PSQL(1)

💅 PSQL(1) — PostgreSQL 15.19 Documentation 💅

okay bestie, welcome to the psql page, part one of twelve, and honestly? this is the main character of the PostgreSQL manual. it's the psql entry in section 1 of the manual, and we're about to get into it. grab a strawberry drink 🍓, we're going in.

✨ NAME ✨

psql — the PostgreSQL interactive terminal, and yes she's iconic 👑

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

psql [option...] [dbname [username]]

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

okay so psql is a terminal-based front-end to PostgreSQL. literally what that means is: you type in queries interactively, you issue them to PostgreSQL, and you see the query results. that's the whole vibe. 🦋

alternatively, input can be from a file or from command line arguments. and like, psql also provides a number of meta-commands and various shell-like features to facilitate writing scripts and automating a wide variety of tasks. she's versatile, she contains multitudes, we stan. 💖

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

-a, --echo-all — print all nonempty input lines to standard output as they are read. (this does not apply to lines read interactively, just so you know.) this is equivalent to setting the variable ECHO to all.
-A, --no-align — switches to unaligned output mode. (the default output mode is aligned, fyi.) this is equivalent to \pset format unaligned.
-b, --echo-errors — print failed SQL commands to standard error output. this is equivalent to setting the variable ECHO to errors.
*-c *command, --command=command — specifies that psql is to execute the given command string, command. this option can be repeated and combined in any order with the -f option. when either -c or -f is specified, psql does not read commands from standard input; instead it terminates after processing all the -c and -f options in sequence.

command must be either a command string that is completely parsable by the server (i.e., it contains no psql-specific features), or a single backslash command. so like, you cannot mix SQL and psql meta-commands within a -c option. to achieve that, you could use repeated -c options or pipe the string into psql, for example:

psql -c '\x' -c 'SELECT * FROM foo;'

echo '\x \\ SELECT * FROM foo;' | psql

(\\ is the separator meta-command. iykyk.)

each SQL command string passed to -c is sent to the server as a single request. because of this, the server executes it as a single transaction even if the string contains multiple SQL commands, unless there are explicit BEGIN/COMMIT commands included in the string to divide it into multiple transactions. (see Section 55.2.2.1 for more details about how the server handles multi-query strings.)

if having several commands executed in one transaction is not desired, use repeated -c commands or feed multiple commands to psql's standard input, either using echo as illustrated above, or via a shell here-document, for example:

psql <<EOF
\x
SELECT * FROM foo;
EOF

--csv — switches to CSV (Comma-Separated Values) output mode. this is equivalent to \pset format csv.
*-d *dbname, --dbname=dbname — specifies the name of the database to connect to. this is equivalent to specifying dbname as the first non-option argument on the command line. the dbname can be a connection string. if so, connection string parameters will override any conflicting command line options. 👀
-e, --echo-queries — copy all SQL commands sent to the server to standard output as well. this is equivalent to setting the variable ECHO to queries.
-E, --echo-hidden — echo the actual queries generated by \d and other backslash commands. you can use this to study psql's internal operations. this is equivalent to setting the variable ECHO_HIDDEN to on. lowkey such a good learning tool 🧚
*-f *filename, --file=filename — read commands from the file filename, rather than standard input. this option can be repeated and combined in any order with the -c option. when either -c or -f is specified, psql does not read commands from standard input; instead it terminates after processing all the -c and -f options in sequence. except for that, this option is largely equivalent to the meta-command \i.

if filename is - (hyphen), then standard input is read until an EOF indication or \q meta-command. this can be used to intersperse interactive input with input from files. note however that Readline is not used in this case (much as if -n had been specified).

using this option is subtly different from writing psql < filename. in general, both will do what you expect, but using -f enables some nice features such as error messages with line numbers. there is also a slight chance that using this option will reduce the start-up overhead. on the other hand, the variant using the shell's input redirection is (in theory) guaranteed to yield exactly the same output you would have received had you entered everything by hand.

*-F *separator, --field-separator=separator — use separator as the field separator for unaligned output. this is equivalent to \pset fieldsep or \f.
*-h *hostname, --host=hostname — specifies the host name of the machine on which the server is running. if the value begins with a slash, it is used as the directory for the Unix-domain socket.
-H, --html — switches to HTML output mode. this is equivalent to \pset format html or the \H command.
-l, --list — list all available databases, then exit. other non-connection options are ignored. this is similar to the meta-command \list.

when this option is used, psql will connect to the database postgres, unless a different database is named on the command line (option -d or non-option argument, possibly via a service entry, but not via an environment variable).

*-L *filename, --log-file=filename — write all query output into file filename, in addition to the normal output destination.
-n, --no-readline — do not use Readline for line editing and do not use the command history (see the section called "Command-Line Editing" below).
*-o *filename, --output=filename — put all query output into file filename. this is equivalent to the command \o.
*-p *port, --port=port — specifies the TCP port or the local Unix-domain socket file extension on which the server is listening for connections. defaults to the value of the PGPORT environment variable or, if not set, to the port specified at compile time, usually 5432.
*-P *assignment, --pset=assignment — specifies printing options, in the style of \pset. note that here you have to separate name and value with an equal sign instead of a space. for example, to set the output format to LaTeX, you could write -P format=latex.
-q, --quiet — specifies that psql should do its work quietly. by default, it prints welcome messages and various informational output. if this option is used, none of this happens. this is useful with the -c option. this is equivalent to setting the variable QUIET to on. shhh 🤫
*-R *separator, --record-separator=separator — use separator as the record separator for unaligned output. this is equivalent to \pset recordsep.
-s, --single-step — run in single-step mode. that means the user is prompted before each command is sent to the server, with the option to cancel execution as well. use this to debug scripts. 🐛
-S, --single-line — runs in single-line mode where a newline terminates an SQL command, as a semicolon does.

Note: this mode is provided for those who insist on it, but you are not necessarily encouraged to use it. in particular, if you mix SQL and meta-commands on a line the order of execution might not always be clear to the inexperienced user. 💀 so like, proceed with caution bestie.

-t, --tuples-only — turn off printing of column names and result row count footers, etc. this is equivalent to \t or \pset tuples_only.
*-T *table_options, --table-attr=table_options — specifies options to be placed within the HTML table tag. see \pset tableattr for details.
*-U *username, --username=username — connect to the database as the user username instead of the default. (you must have permission to do so, of course. 🙈)
*-v *assignment, --set=assignment, --variable=assignment — perform a variable assignment, like the \set meta-command. note that you must separate name and value, if any, by an equal sign on the command line. to unset a variable, leave off the equal sign. to set a variable with an empty value, use the equal sign but leave off the value. these assignments are done during command line processing, so variables that reflect connection state will get overwritten later. 👑
-V, --version — print the psql version and exit.
-w, --no-password — never issue a password prompt. if the server requires password authentication and a password is not available from other sources such as a .pgpass file, the connection attempt will fail. this option can be useful in batch jobs and scripts where no user is present to enter a password.

note that this option will remain set for the entire session, and so it affects uses of the meta-command \connect as well as the initial connection attempt.

-W, --password — force psql to prompt for a password before connecting to a database, even if the password will not be used.

if the server requires password authentication and a password is not available from other sources such as a .pgpass file, psql will prompt for a password in any case. however, psql will waste a connection attempt finding out that the server wants a password. in some cases it is worth typing -W to avoid the extra connection attempt.

note that this option will remain set for the entire session, and so it affects uses of the meta-command \connect as well as the initial connection attempt.

-x, --expanded — turn on the expanded table formatting mode. this is equivalent to \x or \pset expanded. this one ate, ngl 🔥
-X, --no-psqlrc — do not read the start-up file (neither the system-wide psqlrc file nor the user's ~/.psqlrc file).
-z, --field-separator-zero — set the field separator for unaligned output to a zero byte. this is equivalent to \pset fieldsep_zero.
-0, --record-separator-zero — set the record separator for unaligned output to a zero byte. this is useful for interfacing, for example, with xargs -0. this is equivalent to \pset recordsep_zero.

okay that's the options done, and there's still so much more coming in the next part — don't go anywhere 💜

-1, --single-transaction — bestie this one only works when you also pass one or more -c and/or -f options, okay? What it does: psql fires off a BEGIN before the first of those options and a COMMIT after the last one, so all your commands get wrapped up in a single transaction. Cozy. 🎁 If any of the commands fails and the variable ON_ERROR_STOP was set, a ROLLBACK gets sent instead. So it's all-or-nothing: either every command lands successfully, or literally no changes get applied. periodt.

