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I am writing a shell script which makes calls to psql using 2 forms... one is by command (-c), the other is by file (-f).

e.g. psql -c "create table foo (bar integer)"

psql -f foobar.sql

One difference between these forms is that a call by command (-c) returns a non-zero exit code if an error is encountered, while a call by file (-f) always seems to return zero.

I'm wondering if there is a workaround for this behaviour? (i.e. return non-zero if an error occurs while executing a file).

Thanks.

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
46

You can use below statement.

psql -v ON_ERROR_STOP=1 -f foobar.sql

This will return the correct return code even foobar.sql file doesn't enable ON_ERROR_STOP at the top of the file.

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  • 3
    good lord this has come in handy
    – Frug
    Mar 27, 2020 at 2:13
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I found out how to resolve this.

I need to enable ON_ERROR_STOP at the top of the file.

Example:

\set ON_ERROR_STOP true
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  • +1 for the best solution because it allows me to set the variable in the script, so I can trust it always runs correctly and don't have to worry about runtime context.
    – Brandon
    Dec 27, 2014 at 4:48

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