Question

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!

Answer 1

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.

\x
select * from sometable;

Answer 2

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
-[ RECORD 1 ]---------------
id     | 1
uniq   | 1
val    | 3
val_ts | 2007-07-03 00:00:00

Answer 3

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.