.
1740
1741           This is an alias for \dp (“display privileges”).
1742
1743       \! [ command ]
1744           With no argument, escapes to a sub-shell; psql resumes when the
1745           sub-shell exits. With an argument, executes the shell command
1746           command.
1747
1748           Unlike most other meta-commands, the entire remainder of the line
1749           is always taken to be the argument(s) of \!, and neither variable
1750           interpolation nor backquote expansion are performed in the
1751           arguments. The rest of the line is simply passed literally to the
1752           shell.
1753
1754       \? [ topic ]
1755           Shows help information. The optional topic parameter (defaulting to
1756           commands) selects which part of psql is explained: commands
1757           describes psql's backslash commands; options describes the
1758           command-line options that can be passed to psql; and variables
1759           shows help about psql configuration variables.
1760
1761       \;
1762           Backslash-semicolon is not a meta-command in the same way as the
1763           preceding commands; rather, it simply causes a semicolon to be
1764           added to the query buffer without any further processing.
1765
1766           Normally, psql will dispatch a SQL command to the server as soon as
1767           it reaches the command-ending semicolon, even if more input remains
1768           on the current line. Thus for example entering
1769
1770               select 1; select 2; select 3;
1771
1772           will result in the three SQL commands being individually sent to
1773           the server, with each one's results being displayed before
1774           continuing to the next command. However, a semicolon entered as \;
1775           will not trigger command processing, so that the command before it
1776           and the one after are effectively combined and sent to the server
1777           in one request. So for example
1778
1779               select 1\; select 2\; select 3;
1780
1781           results in sending the three SQL commands to the server in a single
1782           request, when the non-backslashed semicolon is reached. The server
1783           executes such a request as a single transaction, unless there are
1784           explicit BEGIN/COMMIT commands included in the string to divide it
1785           into multiple transactions. (See Section 52.2.2.1 for more details
1786           about how the server handles multi-query strings.)  psql prints
1787           only the last query result it receives for each request; in this
1788           example, although all three SELECTs are indeed executed, psql only
1789           prints the 3.
1790
1791       Patterns
1792           The various \d commands accept a pattern parameter to specify the
1793           object name(s) to be displayed. In the simplest case, a pattern is
1794           just the exact name of the object. The characters within a pattern
1795           are normally folded to lower case, just as in SQL names; for
1796           example, \dt FOO will display the table named foo. As in SQL names,
1797           placing double quotes around a pattern stops folding to lower case.
1798           Should you need to include an actual double quote character in a
1799           pattern, write it as a pair of double quotes within a double-quote
1800           sequence; again this is in accord with the rules for SQL quoted
1801           identifiers. For example, \dt "FOO""BAR" will display the table
1802           named FOO"BAR (not foo"bar). Unlike the normal rules for SQL names,
1803           you can put double quotes around just part of a pattern, for
1804           instance \dt FOO"FOO"BAR will display the table named fooFOObar.
1805
1806           Whenever the pattern parameter is omitted completely, the \d
1807           commands display all objects that are visible in the current schema
1808           search path — this is equivalent to using * as the pattern. (An
1809           object is said to be visible if its containing schema is in the
1810           search path and no object of the same kind and name appears earlier
1811           in the search path. This is equivalent to the statement that the
1812           object can be referenced by name without explicit schema
1813           qualification.) To see all objects in the database regardless of
1814           visibility, use *.*  as the pattern.
1815
1816           Within a pattern, * matches any sequence of characters (including
1817           no characters) and ?  matches any single character. (This notation
1818           is comparable to Unix shell file name patterns.) For example, \dt
1819           int* displays tables whose names begin with int. But within double
1820           quotes, * and ?  lose these special meanings and are just matched
1821           literally.
1822
1823           A pattern that contains a dot (.) is interpreted as a schema name
1824           pattern followed by an object name pattern. For example, \dt
1825           foo*.*bar* displays all tables whose table name includes bar that
1826           are in schemas whose schema name starts with foo. When no dot
1827           appears, then the pattern matches only objects that are visible in
1828           the current schema search path. Again, a dot within double quotes
1829           loses its special meaning and is matched literally.
1830
1831           Advanced users can use regular-expression notations such as
1832           character classes, for example [0-9] to match any digit. All
1833           regular expression special characters work as specified in
1834           Section 9.7.3, except for .  which is taken as a separator as
1835           mentioned above, * which is translated to the regular-expression
1836           notation .*, ?  which is translated to ., and $ which is matched
1837           literally. You can emulate these pattern characters at need by
1838           writing ?  for ., (R+|) for R*, or (R|) for R?.  $ is not needed as
1839           a regular-expression character since the pattern must match the
1840           whole name, unlike the usual interpretation of regular expressions
1841           (in other words, $ is automatically appended to your pattern).