Heads up though 🙈 — if the commands themselves contain BEGIN, COMMIT, or ROLLBACK, this option will not have the desired effects. And if an individual command cannot be executed inside a transaction block, specifying this option will cause the whole transaction to fail. like, the entire thing. 💀

-?, --help[=topic] — shows help about psql and then exits. The optional topic parameter (it defaults to options) picks which part of psql gets explained: commands describes psql's backslash commands, options describes the command-line options you can pass to psql, and variables shows help about psql configuration variables. pick your fighter ✨

🚪 EXIT STATUS

psql hands back 0 to the shell if it finished normally, 1 if a fatal error of its own occurs (e.g., out of memory, file not found), 2 if the connection to the server went bad and the session was not interactive, and 3 if an error occurred in a script and the variable ON_ERROR_STOP was set. know the codes, love the codes 🫶

🛠️ USAGE

🔌 Connecting to a Database

psql is a regular PostgreSQL client application — no cap. To connect to a database you need to know the name of your target database, the host name and port number of the server, and what user name you want to connect as. psql can be told about those parameters via command line options, namely -d, -h, -p, and -U respectively. And if an argument turns up that doesn't belong to any option, it gets interpreted as the database name (or the user name, if the database name is already given). 💅

Not all of these options are required — there are useful defaults, bestie. If you omit the host name, psql will connect via a Unix-domain socket to a server on the local host, or via TCP/IP to localhost on machines that don't have Unix-domain sockets. The default port number is determined at compile time. Since the database server uses the same default, you won't have to specify the port in most cases. The default user name is your operating-system user name, and so is the default database name. ✨

Note that you cannot just connect to any database under any user name. Your database administrator should have informed you about your access rights. ask them, not me 😭

When the defaults aren't quite right, you can save yourself some typing by setting the environment variables PGDATABASE, PGHOST, PGPORT and/or PGUSER to appropriate values. (For additional environment variables, see Section 34.15.) It's also convenient to have a ~/.pgpass file so you don't have to type in passwords on the regular. See Section 34.16 for more information. 🍓

An alternative way to specify connection parameters is in a conninfo string or a URI, which is used instead of a database name. This mechanism gives you very wide control over the connection. for example:

$ psql "service=myservice sslmode=require"
$ psql postgresql://dbmaster:5433/mydb?sslmode=require

This way you can also use LDAP for connection parameter lookup as described in Section 34.18. See Section 34.1.2 for more information on all the available connection options. iykyk 👑

If the connection could not be made for any reason (e.g., insufficient privileges, server is not running on the targeted host, etc.), psql will return an error and terminate. rude but fair 💀

If both standard input and standard output are a terminal, then psql sets the client encoding to “auto”, which will detect the appropriate client encoding from the locale settings (LC_CTYPE environment variable on Unix systems). If this doesn't work out as expected, the client encoding can be overridden using the environment variable PGCLIENTENCODING. 🧚

⌨️ Entering SQL Commands

In normal operation, psql provides a prompt with the name of the database to which psql is currently connected, followed by the string =>. For example:

$ psql testdb
psql (15.19)
Type "help" for help.

testdb=>

At the prompt, the user can type in SQL commands. Ordinarily, input lines are sent to the server when a command-terminating semicolon is reached. An end of line does not terminate a command. So commands can be spread over several lines for clarity — go off, format your queries 🌸 If the command was sent and executed without error, the results of the command are displayed on the screen.

Security moment, listen up 🔥: if untrusted users have access to a database that has not adopted a secure schema usage pattern, begin your session by removing publicly-writable schemas from search_path. One can add options=-csearch_path= to the connection string or issue SELECT pg_catalog.set_config('search_path', '', false) before other SQL commands. This consideration is not specific to psql; it applies to every interface for executing arbitrary SQL commands. not me being responsible 💅

Whenever a command is executed, psql also polls for asynchronous notification events generated by LISTEN and NOTIFY. 👀

While C-style block comments are passed to the server for processing and removal, SQL-standard comments are removed by psql. the more you know ⭐

🪄 Meta-Commands

Anything you enter in psql that begins with an unquoted backslash is a psql meta-command that is processed by psql itself. These commands make psql more useful for administration or scripting. Meta-commands are often called slash or backslash commands. iconic behavior honestly 💜

The format of a psql command is the backslash, followed immediately by a command verb, then any arguments. The arguments are separated from the command verb and each other by any number of whitespace characters.

To include whitespace in an argument you can quote it with single quotes. To include a single quote in an argument, write two single quotes within single-quoted text. Anything contained in single quotes is furthermore subject to C-like substitutions for \n (new line), \t (tab), \b (backspace), \r (carriage return), \f (form feed), \digits (octal), and \xdigits (hexadecimal). A backslash preceding any other character within single-quoted text quotes that single character, whatever it is. 🎀

If an unquoted colon (:) followed by a psql variable name appears within an argument, it is replaced by the variable's value, as described in SQL Interpolation below. The forms :'variable_name' and :"variable_name" described there work as well. The :{?variable_name} syntax allows testing whether a variable is defined — it's substituted by TRUE or FALSE. Escaping the colon with a backslash protects it from substitution. 🦋

Within an argument, text that is enclosed in backquotes (`) is taken as a command line that is passed to the shell. The output of the command (with any trailing newline removed) replaces the backquoted text. Within the text enclosed in backquotes, no special quoting or other processing occurs, except that appearances of :variable_name where variable_name is a psql variable name are replaced by the variable's value. Also, appearances of :'variable_name' are replaced by the variable's value suitably quoted to become a single shell command argument. (The latter form is almost always preferable, unless you are very sure of what is in the variable.) Because carriage return and line feed characters cannot be safely quoted on all platforms, the :'variable_name' form prints an error message and does not substitute the variable value when such characters appear in the value. 💅

Some commands take an SQL identifier (such as a table name) as argument. These arguments follow the syntax rules of SQL: unquoted letters are forced to lowercase, while double quotes (") protect letters from case conversion and allow incorporation of whitespace into the identifier. Within double quotes, paired double quotes reduce to a single double quote in the resulting name. For example, FOO"BAR"BAZ is interpreted as fooBARbaz, and "A weird"" name" becomes A weird" name. slay 🐍

Parsing for arguments stops at the end of the line, or when another unquoted backslash is found. An unquoted backslash is taken as the beginning of a new meta-command. The special sequence \\ (two backslashes) marks the end of arguments and continues parsing SQL commands, if any. That way SQL and psql commands can be freely mixed on a line. But in any case, the arguments of a meta-command cannot continue beyond the end of the line. 🚧

Many of the meta-commands act on the current query buffer. This is simply a buffer holding whatever SQL command text has been typed but not yet sent to the server for execution. This will include previous input lines as well as any text appearing before the meta-command on the same line. main character buffer energy 👑

The following meta-commands are defined:

\a — if the current table output format is unaligned, it is switched to aligned. If it is not unaligned, it is set to unaligned. This command is kept for backwards compatibility. See \pset for a more general solution. the original toggle icon ✨
\c or \connect [ -reuse-previous=on|off ] [ dbname [ username ] [ host ] [ port ] | conninfo ] — establishes a new connection to a PostgreSQL server. 🦋

The connection parameters to use can be specified either using a positional syntax (one or more of database name, user, host, and port), or using a conninfo connection string as detailed in Section 34.1.1. If no arguments are given, a new connection is made using the same parameters as before.

