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Does anyone know if Postgres has a way to display query results "prettily", like how MySQL does when ending a query with \G on the command line? For instance, "select * from sometable\G" as opposed to "select * from sometable;"

Many thanks!

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3 Answers 3

up vote 32 down vote accepted

I'm not familiar enough with MySQL to know what the \G option does, but based on the documentation it looks like the psql \x option might do what you want.

It's a toggle, though, so you do it before you submit the query.

select * from sometable;
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Actually, you can enable \G mysql style formatting on a per-query basis in psql by putting the following in ~/.psqlrc:

\set G '\\set QUIET 1\\x\\g\\x\\set QUIET 0'

You can then use :G at the end of a query in the psql client the same as you would \G at the end of a query in the mysql client:

pagila=# select * from foo limit 1;
 id | uniq | val |       val_ts        
  1 |    1 |   3 | 2007-07-03 00:00:00
(1 row)

Time: 11.481 ms
pagila=# select * from foo limit 1 :G
id     | 1
uniq   | 1
val    | 3
val_ts | 2007-07-03 00:00:00
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You can toggle psql into extended mode with \x before you run a command, but you can't do it on a command by command basis like you can in mysql.

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