1842           Write * at the beginning and/or end if you don't wish the pattern
1843           to be anchored. Note that within double quotes, all regular
1844           expression special characters lose their special meanings and are
1845           matched literally. Also, the regular expression special characters
1846           are matched literally in operator name patterns (i.e., the argument
1847           of \do).
1848
1849   Advanced Features
1850       Variables
1851           psql provides variable substitution features similar to common Unix
1852           command shells. Variables are simply name/value pairs, where the
1853           value can be any string of any length. The name must consist of
1854           letters (including non-Latin letters), digits, and underscores.
1855
1856           To set a variable, use the psql meta-command \set. For example,
1857
1858               testdb=> \set foo bar
1859
1860           sets the variable foo to the value bar. To retrieve the content of
1861           the variable, precede the name with a colon, for example:
1862
1863               testdb=> \echo :foo
1864               bar
1865
1866           This works in both regular SQL commands and meta-commands; there is
1867           more detail in SQL Interpolation, below.
1868
1869           If you call \set without a second argument, the variable is set to
1870           an empty-string value. To unset (i.e., delete) a variable, use the
1871           command \unset. To show the values of all variables, call \set
1872           without any argument.
1873
1874               Note
1875               The arguments of \set are subject to the same substitution
1876               rules as with other commands. Thus you can construct
1877               interesting references such as \set :foo 'something' and get
1878               “soft links” or “variable variables” of Perl or PHP fame,
1879               respectively. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), there is no way
1880               to do anything useful with these constructs. On the other hand,
1881               \set bar :foo is a perfectly valid way to copy a variable.
1882
1883           A number of these variables are treated specially by psql. They
1884           represent certain option settings that can be changed at run time
1885           by altering the value of the variable, or in some cases represent
1886           changeable state of psql. By convention, all specially treated
1887           variables' names consist of all upper-case ASCII letters (and
1888           possibly digits and underscores). To ensure maximum compatibility
1889           in the future, avoid using such variable names for your own
1890           purposes.
1891
1892           Variables that control psql's behavior generally cannot be unset or
1893           set to invalid values. An \unset command is allowed but is
1894           interpreted as setting the variable to its default value. A \set
1895           command without a second argument is interpreted as setting the
1896           variable to on, for control variables that accept that value, and
1897           is rejected for others. Also, control variables that accept the
1898           values on and off will also accept other common spellings of
1899           Boolean values, such as true and false.
1900
1901           The specially treated variables are:
1902
1903           AUTOCOMMIT
1904               When on (the default), each SQL command is automatically
1905               committed upon successful completion. To postpone commit in
1906               this mode, you must enter a BEGIN or START TRANSACTION SQL
1907               command. When off or unset, SQL commands are not committed
1908               until you explicitly issue COMMIT or END. The autocommit-off
1909               mode works by issuing an implicit BEGIN for you, just before
1910               any command that is not already in a transaction block and is
1911               not itself a BEGIN or other transaction-control command, nor a
1912               command that cannot be executed inside a transaction block
1913               (such as VACUUM).
1914
1915                   Note
1916                   In autocommit-off mode, you must explicitly abandon any
1917                   failed transaction by entering ABORT or ROLLBACK. Also keep
1918                   in mind that if you exit the session without committing,
1919                   your work will be lost.
1920
1921                   Note
1922                   The autocommit-on mode is PostgreSQL's traditional
1923                   behavior, but autocommit-off is closer to the SQL spec. If
1924                   you prefer autocommit-off, you might wish to set it in the
1925                   system-wide psqlrc file or your ~/.psqlrc file.
1926
1927           COMP_KEYWORD_CASE
1928               Determines which letter case to use when completing an SQL key
1929               word. If set to lower or upper, the completed word will be in
1930               lower or upper case, respectively. If set to preserve-lower or
1931               preserve-upper (the default), the completed word will be in the
1932               case of the word already entered, but words being completed
1933               without anything entered will be in lower or upper case,
1934               respectively.
1935
1936           DBNAME
1937               The name of the database you are currently connected to. This
1938               is set every time you connect to a database (including program
1939               start-up), but can be changed or unset.