Specifying any of dbname, username, host or port as - is equivalent to omitting that parameter. 🎀

The new connection can re-use connection parameters from the previous connection — not only database name, user, host, and port, but other settings such as sslmode. By default, parameters are re-used in the positional syntax, but not when a conninfo string is given. Passing a first argument of -reuse-previous=on or -reuse-previous=off overrides that default. If parameters are re-used, then any parameter not explicitly specified as a positional parameter or in the conninfo string is taken from the existing connection's parameters. An exception is that if the host setting is changed from its previous value using the positional syntax, any hostaddr setting present in the existing connection's parameters is dropped. Also, any password used for the existing connection will be re-used only if the user, host, and port settings are not changed. When the command neither specifies nor reuses a particular parameter, the libpq default is used. ngl that's a lot of rules but u got this 💪

Okay so bestie, if the new connection actually goes through, the old one gets closed. Slay. But if the connection attempt flops (wrong user name, access denied, etc.), the previous connection stays alive if psql is in interactive mode. lowkey a lifesaver 💖 But when you're running a non-interactive script? Nope — the old connection is closed and an error is reported. That error may or may not terminate the script. If it doesn't, every single database-accessing command will fail until another \connect command is successfully executed. not me crying in script mode 😭

This distinction was chosen as a user convenience against typos on the one hand, and a safety mechanism that scripts are not accidentally acting on the wrong database on the other hand. (Translate: typos get forgiveness, scripts get guardrails. iconic.) 🫶

Note that whenever a \connect command attempts to re-use parameters, the values re-used are those of the last successful connection, not of any failed attempts made subsequently. However, in the case of a non-interactive \connect failure, no parameters are allowed to be re-used later, since the script would likely be expecting the values from the failed \connect to be re-used. so specific, so important 💅

Examples:

=> \c mydb myuser host.dom 6432
=> \c service=foo
=> \c "host=localhost port=5432 dbname=mydb connect_timeout=10 sslmode=disable"
=> \c -reuse-previous=on sslmode=require    -- changes only sslmode
=> \c postgresql://tom@localhost/mydb?application_name=myapp

`\C [ title ]`

Sets the title of any tables being printed as the result of a query — or unsets any such title if you don't give one. This command is equivalent to \pset title title. Fun fact: the name of this command derives from “caption”, as it was previously only used to set the caption in an HTML table. history queen 🎀

`\cd [ directory ]`

Changes the current working directory to directory. Without an argument, changes to the current user's home directory. home sweet home 🏠

Tip: To print your current working directory, use \! pwd. iykyk ✨

`\conninfo`

Outputs information about the current database connection. just the receipts, bestie 🧾

`\copy`

\copy { table [ ( column_list ) ] } from { 'filename' | program 'command' | stdin | pstdin } [ [ with ] ( option [, ...] ) ] [ where condition ]
\copy { table [ ( column_list ) ] | ( query ) } to { 'filename' | program 'command' | stdout | pstdout } [ [ with ] ( option [, ...] ) ]

Performs a frontend (client) copy. say it with me: frontend copy 💅 This is an operation that runs an SQL COPY command, but instead of the server reading or writing the specified file, psql reads or writes the file and routes the data between the server and the local file system. This means that file accessibility and privileges are those of the local user, not the server, and no SQL superuser privileges are required. local user rights only, no superuser drama 🌈

When program is specified, command is executed by psql and the data passed from or to command is routed between the server and the client. Again, the execution privileges are those of the local user, not the server, and no SQL superuser privileges are required. same energy, same privileges 🦋

For \copy ... from stdin, data rows are read from the same source that issued the command, continuing until \. is read or the stream reaches EOF. This option is useful for populating tables in-line within an SQL script file. For \copy ... to stdout, output is sent to the same place as psql command output, and the COPY count command status is not printed (since it might be confused with a data row). To read/write psql's standard input or output regardless of the current command source or \o option, write from pstdin or to pstdout. pstdin/pstdout are the main characters 🎀

The syntax of this command is similar to that of the SQL COPY command. All options other than the data source/destination are as specified for COPY. Because of this, special parsing rules apply to the \copy meta-command. Unlike most other meta-commands, the entire remainder of the line is always taken to be the arguments of \copy, and neither variable interpolation nor backquote expansion are performed in the arguments. read that again: the whole line is the argument, no variable magic 😭

Tip: Another way to obtain the same result as \copy ... to is to use the SQL COPY ... TO STDOUT command and terminate it with \g filename or \g |program. Unlike \copy, this method allows the command to span multiple lines; also, variable interpolation and backquote expansion can be used. more flexible, less chaotic ✨

Tip: These operations are not as efficient as the SQL COPY command with a file or program data source or destination, because all data must pass through the client/server connection. For large amounts of data the SQL command might be preferable. Also, because of this pass-through method, \copy ... from in CSV mode will erroneously treat a \. data value alone on a line as an end-of-input marker. efficiency queen: SQL COPY direct 💅

`\copyright`

Shows the copyright and distribution terms of PostgreSQL. legal bestie moment 📜

`\crosstabview [ colV [ colH [ colD [ sortcolH ] ] ] ]`

Executes the current query buffer (like \g) and shows the results in a crosstab grid. The query must return at least three columns. The output column identified by colV becomes a vertical header and the output column identified by colH becomes a horizontal header. colD identifies the output column to display within the grid. sortcolH identifies an optional sort column for the horizontal header. crosstab era 🦋

Each column specification can be a column number (starting at 1) or a column name. The usual SQL case folding and quoting rules apply to column names. If omitted, colV is taken as column 1 and colH as column 2. colH must differ from colV. If colD is not specified, then there must be exactly three columns in the query result, and the column that is neither colV nor colH is taken to be colD. three-column default, no exceptions 💅

The vertical header, displayed as the leftmost column, contains the values found in column colV, in the same order as in the query results, but with duplicates removed. dedupe, but keep the order ✨

The horizontal header, displayed as the first row, contains the values found in column colH, with duplicates removed. By default, these appear in the same order as in the query results. But if the optional sortcolH argument is given, it identifies a column whose values must be integer numbers, and the values from colH will appear in the horizontal header sorted according to the corresponding sortcolH values. sortcolH says integers only, bestie 💖

Inside the crosstab grid, for each distinct value x of colH and each distinct value y of colV, the cell located at the intersection (x,y) contains the value of the colD column in the query result row for which the value of colH is x and the value of colV is y. If there is no such row, the cell is empty. If there are multiple such rows, an error is reported. no duplicate rows in a crosstab cell, periodt 💀

`\d[S+] [ pattern ]`

For each relation (table, view, materialized view, index, sequence, or foreign table) or composite type matching the pattern, show all columns, their types, the tablespace (if not the default) and any special attributes such as NOT NULL or defaults. Associated indexes, constraints, rules, and triggers are also shown. For foreign tables, the associated foreign server is shown as well. (“Matching the pattern” is defined in Patterns below.) all the deets, no gatekeeping 🫶

For some types of relation, \d shows additional information for each column: column values for sequences, indexed expressions for indexes, and foreign data wrapper options for foreign tables. special-case slay ✨

The command form \d+ is identical, except that more information is displayed: any comments associated with the columns of the table are shown, as is the presence of OIDs in the table, the view definition if the relation is a view, a non-default replica identity setting and the access method name if the relation has an access method. plus means more, always 💅

By default, only user-created objects are shown; supply a pattern or the S modifier to include system objects. system objects need an invite 🎀

Note: If \d is used without a pattern argument, it is equivalent to \dtvmsE which will show a list of all visible tables, views, materialized views, sequences and foreign tables. This is purely a convenience measure. shortcut queen 👑

`\da[S] [ pattern ]`

Lists aggregate functions, together with their return type and the data types they operate on. If pattern is specified, only aggregates whose names match the pattern are shown. By default, only user-created objects are shown; supply a pattern or the S modifier to include system objects. aggregate appreciation post 💖

`\dA[+] [ pattern ]`

Lists access methods. If pattern is specified, only access methods whose names match the pattern are shown. If + is appended to the command name, each access method is listed with its associated handler function and description. plus gives you the handler and description 🦋

`\dAc[+] [access-method-pattern [input-type-pattern]]`

Lists operator classes (see Section 38.16.1). If access-method-pattern is specified, only operator classes associated with access methods whose names match that pattern are listed. If input-type-pattern is specified, only operator classes associated with input types whose names match that pattern are listed. If + is appended to the command name, each operator class is listed with its associated operator family and owner. operator classes, but make it filtered ✨