1940
1941           ECHO
1942               If set to all, all nonempty input lines are printed to standard
1943               output as they are read. (This does not apply to lines read
1944               interactively.) To select this behavior on program start-up,
1945               use the switch -a. If set to queries, psql prints each query to
1946               standard output as it is sent to the server. The switch to
1947               select this behavior is -e. If set to errors, then only failed
1948               queries are displayed on standard error output. The switch for
1949               this behavior is -b. If set to none (the default), then no
1950               queries are displayed.
1951
1952           ECHO_HIDDEN
1953               When this variable is set to on and a backslash command queries
1954               the database, the query is first shown. This feature helps you
1955               to study PostgreSQL internals and provide similar functionality
1956               in your own programs. (To select this behavior on program
1957               start-up, use the switch -E.) If you set this variable to the
1958               value noexec, the queries are just shown but are not actually
1959               sent to the server and executed. The default value is off.
1960
1961           ENCODING
1962               The current client character set encoding. This is set every
1963               time you connect to a database (including program start-up),
1964               and when you change the encoding with \encoding, but it can be
1965               changed or unset.
1966
1967           ERROR
1968               true if the last SQL query failed, false if it succeeded. See
1969               also SQLSTATE.
1970
1971           FETCH_COUNT
1972               If this variable is set to an integer value greater than zero,
1973               the results of SELECT queries are fetched and displayed in
1974               groups of that many rows, rather than the default behavior of
1975               collecting the entire result set before display. Therefore only
1976               a limited amount of memory is used, regardless of the size of
1977               the result set. Settings of 100 to 1000 are commonly used when
1978               enabling this feature. Keep in mind that when using this
1979               feature, a query might fail after having already displayed some
1980               rows.
1981
1982                   Tip
1983                   Although you can use any output format with this feature,
1984                   the default aligned format tends to look bad because each
1985                   group of FETCH_COUNT rows will be formatted separately,
1986                   leading to varying column widths across the row groups. The
1987                   other output formats work better.
1988
1989           HIDE_TABLEAM
1990               If this variable is set to true, a table's access method
1991               details are not displayed. This is mainly useful for regression
1992               tests.
1993
1994           HISTCONTROL
1995               If this variable is set to ignorespace, lines which begin with
1996               a space are not entered into the history list. If set to a
1997               value of ignoredups, lines matching the previous history line
1998               are not entered. A value of ignoreboth combines the two
1999               options. If set to none (the default), all lines read in
2000               interactive mode are saved on the history list.
2001
2002                   Note
2003                   This feature was shamelessly plagiarized from Bash.
2004
2005           HISTFILE
2006               The file name that will be used to store the history list. If
2007               unset, the file name is taken from the PSQL_HISTORY environment
2008               variable. If that is not set either, the default is
2009               ~/.psql_history, or %APPDATA%\postgresql\psql_history on
2010               Windows. For example, putting:
2011
2012                   \set HISTFILE ~/.psql_history- :DBNAME
2013
2014               in ~/.psqlrc will cause psql to maintain a separate history for
2015               each database.
2016
2017                   Note
2018                   This feature was shamelessly plagiarized from Bash.
2019
2020           HISTSIZE
2021               The maximum number of commands to store in the command history
2022               (default 500). If set to a negative value, no limit is applied.
2023
2024                   Note
2025                   This feature was shamelessly plagiarized from Bash.
2026
2027           HOST
2028               The database server host you are currently connected to. This
2029               is set every time you connect to a database (including program
2030               start-up), but can be changed or unset.
2031
2032           IGNOREEOF
2033               If set to 1 or less, sending an EOF character (usually
2034               Control+D) to an interactive session of psql will terminate the
2035               application. If set to a larger numeric value, that many
2036               consecutive EOF characters must be typed to make an interactive
2037               session terminate. If the variable is set to a non-numeric
2038               value, it is interpreted as 10. The default is 0.
2039
2040                   Note
2041                   This feature was shamelessly plagiarized from Bash.
2042
2043           LASTOID
2044               The value of the last affected OID, as returned from an INSERT
2045               or \lo_import command. This variable is only guaranteed to be
2046               valid until after the result of the next SQL command has been
2047               displayed.  PostgreSQL servers since version 12 do not support
2048               OID system columns anymore, thus LASTOID will always be 0
2049               following INSERT when targeting such servers.
2050
2051           LAST_ERROR_MESSAGE
2052           LAST_ERROR_SQLSTATE
2053               The primary error message and associated SQLSTATE code for the
2054               most recent failed query in the current psql session, or an
2055               empty string and 00000 if no error has occurred in the current
2056               session.