`\dAf[+] [access-method-pattern [input-type-pattern]]`

Lists operator families (see Section 38.16.5). If access-method-pattern is specified, only operator families associated with access methods whose names match that pattern are listed. If input-type-pattern is specified, only operator families associated with input types whose names match that pattern are listed. If + is appended to the command name, each operator family is listed with its owner. operator families, now with owner info 💅

`\dAo[+] [access-method-pattern [operator-family-pattern]]`

Lists operators associated with operator families (see Section 38.16.2). If access-method-pattern is specified, only members of operator families associated with access methods whose names match that pattern are listed. If operator-family-pattern is specified, only members of operator families whose names match that pattern are listed. If + is appended to the command name, each operator is listed with its sort operator family (if it is an ordering operator). operators, sorted and slaying 🔥

\dAp[+] [access-method-pattern [operator-family-pattern]] — lists the support functions that go with operator families (peep Section 38.16.3 for the lore 💅). Give it an access-method-pattern and you only get functions of operator families tied to access methods whose names match that pattern. Give it an operator-family-pattern and you only get functions of operator families whose names match. Slap a + on the end of the command name and it goes verbose on you, showing the actual parameter lists. Iconic.
\db[+] [ pattern ] — lists tablespaces ✨. With pattern, only tablespaces whose names match it show up. Add + to the command name and each tablespace comes with its associated options, its on-disk size, permissions and description. The full glow-up.
\dc[S+] [ pattern ] — lists conversions between character-set encodings 🎀. With pattern, only conversions whose names match get listed. Default behaviour is user-created objects only, so hand over a pattern or the S modifier to pull system objects in too. With +, each object shows up with its associated description.
\dconfig[+] [ pattern ] — lists server configuration parameters and their values, no cap 🫶. With pattern, only parameters whose names match it get listed. Without a pattern? Only parameters set to non-default values show up. (Use \dconfig * to see literally all of them, bestie.) With +, each parameter is listed with its data type, the context in which the parameter can be set, and access privileges — but only if non-default access privileges have actually been granted.
\dC[+] [ pattern ] — lists type casts 🔥. With pattern, only casts whose source or target types match get listed. With +, each object shows up with its associated description.
\dd[S] [ pattern ] — shows the descriptions of objects of type constraint, operator class, operator family, rule, and trigger. Every other comment can be viewed through the respective backslash commands for those object types, iykyk.

\dd displays descriptions for objects matching pattern, or of visible objects of the appropriate type if you give it no argument. Either way though, only objects that actually have a description get listed — no description, no entry, periodt. By default only user-created objects are shown; supply a pattern or the S modifier to include system objects.

Descriptions for objects can be created with the COMMENT SQL command 🌸.

\dD[S+] [ pattern ] — lists domains 💜. With pattern, only domains whose names match it are shown. Again: user-created objects only by default, so pass a pattern or the S modifier to include system objects. With +, each object comes with its associated permissions and description.
\ddp [ pattern ] — lists default access privilege settings 🦋. You get an entry for each role (and schema, if applicable) whose default privilege settings have been changed from the built-in defaults. With pattern, only entries whose role name or schema name matches get listed.

The ALTER DEFAULT PRIVILEGES command is what you use to set default access privileges, and the meaning of the privilege display is explained in Section 5.7. Go read it, it slaps.

\dE[S+] [ pattern ], \di[S+] [ pattern ], \dm[S+] [ pattern ], \ds[S+] [ pattern ], \dt[S+] [ pattern ], \dv[S+] [ pattern ] — in this little squad of commands, the letters E, i, m, s, t, and v stand for foreign table, index, materialized view, sequence, table, and view, respectively 🌈. You can specify any or all of these letters, in any order, to get a listing of objects of those types. For example, \dti lists tables and indexes — cute and efficient. With + appended to the command name, each object is listed with its persistence status (permanent, temporary, or unlogged), physical size on disk, and associated description if any. With pattern, only objects whose names match get listed. By default only user-created objects are shown; supply a pattern or the S modifier to include system objects.
\des[+] [ pattern ] — lists foreign servers (mnemonic: "external servers", get it? 🧚). With pattern, only those servers whose name matches get listed. Use the form \des+ and you get a full description of each server, including the server's access privileges, type, version, options, and description. The whole resume.
\det[+] [ pattern ] — lists foreign tables (mnemonic: "external tables"). With pattern, only entries whose table name or schema name matches get listed. The form \det+ also shows generic options and the foreign table description.
\deu[+] [ pattern ] — lists user mappings (mnemonic: "external users"). With pattern, only those mappings whose user names match get listed. The form \deu+ shows additional information about each mapping.

⚠️ Caution, bestie, for real: \deu+ might also display the user name and password of the remote user, so care should be taken not to disclose them. Like, do NOT screenshot that 💀.

\dew[+] [ pattern ] — lists foreign-data wrappers (mnemonic: "external wrappers"). With pattern, only those foreign-data wrappers whose name matches get listed. The form \dew+ also shows the access privileges, options, and description of the foreign-data wrapper.
\df[anptwS+] [ pattern [ arg_pattern ... ] ] — lists functions, together with their result data types, argument data types, and function types, which get classified as "agg" (aggregate), "normal", "procedure", "trigger", or "window" 👑. Want only specific type(s)? Add the corresponding letters a, n, p, t, or w to the command. With pattern, only functions whose names match are shown. Any additional arguments are type-name patterns, matched against the type names of the first, second, and so on arguments of the function. (Matching functions can have more arguments than what you specify — to prevent that, write a dash - as the last arg_pattern.) By default only user-created objects are shown; supply a pattern or the S modifier to include system objects. The form \df+ shows additional information about each function, including volatility, parallel safety, owner, security classification, access privileges, language, source code and description. It's giving full dossier 🔍.
\dF[+] [ pattern ] — lists text search configurations. With pattern, only configurations whose names match are shown. The form \dF+ gives a full description of each configuration, including the underlying text search parser and the dictionary list for each parser token type. Obsessed with the detail.
\dFd[+] [ pattern ] — lists text search dictionaries. With pattern, only dictionaries whose names match are shown. The form \dFd+ shows additional information about each selected dictionary, including the underlying text search template and the option values.
\dFp[+] [ pattern ] — lists text search parsers. With pattern, only parsers whose names match are shown. The form \dFp+ gives a full description of each parser, including the underlying functions and the list of recognized token types.
\dFt[+] [ pattern ] — lists text search templates. With pattern, only templates whose names match are shown. The form \dFt+ shows additional information about each template, including the underlying function names.
\dg[S+] [ pattern ] — lists database roles. (Since the concepts of "users" and "groups" have been unified into "roles", this command is now equivalent to \du — glow-up arc complete ✨.) By default only user-created roles are shown; supply the S modifier to include system roles. With pattern, only those roles whose names match get listed. The form \dg+ shows additional information about each role; currently this adds the comment for each role.
\dl[+] — this is an alias for \lo_list, which shows a list of large objects 🍓. With + appended to the command name, each large object is listed with its associated permissions, if any.
\dL[S+] [ pattern ] — lists procedural languages. With pattern, only languages whose names match get listed. By default only user-created languages are shown; supply the S modifier to include system objects. With +, each language is listed with its call handler, validator, access privileges, and whether it's a system object.
\dn[S+] [ pattern ] — lists schemas (namespaces) 💫. With pattern, only schemas whose names match get listed. By default only user-created objects are shown; supply a pattern or the S modifier to include system objects. With +, each object is listed with its associated permissions and description, if any.
\do[S+] [ pattern [ arg_pattern [ arg_pattern ] ] ] — lists operators with their operand and result types 🔥. With pattern, only operators whose names match get listed. With one arg_pattern, only prefix operators whose right argument's type name matches that pattern are listed. With two arg_patterns, only binary operators whose argument type names match those patterns are listed. (Alternatively, write - for the unused argument of a unary operator.) By default only user-created objects are shown; supply a pattern or the S modifier to include system objects. With +, additional information about each operator is shown — currently just the name of the underlying function.