2057
2058           ON_ERROR_ROLLBACK
2059               When set to on, if a statement in a transaction block generates
2060               an error, the error is ignored and the transaction continues.
2061               When set to interactive, such errors are only ignored in
2062               interactive sessions, and not when reading script files. When
2063               set to off (the default), a statement in a transaction block
2064               that generates an error aborts the entire transaction. The
2065               error rollback mode works by issuing an implicit SAVEPOINT for
2066               you, just before each command that is in a transaction block,
2067               and then rolling back to the savepoint if the command fails.
2068
2069           ON_ERROR_STOP
2070               By default, command processing continues after an error. When
2071               this variable is set to on, processing will instead stop
2072               immediately. In interactive mode, psql will return to the
2073               command prompt; otherwise, psql will exit, returning error code
2074               3 to distinguish this case from fatal error conditions, which
2075               are reported using error code 1. In either case, any currently
2076               running scripts (the top-level script, if any, and any other
2077               scripts which it may have in invoked) will be terminated
2078               immediately. If the top-level command string contained multiple
2079               SQL commands, processing will stop with the current command.
2080
2081           PORT
2082               The database server port to which you are currently connected.
2083               This is set every time you connect to a database (including
2084               program start-up), but can be changed or unset.
2085
2086           PROMPT1
2087           PROMPT2
2088           PROMPT3
2089               These specify what the prompts psql issues should look like.
2090               See Prompting below.
2091
2092           QUIET
2093               Setting this variable to on is equivalent to the command line
2094               option -q. It is probably not too useful in interactive mode.
2095
2096           ROW_COUNT
2097               The number of rows returned or affected by the last SQL query,
2098               or 0 if the query failed or did not report a row count.
2099
2100           SERVER_VERSION_NAME
2101           SERVER_VERSION_NUM
2102               The server's version number as a string, for example 9.6.2,
2103               10.1 or 11beta1, and in numeric form, for example 90602 or
2104               100001. These are set every time you connect to a database
2105               (including program start-up), but can be changed or unset.
2106
2107           SHOW_CONTEXT
2108               This variable can be set to the values never, errors, or always
2109               to control whether CONTEXT fields are displayed in messages
2110               from the server. The default is errors (meaning that context
2111               will be shown in error messages, but not in notice or warning
2112               messages). This setting has no effect when VERBOSITY is set to
2113               terse or sqlstate. (See also \errverbose, for use when you want
2114               a verbose version of the error you just got.)
2115
2116           SINGLELINE
2117               Setting this variable to on is equivalent to the command line
2118               option -S.
2119
2120           SINGLESTEP
2121               Setting this variable to on is equivalent to the command line
2122               option -s.
2123
2124           SQLSTATE
2125               The error code (see Appendix A) associated with the last SQL
2126               query's failure, or 00000 if it succeeded.
2127
2128           USER
2129               The database user you are currently connected as. This is set
2130               every time you connect to a database (including program
2131               start-up), but can be changed or unset.
2132
2133           VERBOSITY
2134               This variable can be set to the values default, verbose, terse,
2135               or sqlstate to control the verbosity of error reports. (See
2136               also \errverbose, for use when you want a verbose version of
2137               the error you just got.)
2138
2139           VERSION
2140           VERSION_NAME
2141           VERSION_NUM
2142               These variables are set at program start-up to reflect psql's
2143               version, respectively as a verbose string, a short string
2144               (e.g., 9.6.2, 10.1, or 11beta1), and a number (e.g., 90602 or
2145               100001). They can be changed or unset.
2146
2147       SQL Interpolation
2148           A key feature of psql variables is that you can substitute
2149           (“interpolate”) them into regular SQL statements, as well as the
2150           arguments of meta-commands. Furthermore, psql provides facilities
2151           for ensuring that variable values used as SQL literals and
2152           identifiers are properly quoted. The syntax for interpolating a
2153           value without any quoting is to prepend the variable name with a
2154           colon (:). For example,
2155
2156               testdb=> \set foo 'my_table'
2157               testdb=> SELECT * FROM :foo;
2158
2159           would query the table my_table. Note that this may be unsafe: the
2160           value of the variable is copied literally, so it can contain
2161           unbalanced quotes, or even backslash commands. You must make sure
2162           that it makes sense where you put it.