`\dO[S+] [ pattern ]`</p> 💅

okay so this one lists collations — yes, all the collation-y goodness. If you pass a pattern, only the collations whose names actually match that pattern get listed. By default it's giving "user-created only" energy — so supply a pattern or the S modifier if you wanna see the system objects too. Add + onto the command name and each collation shows up with its associated description, if it even has one.

🌸 lowkey important caveat bestie: only collations that are usable with the current database's encoding are shown, so the results can vary between different databases of the same installation. no cap.

`\dp [ pattern ]` 🔐

Lists tables, views and sequences together with their associated access privileges. If pattern is specified, only the tables, views and sequences whose names match the pattern get listed.

The GRANT and REVOKE commands are what you use to set these access privileges, and the whole meaning of how the privileges are displayed is explained in Section 5.7. iykyk.

`\dP[itn+] [ pattern ]` 🧩

Lists partitioned relations. With a pattern, only the entries whose names match it are listed. You can tack on the modifiers t (tables) and i (indexes) to filter down which kind of relations you get. By default, partitioned tables and indexes are listed — that's the vibe.

If you use the n modifier ("nested"), or if you specify a pattern, then non-root partitioned relations get included too, and a column shows up displaying the parent of each partitioned relation. slay, hierarchy reveal.

Append + and you also get the sum of the sizes of each relation's partitions, plus the relation's description. And if you combine n with +, you get two sizes: one including the total size of directly-attached leaf partitions, and another showing the total size of all partitions, including indirectly attached sub-partitions. obsessed with the precision honestly.

`\drds [ role-pattern [ database-pattern ] ]` ⚙️

Lists defined configuration settings. These can be role-specific, database-specific, or both — main character settings, truly. The role-pattern and database-pattern bits select which specific roles and databases to list, respectively. If you omit them, or if you throw in *, all settings get listed — including the ones that aren't role-specific or database-specific (respectively, bestie, pay attention to the respectively).

The ALTER ROLE and ALTER DATABASE commands are what you use to define per-role and per-database configuration settings. periodt.

`\dRp[+] [ pattern ]` 📡

Lists replication publications. If pattern is specified, only the publications whose names match it get listed. Append + to the command name and the tables and schemas associated with each publication show up as well. cute.

`\dRs[+] [ pattern ]` 📥

Lists replication subscriptions. With a pattern, only the subscriptions whose names match are listed. Append + and you get extra properties of the subscriptions too. more info, more better 💖

`\dT[S+] [ pattern ]` 🏷️

Lists data types. If pattern is specified, only types whose names match it are listed. Append + and each type is listed with its internal name and size, its allowed values if it's an enum type, and its associated permissions — the full package, honestly iconic.

By default, only user-created objects are shown; supply a pattern or the S modifier to include system objects. 🫶

`\du[S+] [ pattern ]` 👑

Lists database roles. Quick lore drop: since the concepts of "users" and "groups" have been unified into "roles", this command is now equivalent to \dg. By default only user-created roles are shown — supply the S modifier to include system roles. If pattern is specified, only the roles whose names match it are listed. And if you use the form \du+, you get additional info about each role; currently this adds the comment for each role. 💅

`\dx[+] [ pattern ]` 🧩

Lists installed extensions. If pattern is specified, only the extensions whose names match it are listed. Use the form \dx+ and literally all the objects belonging to each matching extension get listed. it's giving thorough ✨

`\dX [ pattern ]` 📊

Lists extended statistics. With a pattern, only the extended statistics whose names match it are listed.

The status of each kind of extended statistics shows up in a column named after its statistic kind (e.g. Ndistinct). defined means it was requested when creating the statistics, and NULL means it wasn't requested. If you wanna know whether ANALYZE was run and stats are actually available to the planner, you can use pg_stats_ext. 🔥

`\dy[+] [ pattern ]` 🔔

Lists event triggers. If pattern is specified, only the event triggers whose names match it get listed. Append + and each object is listed with its associated description. love that for us.

`\e` or `\edit [ filename ] [ line_number ]` ✏️

okay so this is the editor command and it's lowkey the moment. If filename is specified, that file gets edited; after the editor exits, the file's content is copied into the current query buffer. If no filename is given, the current query buffer is copied to a temporary file which is then edited in the same fashion. Or — plot twist — if the current query buffer is empty, the most recently executed query is copied to a temporary file and edited in the same fashion.

If you edit a file or the previous query, and you quit the editor without modifying the file, the query buffer is cleared. Otherwise, the new contents of the query buffer get re-parsed according to the normal rules of psql, treating the whole buffer as a single line — yes, one line, that's the whole vibe.

Any complete queries are immediately executed; that is, if the query buffer contains or ends with a semicolon, everything up to that point is executed and removed from the query buffer. Whatever remains in the query buffer gets redisplayed. Type semicolon or \g to send it, or \r to cancel it by clearing the query buffer. 🫶

Treating the buffer as a single line primarily affects meta-commands: whatever is in the buffer after a meta-command will be taken as argument(s) to the meta-command, even if it spans multiple lines. (So nope, you cannot make meta-command-using scripts this way. Use \i for that, bestie.)

If a line_number is specified, psql positions the cursor on the specified line of the file or query buffer. And note: if a single all-digits argument is given, psql assumes it's a line number, not a file name. sneaky but fair.

💡 Tip See Environment, below, for how to configure and customize your editor.

`\echo text [ ... ]` 🗣️

Prints the evaluated arguments to standard output, separated by spaces and followed by a newline. Super useful for interspersing info into the output of scripts. for example:

=> \echo `date`
Tue Oct 26 21:40:57 CEST 1999

If the first argument is an unquoted -n, the trailing newline is not written (and nor is the first argument). tiny detail, big difference.

💡 Tip If you use the \o command to redirect your query output you might wish to use \qecho instead of this command. See also \warn.

`\ef [ function_description [ line_number ] ]` 🧚

This command fetches and edits the definition of the named function or procedure, in the form of a CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION or CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE command. Editing works the same way as for \edit. If you quit the editor without saving, the statement is discarded — gone, poof. If you save and exit the editor, the updated command is executed immediately if you added a semicolon to it. Otherwise it gets redisplayed; type semicolon or \g to send it, or \r to cancel.

The target function can be specified by name alone, or by name and arguments, for example foo(integer, text). The argument types must be given if there's more than one function of the same name. no shortcuts there.

If no function is specified, a blank CREATE FUNCTION template is presented for editing. blank canvas energy ✨

If a line_number is specified, psql positions the cursor on the specified line of the function body. (Note that the function body typically does not begin on the first line of the file, jsyk.)

Unlike most other meta-commands, the entire remainder of the line is always taken to be the argument(s) of \ef, and neither variable interpolation nor backquote expansion is performed in the arguments.

💡 Tip See Environment, below, for how to configure and customize your editor.

`\encoding [ encoding ]` 🌈

Sets the client character set encoding. Without an argument, this command shows the current encoding. simple, iconic, done.

`\errverbose` 😭

Repeats the most recent server error message at maximum verbosity, as though VERBOSITY were set to verbose and SHOW_CONTEXT were set to always. it's giving "tell me EVERYTHING" and honestly same.

`\ev [ view_name [ line_number ] ]` 🦋

This command fetches and edits the definition of the named view, in the form of a CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW command. Editing is done in the same way as for \edit. If you quit the editor without saving, the statement is discarded. If you save and exit the editor, the updated command is executed immediately if you added a semicolon to it. Otherwise it's redisplayed; type semicolon or \g to send it, or \r to cancel. same drill as \ef, different vibe.

If no view is specified, a blank CREATE VIEW template is presented for editing. 🎀

If a line_number is specified, psql will position the cursor on the specified line of the view definition.

Unlike most other meta-commands, the entire remainder of the line is always taken to be the argument(s) of \ev, and neither variable interpolation nor backquote expansion is performed in the arguments.

`\f [ string ]` 🍓

Sets the field separator for unaligned query output. The default is the vertical bar (|). It's equivalent to \pset fieldsep. short and sweet.

`\g [ (option=value [...]) ] [ filename ]`

`\g [ (option=value [...]) ] [ |command ]` 🚀

Sends the current query buffer to the server for execution. go off, query.

If parentheses appear after \g, they surround a space-separated list of option=value formatting-option clauses, which are interpreted in the same way as \pset option value commands, but they take effect only for the duration of this query. In this list, spaces are not allowed around = signs, but they are required between option clauses. no cap, that's the rule. If =value is omitted, the named option is changed in the same way as for \pset option with no explicit value.

If a filename or |command argument is given, the query's output is written to the named file or piped to the given shell command, instead of displaying it as usual. The file or command is written to only if the query successfully returns zero or more tuples — not if the query fails or is a non-data-returning SQL command. important distinction bestie 💅

🌟 `\g` — the semicolon's cooler cousin

Okay so if your query buffer is empty, \g just re-runs the most recently sent query instead. Other than that little party trick, \g with no arguments is basically the same thing as typing a semicolon. ✨

But with arguments? That's where it eats. \g gives you a "one-shot" alternative to the \o command, and on top of that it lets you do one-shot tweaks to the output formatting options you'd normally set with \pset. 🎀

When the last argument starts with |, the entire rest of the line is taken as the command to execute — and nope, no variable interpolation and no backquote expansion happen in it. The rest of the line just gets passed literally to the shell. 🫶

🔍 `\gdesc` — the sneak peek

Shows you the description of the result of the current query buffer — that is, the column names and data types. 💅

The query is not actually executed. However, if it contains some kind of syntax error, that error will be reported the normal way. So it's a vibe check, not a full send. 😭

If the current query buffer is empty, the most recently sent query gets described instead.

🌱 `\getenv psql_var env_var` — grab that env

Grabs the value of the environment variable env_var and assigns it to the psql variable psql_var. 🍓

If env_var isn't defined in the psql process's environment, then psql_var just isn't changed (no drama, no unset, it stays as it was).

=> \getenv home HOME
=> \echo :home
/home/postgres

🔥 `\gexec` — query-ception, genuinely iconic

Sends the current query buffer to the server, then treats each column of each row of the query's output (if there is any) as an SQL statement to be executed. 👑

So like, to create an index on each column of my_table:

=> SELECT format('create index on my_table(%I)', attname)
-> FROM pg_attribute
-> WHERE attrelid = 'my_table'::regclass AND attnum > 0
-> ORDER BY attnum
-> \gexec
CREATE INDEX
CREATE INDEX
CREATE INDEX
CREATE INDEX

The way it works, bestie: the generated queries are executed in the order the rows are returned, and left-to-right within each row if there's more than one column. NULL fields are ignored. 🧚

The generated queries get sent literally to the server for processing, so they can't be psql meta-commands and they can't contain psql variable references. Nope. 🚫

If any individual query fails, execution of the remaining queries continues — unless ON_ERROR_STOP is set. Execution of each query is subject to ECHO processing. (Setting ECHO to all or queries is often advisable when you're using \gexec, fr fr.) Query logging, single-step mode, timing, and other query execution features apply to each generated query too. 💖

And if the current query buffer is empty, the most recently sent query is re-executed instead.

💜 `\gset [ prefix ]` — snatch that output into variables

Sends the current query buffer to the server and stores the query's output into psql variables (see Variables below, iykyk). 📦

The query you're executing must return exactly one row. Each column of that row gets stored into a separate variable, named the same as the column. Like:

=> SELECT 'hello' AS var1, 10 AS var2
-> \gset
=> \echo :var1 :var2
hello 10

If you specify a prefix, that string gets prepended to the query's column names to build the variable names you'll use:

=> SELECT 'hello' AS var1, 10 AS var2
-> \gset result_
=> \echo :result_var1 :result_var2
hello 10

If a column result is NULL, the corresponding variable is unset rather than being set. 🫥

If the query fails or doesn't return one row, no variables are changed at all.

And yep — if the current query buffer is empty, the most recently sent query is re-executed instead.

🌈 `\gx [ (option=value [...]) ] [ filename ]`

🌈 `\gx [ (option=value [...]) ] [ |command ]`

\gx is the same as \g, except it forces expanded output mode for this query, as if expanded=on were included in the list of \pset options. See also \x. ✨

📚 `\h` or `\help [ command ]` — the homework helper

Gives you syntax help on the specified SQL command. If command isn't specified, psql lists all the commands for which syntax help is available. And if command is an asterisk (*), then syntax help on all SQL commands is shown. 🤯

Unlike most other meta-commands, the entire remainder of the line is always taken to be the argument(s) of \help, and neither variable interpolation nor backquote expansion are performed in the arguments. 📌

Note 🎀 To simplify typing, commands that consist of several words don't have to be quoted. So it's totally fine to type \help alter table.

🎨 `\H` or `\html` — the toggle

Turns on HTML query output format. If HTML format is already on, it switches back to the default aligned text format. 🔁

This command is for compatibility and convenience, but see \pset about setting other output options. 💅

📂 `\i` or `\include filename` — read the file, bestie

Reads input from the file filename and executes it as though it had been typed on the keyboard. ⌨️

If filename is - (hyphen), then standard input is read until an EOF indication or a \q meta-command. This can be used to intersperse interactive input with input from files. Note that Readline behavior will be used only if it's active at the outermost level. 🌀

Note 🦋 If you want to see the lines on the screen as they're read, you must set the variable ECHO to all.

🧠 `\if expression` / `\elif expression` / `\else` / `\endif` — conditional blocks, the main character energy

This group of commands implements nestable conditional blocks. A conditional block must begin with an \if and end with an \endif. In between there may be any number of \elif clauses, which may optionally be followed by a single \else clause. Ordinary queries and other types of backslash commands may (and usually do) appear between the commands forming a conditional block. 💫

The \if and \elif commands read their argument(s) and evaluate them as a Boolean expression. If the expression yields true, processing continues normally; otherwise, lines are skipped until a matching \elif, \else, or \endif is reached. Once an \if or \elif test has succeeded, the arguments of later \elif commands in the same block are not evaluated but are treated as false. Lines following an \else are processed only if no earlier matching \if or \elif succeeded. ✅❌

The expression argument of an \if or \elif command is subject to variable interpolation and backquote expansion, just like any other backslash command argument. After that, it's evaluated like the value of an on/off option variable. So a valid value is any unambiguous case-insensitive match for one of: true, false, 1, 0, on, off, yes, no. For example, t, T, and tR will all be considered to be true. 🎯

Expressions that don't properly evaluate to true or false will generate a warning and be treated as false. ⚠️

Lines being skipped are parsed normally to identify queries and backslash commands, but queries are not sent to the server, and backslash commands other than conditionals (\if, \elif, \else, \endif) are ignored. Conditional commands are checked only for valid nesting. Variable references in skipped lines are not expanded, and backquote expansion isn't performed either. 🙈

All the backslash commands of a given conditional block must appear in the same source file. If EOF is reached on the main input file or an \include-ed file before all local \if-blocks have been closed, then psql will raise an error. 😭

Here's the example, because it's lowkey gorgeous:

-- check for the existence of two separate records in the database and store
-- the results in separate psql variables
SELECT
    EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM customer WHERE customer_id = 123) as is_customer,
    EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM employee WHERE employee_id = 456) as is_employee
\gset
\if :is_customer
    SELECT * FROM customer WHERE customer_id = 123;
\elif :is_employee
    \echo 'is not a customer but is an employee'
    SELECT * FROM employee WHERE employee_id = 456;
\else
    \if yes
        \echo 'not a customer or employee'
    \else
        \echo 'this will never print'
    \endif
\endif

🦋 `\ir` or `\include_relative filename` — same but path-aware

The \ir command is similar to \i, but it resolves relative file names differently. 🌸

When executing in interactive mode, the two commands behave identically. However, when invoked from a script, \ir interprets file names relative to the directory in which the script is located, rather than the current working directory. So it's giving "I know where I came from" energy. 💅

👑 `\l[+]` or `\list[+] [ pattern ]` — the database roll call

Lists the databases in the server and shows their names, owners, character set encodings, and access privileges. 🗂️

If pattern is specified, only databases whose names match the pattern are listed.