2163
2164           When a value is to be used as an SQL literal or identifier, it is
2165           safest to arrange for it to be quoted. To quote the value of a
2166           variable as an SQL literal, write a colon followed by the variable
2167           name in single quotes. To quote the value as an SQL identifier,
2168           write a colon followed by the variable name in double quotes. These
2169           constructs deal correctly with quotes and other special characters
2170           embedded within the variable value. The previous example would be
2171           more safely written this way:
2172
2173               testdb=> \set foo 'my_table'
2174               testdb=> SELECT * FROM :"foo";
2175
2176           Variable interpolation will not be performed within quoted SQL
2177           literals and identifiers. Therefore, a construction such as ':foo'
2178           doesn't work to produce a quoted literal from a variable's value
2179           (and it would be unsafe if it did work, since it wouldn't correctly
2180           handle quotes embedded in the value).
2181
2182           One example use of this mechanism is to copy the contents of a file
2183           into a table column. First load the file into a variable and then
2184           interpolate the variable's value as a quoted string:
2185
2186               testdb=> \set content `cat my_file.txt`
2187               testdb=> INSERT INTO my_table VALUES (:'content');
2188
2189           (Note that this still won't work if my_file.txt contains NUL bytes.
2190           psql does not support embedded NUL bytes in variable values.)
2191
2192           Since colons can legally appear in SQL commands, an apparent
2193           attempt at interpolation (that is, :name, :'name', or :"name") is
2194           not replaced unless the named variable is currently set. In any
2195           case, you can escape a colon with a backslash to protect it from
2196           substitution.
2197
2198           The :{?name} special syntax returns TRUE or FALSE depending on
2199           whether the variable exists or not, and is thus always substituted,
2200           unless the colon is backslash-escaped.
2201
2202           The colon syntax for variables is standard SQL for embedded query
2203           languages, such as ECPG. The colon syntaxes for array slices and
2204           type casts are PostgreSQL extensions, which can sometimes conflict
2205           with the standard usage. The colon-quote syntax for escaping a
2206           variable's value as an SQL literal or identifier is a psql
2207           extension.
2208
2209       Prompting
2210           The prompts psql issues can be customized to your preference. The
2211           three variables PROMPT1, PROMPT2, and PROMPT3 contain strings and
2212           special escape sequences that describe the appearance of the
2213           prompt. Prompt 1 is the normal prompt that is issued when psql
2214           requests a new command. Prompt 2 is issued when more input is
2215           expected during command entry, for example because the command was
2216           not terminated with a semicolon or a quote was not closed. Prompt 3
2217           is issued when you are running an SQL COPY FROM STDIN command and
2218           you need to type in a row value on the terminal.
2219
2220           The value of the selected prompt variable is printed literally,
2221           except where a percent sign (%) is encountered. Depending on the
2222           next character, certain other text is substituted instead. Defined
2223           substitutions are:
2224
2225           %M
2226               The full host name (with domain name) of the database server,
2227               or [local] if the connection is over a Unix domain socket, or
2228               [local:/dir/name], if the Unix domain socket is not at the
2229               compiled in default location.
2230
2231           %m
2232               The host name of the database server, truncated at the first
2233               dot, or [local] if the connection is over a Unix domain socket.
2234
2235           %>
2236               The port number at which the database server is listening.
2237
2238           %n
2239               The database session user name. (The expansion of this value
2240               might change during a database session as the result of the
2241               command SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION.)
2242
2243           %/
2244               The name of the current database.
2245
2246           %~
2247               Like %/, but the output is ~ (tilde) if the database is your
2248               default database.
2249
2250           %#
2251               If the session user is a database superuser, then a #,
2252               otherwise a >. (The expansion of this value might change during
2253               a database session as the result of the command SET SESSION
2254               AUTHORIZATION.)
2255
2256           %p
2257               The process ID of the backend currently connected to.
2258
2259           %R
2260               In prompt 1 normally =, but @ if the session is in an inactive
2261               branch of a conditional block, or ^ if in single-line mode, or
2262               !  if the session is disconnected from the database (which can
2263               happen if \connect fails). In prompt 2 %R is replaced by a
2264               character that depends on why psql expects more input: - if the
2265               command simply wasn't terminated yet, but * if there is an
2266               unfinished /* ... */ comment, a single quote if there is an
2267               unfinished quoted string, a double quote if there is an
2268               unfinished quoted identifier, a dollar sign if there is an
2269               unfinished dollar-quoted string, or ( if there is an unmatched
2270               left parenthesis. In prompt 3 %R doesn't produce anything.
2271
2272           %x
2273               Transaction status: an empty string when not in a transaction
2274               block, or * when in a transaction block, or !  when in a failed
2275               transaction block, or ?  when the transaction state is
2276               indeterminate (for example, because there is no connection).
2277
2278           %l
2279               The line number inside the current statement, starting from 1.
2280
2281           %digits
2282               The character with the indicated octal code is substituted.
2283
2284           %:name:
2285               The value of the psql variable name. See Variables, above, for
2286               details.
2287
2288           %`command`
2289               The output of command, similar to ordinary “back-tick”
2290               substitution.
2291
2292           %[ ... %]
2293               Prompts can contain terminal control characters which, for
2294               example, change the color, background, or style of the prompt
2295               text, or change the title of the terminal window. In order for
2296               the line editing features of Readline to work properly, these
2297               non-printing control characters must be designated as invisible
2298               by surrounding them with %[ and %]. Multiple pairs of these can
2299               occur within the prompt. For example:
2300
2301                   testdb=> \set PROMPT1 '%[%033[1;33;40m%]%n@%/%R%[%033[0m%]%# '
2302
2303               results in a boldfaced (1;) yellow-on-black (33;40) prompt on
2304               VT100-compatible, color-capable terminals.
2305
2306           %w
2307               Whitespace of the same width as the most recent output of
2308               PROMPT1. This can be used as a PROMPT2 setting, so that
2309               multi-line statements are aligned with the first line, but
2310               there is no visible secondary prompt.
2311           To insert a percent sign into your prompt, write %%. The default
2312           prompts are '%/%R%x%# ' for prompts 1 and 2, and '>> ' for prompt
2313           3.
2314
2315               Note
2316               This feature was shamelessly plagiarized from tcsh.
2317
2318       Command-Line Editing
2319           psql supports the Readline library for convenient line editing and
2320           retrieval. The command history is automatically saved when psql
2321           exits and is reloaded when psql starts up. Tab-completion is also
2322           supported, although the completion logic makes no claim to be an
2323           SQL parser. The queries generated by tab-completion can also
2324           interfere with other SQL commands, e.g., SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION
2325           LEVEL. If for some reason you do not like the tab completion, you
2326           can turn it off by putting this in a file named .inputrc in your
2327           home directory:
2328
2329               $if psql
2330               set disable-completion on
2331               $endif
2332
2333           (This is not a psql but a Readline feature. Read its documentation
2334           for further details.)
2335

ENVIRONMENT

2337       COLUMNS
2338           If \pset columns is zero, controls the width for the wrapped format
2339           and width for determining if wide output requires the pager or
2340           should be switched to the vertical format in expanded auto mode.
2341
2342       PGDATABASE
2343       PGHOST
2344       PGPORT
2345       PGUSER
2346           Default connection parameters (see Section 33.14).
2347
2348       PG_COLOR
2349           Specifies whether to use color in diagnostic messages. Possible
2350           values are always, auto and never.
2351
2352       PSQL_EDITOR
2353       EDITOR
2354       VISUAL
2355           Editor used by the \e, \ef, and \ev commands. These variables are
2356           examined in the order listed; the first that is set is used. If
2357           none of them is set, the default is to use vi on Unix systems or
2358           notepad.exe on Windows systems.
2359
2360       PSQL_EDITOR_LINENUMBER_ARG
2361           When \e, \ef, or \ev is used with a line number argument, this
2362           variable specifies the command-line argument used to pass the
2363           starting line number to the user's editor. For editors such as
2364           Emacs or vi, this is a plus sign. Include a trailing space in the
2365           value of the variable if there needs to be space between the option
2366           name and the line number. Examples:
2367
2368               PSQL_EDITOR_LINENUMBER_ARG='+'
2369               PSQL_EDITOR_LINENUMBER_ARG='--line '
2370
2371           The default is + on Unix systems (corresponding to the default
2372           editor vi, and useful for many other common editors); but there is
2373           no default on Windows systems.
2374
2375       PSQL_HISTORY
2376           Alternative location for the command history file. Tilde (~)
2377           expansion is performed.
2378
2379       PSQL_PAGER
2380       PAGER
2381           If a query's results do not fit on the screen, they are piped
2382           through this command. Typical values are more or less. Use of the
2383           pager can be disabled by setting PSQL_PAGER or PAGER to an empty
2384           string, or by adjusting the pager-related options of the \pset
2385           command. These variables are examined in the order listed; the
2386           first that is set is used. If none of them is set, the default is
2387           to use more on most platforms, but less on Cygwin.
2388
2389       PSQLRC
2390           Alternative location of the user's .psqlrc file. Tilde (~)
2391           expansion is performed.