If + is appended to the command name, database sizes, default tablespaces, and descriptions are also displayed. Size info is available for databases on which the current user has CONNECT privilege, or if the current user is a superuser or has privileges of the pg_read_all_stats role. 🔓

📤 `\lo_export loid filename` — big object, meet filesystem

Reads the large object with OID loid from the database and writes it to filename. 💾

Note that this is subtly different from the server function lo_export, which acts with the permissions of the user that the database server runs as and on the server's file system. ⚠️

Tip 💡 Use \lo_list to find out the large object's OID.

📥 `\lo_import filename [ comment ]` — file, meet big object

Stores the file into a PostgreSQL large object. Optionally, it associates the given comment with the object. Example:

foo=> \lo_import '/home/peter/pictures/photo.xcf' 'a picture of me'
lo_import 152801

The response indicates that the large object received object ID 152801, which can be used to access the newly-created large object in the future. For the sake of readability, it's recommended to always associate a human-readable comment with every object. 🏷️ Both OIDs and comments can be viewed with the \lo_list command.

Note that this command is subtly different from the server-side lo_import, because it acts as the local user on the local file system, rather than the server's user and file system. 🌍

🗒️ `\lo_list[+]` — the big object guest list

Shows a list of all PostgreSQL large objects currently stored in the database, along with any comments provided for them. 📋

If + is appended to the command name, each large object is listed with its associated permissions, if any. 🔐

\lo_unlink loid — deletes the large object with OID loid from the database. gone, deleted, no more 💅

Tip: use \lo_list to find out the large object's OID. iykyk, don't just guess the number bestie 😭

\o or \out [ filename ]
\o or \out [ |command ] — arranges to save future query results to the file filename, or pipes future results to the shell command command. If you give no argument at all, the query output gets reset back to standard output. ✨

If the argument begins with |, then the entire remainder of the line is taken to be the command to execute, and neither variable interpolation nor backquote expansion are performed in it. The rest of the line is simply passed literally to the shell. literally just vibes and a shell, no processing 🫶

"Query results" includes all tables, command responses, and notices obtained from the database server, as well as output of various backslash commands that query the database (such as \d); but not error messages. errors are not invited to this party 💀

Tip: to intersperse text output in between query results, use \qecho. main character text output energy 👑

\p or \print — prints the current query buffer to the standard output. If the current query buffer is empty, the most recently executed query is printed instead. lowkey handy ngl 🦋
\password [ username ] — changes the password of the specified user (by default, the current user). This command prompts for the new password, encrypts it, and sends it to the server as an ALTER ROLE command. This makes sure that the new password does not appear in cleartext in the command history, the server log, or elsewhere. your secrets stay secret, periodt 🔥
\prompt [ text ] name — prompts the user to supply text, which is assigned to the variable name. An optional prompt string, text, can be specified. (For multiword prompts, surround the text with single quotes.) 🎀

By default, \prompt uses the terminal for input and output. However, if the -f command line switch was used, \prompt uses standard input and standard output. ok so it switches homes depending on -f, noted 💜

✨ Adjustable printing options, aka the `\pset` cinematic universe ✨

\pset [ option [ value ] ] — this command sets options affecting the output of query result tables. option indicates which option is to be set. The semantics of value vary depending on the selected option. For some options, omitting value causes the option to be toggled or unset, as described under the particular option. If no such behavior is mentioned, then omitting value just results in the current setting being displayed. no surprises, just facts 💅

\pset without any arguments displays the current status of all printing options. it's giving "let me check my settings bestie" 🌸

Adjustable printing options are:

🧚 the options themselves

border — the value must be a number. In general, the higher the number the more borders and lines the tables will have, but details depend on the particular format. In HTML format, this will translate directly into the border=... attribute. In most other formats only values 0 (no border), 1 (internal dividing lines), and 2 (table frame) make sense, and values above 2 will be treated the same as border = 2. The latex and latex-longtable formats additionally allow a value of 3 to add dividing lines between data rows. borders maxxing fr 🎀
columns — sets the target width for the wrapped format, and also the width limit for determining whether output is wide enough to require the pager or switch to the vertical display in expanded auto mode. Zero (the default) causes the target width to be controlled by the environment variable COLUMNS, or the detected screen width if COLUMNS is not set. In addition, if columns is zero then the wrapped format only affects screen output. If columns is nonzero then file and pipe output is wrapped to that width as well. so zero = screen-only tea ☕
csv_fieldsep — specifies the field separator to be used in CSV output format. If the separator character appears in a field's value, that field is output within double quotes, following standard CSV rules. The default is a comma. classic comma behavior 🍓
expanded (or x) — if value is specified it must be either on or off, which will enable or disable expanded mode, or auto. If value is omitted the command toggles between the on and off settings. When expanded mode is enabled, query results are displayed in two columns, with the column name on the left and the data on the right. This mode is useful if the data wouldn't fit on the screen in the normal "horizontal" mode. In the auto setting, the expanded mode is used whenever the query output has more than one column and is wider than the screen; otherwise, the regular mode is used. The auto setting is only effective in the aligned and wrapped formats. In other formats, it always behaves as if the expanded mode is off. auto is literally the "read the room" setting 👀
fieldsep — specifies the field separator to be used in unaligned output format. That way one can create, for example, tab-separated output, which other programs might prefer. To set a tab as field separator, type \pset fieldsep '\t'. The default field separator is '|' (a vertical bar). respect the pipe 😤
fieldsep_zero — sets the field separator to use in unaligned output format to a zero byte. the void separator 💀
footer — if value is specified it must be either on or off which will enable or disable display of the table footer (the (n rows) count). If value is omitted the command toggles footer display on or off. the row count stays iconic 💅
format — sets the output format to one of aligned, asciidoc, csv, html, latex, latex-longtable, troff-ms, unaligned, or wrapped. Unique abbreviations are allowed. the format multiverse 🌈
- aligned format is the standard, human-readable, nicely formatted text output; this is the default. the default slay ✨
- unaligned format writes all columns of a row on one line, separated by the currently active field separator. This is useful for creating output that might be intended to be read in by other programs, for example, tab-separated or comma-separated format. However, the field separator character is not treated specially if it appears in a column's value; so CSV format may be better suited for such purposes. ⚠️ separator in your data? it does not care, be warned 🫠
- csv format writes column values separated by commas, applying the quoting rules described in RFC 4180. This output is compatible with the CSV format of the server's COPY command. A header line with column names is generated unless the tuples_only parameter is on. Titles and footers are not printed. Each row is terminated by the system-dependent end-of-line character, which is typically a single newline (\n) for Unix-like systems or a carriage return and newline sequence (\r\n) for Microsoft Windows. Field separator characters other than comma can be selected with \pset csv_fieldsep. 🍓
- wrapped format is like aligned but wraps wide data values across lines to make the output fit in the target column width. The target width is determined as described under the columns option. Note that psql will not attempt to wrap column header titles; therefore, wrapped format behaves the same as aligned if the total width needed for column headers exceeds the target. headers refuse to wrap, they said no 💅

The asciidoc, html, latex, latex-longtable, and troff-ms formats put out tables that are intended to be included in documents using the respective mark-up language. They are not complete documents! This might not be necessary in HTML, but in LaTeX you must have a complete document wrapper. The latex format uses LaTeX's tabular environment. The latex-longtable format requires the LaTeX longtable and booktabs packages. not complete documents, i cannot stress this enough bestie 😭

linestyle — sets the border line drawing style to one of ascii, old-ascii, or unicode. Unique abbreviations are allowed. (That would mean one letter is enough.) The default setting is ascii. This option only affects the aligned and wrapped output formats. one letter is enough, she's efficient 🎀
- ascii style uses plain ASCII characters. Newlines in data are shown using a + symbol in the right-hand margin. When the wrapped format wraps data from one line to the next without a newline character, a dot (.) is shown in the right-hand margin of the first line, and again in the left-hand margin of the following line.
- old-ascii style uses plain ASCII characters, using the formatting style used in PostgreSQL 8.4 and earlier. Newlines in data are shown using a : symbol in place of the left-hand column separator. When the data is wrapped from one line to the next without a newline character, a ; symbol is used in place of the left-hand column separator. vintage formatting, retro era 🕰️
- unicode style uses Unicode box-drawing characters. Newlines in data are shown using a carriage return symbol in the right-hand margin. When the data is wrapped from one line to the next without a newline character, an ellipsis symbol is shown in the right-hand margin of the first line, and again in the left-hand margin of the following line. unicode style is the prettiest, no cap 🌸