2392
2393       SHELL
2394           Command executed by the \!  command.
2395
2396       TMPDIR
2397           Directory for storing temporary files. The default is /tmp.
2398
2399       This utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, also uses the
2400       environment variables supported by libpq (see Section 33.14).
2401

FILES

2403       psqlrc and ~/.psqlrc
2404           Unless it is passed an -X option, psql attempts to read and execute
2405           commands from the system-wide startup file (psqlrc) and then the
2406           user's personal startup file (~/.psqlrc), after connecting to the
2407           database but before accepting normal commands. These files can be
2408           used to set up the client and/or the server to taste, typically
2409           with \set and SET commands.
2410
2411           The system-wide startup file is named psqlrc and is sought in the
2412           installation's “system configuration” directory, which is most
2413           reliably identified by running pg_config --sysconfdir. By default
2414           this directory will be ../etc/ relative to the directory containing
2415           the PostgreSQL executables. The name of this directory can be set
2416           explicitly via the PGSYSCONFDIR environment variable.
2417
2418           The user's personal startup file is named .psqlrc and is sought in
2419           the invoking user's home directory. On Windows, which lacks such a
2420           concept, the personal startup file is named
2421           %APPDATA%\postgresql\psqlrc.conf. The location of the user's
2422           startup file can be set explicitly via the PSQLRC environment
2423           variable.
2424
2425           Both the system-wide startup file and the user's personal startup
2426           file can be made psql-version-specific by appending a dash and the
2427           PostgreSQL major or minor release number to the file name, for
2428           example ~/.psqlrc-9.2 or ~/.psqlrc-9.2.5. The most specific
2429           version-matching file will be read in preference to a
2430           non-version-specific file.
2431
2432       .psql_history
2433           The command-line history is stored in the file ~/.psql_history, or
2434           %APPDATA%\postgresql\psql_history on Windows.
2435
2436           The location of the history file can be set explicitly via the
2437           HISTFILE psql variable or the PSQL_HISTORY environment variable.
2438

NOTES

2440       •   psql works best with servers of the same or an older major version.
2441           Backslash commands are particularly likely to fail if the server is
2442           of a newer version than psql itself. However, backslash commands of
2443           the \d family should work with servers of versions back to 7.4,
2444           though not necessarily with servers newer than psql itself. The
2445           general functionality of running SQL commands and displaying query
2446           results should also work with servers of a newer major version, but
2447           this cannot be guaranteed in all cases.
2448
2449           If you want to use psql to connect to several servers of different
2450           major versions, it is recommended that you use the newest version
2451           of psql. Alternatively, you can keep around a copy of psql from
2452           each major version and be sure to use the version that matches the
2453           respective server. But in practice, this additional complication
2454           should not be necessary.
2455
2456       •   Before PostgreSQL 9.6, the -c option implied -X (--no-psqlrc); this
2457           is no longer the case.
2458
2459       •   Before PostgreSQL 8.4, psql allowed the first argument of a
2460           single-letter backslash command to start directly after the
2461           command, without intervening whitespace. Now, some whitespace is
2462           required.
2463

NOTES FOR WINDOWS USERS

2465       psql is built as a “console application”. Since the Windows console
2466       windows use a different encoding than the rest of the system, you must
2467       take special care when using 8-bit characters within psql. If psql
2468       detects a problematic console code page, it will warn you at startup.
2469       To change the console code page, two things are necessary:
2470
2471       •   Set the code page by entering cmd.exe /c chcp 1252. (1252 is a code
2472           page that is appropriate for German; replace it with your value.)
2473           If you are using Cygwin, you can put this command in /etc/profile.
2474
2475       •   Set the console font to Lucida Console, because the raster font
2476           does not work with the ANSI code page.
2477

EXAMPLES

2479       The first example shows how to spread a command over several lines of
2480       input. Notice the changing prompt:
2481
2482           testdb=> CREATE TABLE my_table (
2483           testdb(>  first integer not null default 0,
2484           testdb(>  second text)
2485           testdb-> ;
2486           CREATE TABLE
2487
2488       Now look at the table definition again:
2489
2490           testdb=> \d my_table
2491                         Table "public.my_table"
2492            Column |  Type   | Collation | Nullable | Default
2493           --------+---------+-----------+----------+---------
2494            first  | integer |           | not null | 0
2495            second | text    |           |          |
2496
2497       Now we change the prompt to something more interesting:
2498
2499           testdb=> \set PROMPT1 '%n@%m %~%R%# '
2500           peter@localhost testdb=>
2501
2502       Let's assume you have filled the table with data and want to take a
2503       look at it:
2504
2505           peter@localhost testdb=> SELECT * FROM my_table;
2506            first | second
2507           -------+--------
2508                1 | one
2509                2 | two
2510                3 | three
2511                4 | four
2512           (4 rows)
2513
2514       You can display tables in different ways by using the \pset command:
2515
2516           peter@localhost testdb=> \pset border 2
2517           Border style is 2.
2518           peter@localhost testdb=> SELECT * FROM my_table;
2519           +-------+--------+
2520           | first | second |
2521           +-------+--------+
2522           |     1 | one    |
2523           |     2 | two    |
2524           |     3 | three  |
2525           |     4 | four   |
2526           +-------+--------+
2527           (4 rows)
2528
2529           peter@localhost testdb=> \pset border 0
2530           Border style is 0.
2531           peter@localhost testdb=> SELECT * FROM my_table;
2532           first second
2533           ----- ------
2534               1 one
2535               2 two
2536               3 three
2537               4 four
2538           (4 rows)
2539
2540           peter@localhost testdb=> \pset border 1
2541           Border style is 1.
2542           peter@localhost testdb=> \pset format csv
2543           Output format is csv.
2544           peter@localhost testdb=> \pset tuples_only
2545           Tuples only is on.
2546           peter@localhost testdb=> SELECT second, first FROM my_table;
2547           one,1
2548           two,2
2549           three,3
2550           four,4
2551           peter@localhost testdb=> \pset format unaligned
2552           Output format is unaligned.
2553           peter@localhost testdb=> \pset fieldsep '\t'
2554           Field separator is "    ".
2555           peter@localhost testdb=> SELECT second, first FROM my_table;
2556           one     1
2557           two     2
2558           three   3
2559           four    4
2560
2561       Alternatively, use the short commands:
2562
2563           peter@localhost testdb=> \a \t \x
2564           Output format is aligned.
2565           Tuples only is off.
2566           Expanded display is on.
2567           peter@localhost testdb=> SELECT * FROM my_table;
2568           -[ RECORD 1 ]-
2569           first  | 1
2570           second | one
2571           -[ RECORD 2 ]-
2572           first  | 2
2573           second | two
2574           -[ RECORD 3 ]-
2575           first  | 3
2576           second | three
2577           -[ RECORD 4 ]-
2578           first  | 4
2579           second | four
2580
2581       Also, these output format options can be set for just one query by
2582       using \g:
2583
2584           peter@localhost testdb=> SELECT * FROM my_table
2585           peter@localhost testdb-> \g (format=aligned tuples_only=off expanded=on)
2586           -[ RECORD 1 ]-
2587           first  | 1
2588           second | one
2589           -[ RECORD 2 ]-
2590           first  | 2
2591           second | two
2592           -[ RECORD 3 ]-
2593           first  | 3
2594           second | three
2595           -[ RECORD 4 ]-
2596           first  | 4
2597           second | four
2598
2599       When suitable, query results can be shown in a crosstab representation
2600       with the \crosstabview command:
2601
2602           testdb=> SELECT first, second, first > 2 AS gt2 FROM my_table;
2603            first | second | gt2
2604           -------+--------+-----
2605                1 | one    | f
2606                2 | two    | f
2607                3 | three  | t
2608                4 | four   | t
2609           (4 rows)
2610
2611           testdb=> \crosstabview first second
2612            first | one | two | three | four
2613           -------+-----+-----+-------+------
2614                1 | f   |     |       |
2615                2 |     | f   |       |
2616                3 |     |     | t     |
2617                4 |     |     |       | t
2618           (4 rows)
2619
2620       This second example shows a multiplication table with rows sorted in
2621       reverse numerical order and columns with an independent, ascending
2622       numerical order.
2623
2624           testdb=> SELECT t1.first as "A", t2.first+100 AS "B", t1.first*(t2.first+100) as "AxB",
2625           testdb(> row_number() over(order by t2.first) AS ord
2626           testdb(> FROM my_table t1 CROSS JOIN my_table t2 ORDER BY 1 DESC
2627           testdb(> \crosstabview "A" "B" "AxB" ord
2628            A | 101 | 102 | 103 | 104
2629           ---+-----+-----+-----+-----
2630            4 | 404 | 408 | 412 | 416
2631            3 | 303 | 306 | 309 | 312
2632            2 | 202 | 204 | 206 | 208
2633            1 | 101 | 102 | 103 | 104
2634           (4 rows)
2635
2636
2637
2638
2639PostgreSQL 13.3                      2021                              PSQL(1)
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