When the border setting is greater than zero, the linestyle option also determines the characters with which the border lines are drawn. Plain ASCII characters work everywhere, but Unicode characters look nicer on displays that recognize them. aesthetic vs compatibility, the eternal battle 🦋

null — sets the string to be printed in place of a null value. The default is to print nothing, which can easily be mistaken for an empty string. For example, one might prefer \pset null '(null)'. empty string and null pretending to be twins?? not on my watch 🙈
numericlocale — if value is specified it must be either on or off which will enable or disable display of a locale-specific character to separate groups of digits to the left of the decimal marker. If value is omitted the command toggles between regular and locale-specific numeric output. comma separators for the digits, cute 🎀
pager — controls use of a pager program for query and psql help output. When the pager option is off, the pager program is not used. When the pager option is on, the pager is used when appropriate, i.e., when the output is to a terminal and will not fit on the screen. The pager option can also be set to always, which causes the pager to be used for all terminal output regardless of whether it fits on the screen. \pset pager without a value toggles pager use on and off. always is for the girlies who want the pager every single time, respect 💅

If PSQL_PAGER or PAGER is set in your environment, anything that's about to get paged gets piped straight into that program. If neither one's set, you get a platform-dependent default (think more). 💅

And when you're using \watch to run a query over and over, Unix systems look at PSQL_WATCH_PAGER instead to find the pager program. It's configured separately on purpose — it can confuse traditional pagers, but it's perfect for sending output to tools that actually understand psql's output format (like pspg --stream). ✨

pager_min_lines — set this to a number bigger than your page height and the pager program simply won't get called unless there are at least that many lines of output to show. Default is 0.
recordsep — the record (line) separator used in unaligned output format. Defaults to a newline character.
recordsep_zero — same thing but sets the record separator in unaligned output format to a zero byte.
tableattr (or T) — in HTML format this is the attributes that go inside the table tag — like cellpadding or bgcolor. Ngl you probably don't wanna put border here, because \pset border is already handling that for you. If you give no value, the table attributes get unset. 🎀 In latex-longtable format, this controls the proportional width of each column containing a left-aligned data type — you give it a whitespace-separated list of values, e.g. '0.2 0.2 0.6'. Any output columns you don't specify just use the last value you gave.
title (or C) — sets the table title for any tables printed after this. Great for giving your output cute descriptive tags. If you give no value, the title gets unset.
tuples_only (or t) — if you give it a value it has to be on or off, which enables or disables tuples-only mode. Leave the value off and the command toggles between regular and tuples-only output for you. Regular output includes the extra stuff — column headers, titles, various footers. Tuples-only mode shows only the actual table data.
unicode_border_linestyle — sets the border drawing style for the unicode line style, either single or double.
unicode_column_linestyle — sets the column drawing style for the unicode line style, either single or double.
unicode_header_linestyle — sets the header drawing style for the unicode line style, either single or double.

Wanna see how all these formats actually look? The Examples section below has illustrations. 👀

Tip — there are shortcut commands for \pset! See \a, \C, \f, \H, \t, \T, and \x. 🫶

`\q` or `\quit`

Quits psql. Iconic. But heads up: if you're in a script file, this only terminates execution of that script. 🦋

`\qecho text [ ... ]`

Literally identical to \echo except the output gets written to the query output channel instead, as set by \o.

`\r` or `\reset`

Resets — as in clears — the query buffer. Fresh start, bestie. 🧚

`\restrict restrict_key`

Enters "restricted" mode with the key you provided. In this mode the only meta-command you're allowed to use is \unrestrict, which is how you get out. The key may contain only alphanumeric characters.

This one's primarily intended for plain-text dumps generated by pg_dump, pg_dumpall, and pg_restore, but it can be useful elsewhere too.

`\s [ filename ]`

Prints psql's command line history to filename. Leave filename off and the history goes to standard output instead (using the pager if appropriate).

Nope, this command isn't available at all if psql was built without Readline support. 😭

`\set [ name [ value [ ... ] ] ]`

Sets the psql variable name to value — or, if you give more than one value, to the concatenation of all of them. Give only one argument and the variable gets set to an empty-string value. Wanna unset a variable? That's \unset's job.

\set with zero arguments displays the names and values of every psql variable currently set. 🌸

Valid variable names can contain letters, digits, and underscores. See Variables below for the full tea. Variable names are case-sensitive, so don't play yourself.

Certain variables are special — either they control psql's behavior, or they're automatically set to reflect connection state. Those are all documented in Variables, below.

Note — this command is completely unrelated to the SQL command SET. Do not confuse them, ok? 💀

`\setenv name [ value ]`

Sets the environment variable name to value — or, if you don't supply a value, unsets that environment variable. Example:

testdb=> \setenv PAGER less
testdb=> \setenv LESS -imx4F

`\sf[+] function_description`

This one fetches and shows the definition of the named function or procedure, in the form of a CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION or CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE command. The definition goes to the current query output channel, as set by \o.

You can target the function by name alone, or by name plus arguments — like foo(integer, text). You must give the argument types if there's more than one function with the same name. 👑

Stick a + on the end of the command name and the output lines get numbered, with the first line of the function body being line 1.

Unlike most other meta-commands, the entire remainder of the line is always taken as the argument(s) of \sf — no variable interpolation, no backquote expansion. Just raw.

`\sv[+] view_name`

Same energy as \sf, but for views: it fetches and shows the definition of the named view in the form of a CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW command. The definition is printed to the current query output channel, as set by \o.

Add + to the command name and the output lines get numbered from 1.

Same caveat as before: the entire remainder of the line is always taken as the argument(s) of \sv, and neither variable interpolation nor backquote expansion happens in the arguments. 🌈

`\t`

Toggles the display of output column name headings and the row count footer. It's equivalent to \pset tuples_only and it's just here for convenience. 💖

`\T table_options`

Specifies the attributes to be placed inside the table tag in HTML output format. This is equivalent to \pset tableattr table_options.

`\timing [ on | off ]`

Give it a parameter and it turns the "how long did each SQL statement take" display on or off. Give it nothing and it toggles between the two. The display is in milliseconds — and any interval longer than 1 second also gets shown in minutes:seconds format, with hours and days fields added if needed. ⏱️

`\unrestrict restrict_key`

Exits "restricted" mode (the one where all other meta-commands are blocked) — as long as the key you give matches the one you handed to \restrict when you entered restricted mode. 🔓

Primarily intended for plain-text dumps generated by pg_dump, pg_dumpall, and pg_restore, but it may be useful elsewhere.

Unlike most other meta-commands, the entire remainder of the line is always taken as the argument of \unrestrict, and neither variable interpolation nor backquote expansion happens.

`\unset name`

Unsets (deletes) the psql variable name.

Most variables that control psql's behavior can't actually be unset — for those, an \unset command is interpreted as setting them back to their default values instead. See Variables below. 🎀

`\w` or `\write filename`

`\w` or `\write |command`

Writes the current query buffer to the file filename, or pipes it to the shell command command. If the current query buffer is empty, the most recently executed query gets written instead. ✨

If the argument begins with |, then the entire remainder of the line is taken to be the command to execute — no variable interpolation, no backquote expansion. The rest of the line is just passed literally to the shell.

`\warn text [ ... ]`

Identical to \echo except the output goes to psql's standard error channel rather than standard output. Perfect for yelling into the void. 💀

`\watch [ seconds ]`

Repeatedly executes the current query buffer (the way \g does) until you interrupt it or the query fails. Waits the specified number of seconds between executions (default 2). Each query result gets displayed with a header that includes the \pset title string (if there is one), the time as of query start, and the delay interval. 🔥

If the current query buffer is empty, the most recently sent query gets re-executed instead.

`\x [ on | off | auto ]`

Sets or toggles expanded table formatting mode. As such it's equivalent to \pset expanded.

`\z [ pattern ]`

Lists tables, views and sequences together with their associated access privileges. Specify a pattern and only the tables, views and sequences whose names match it get listed.

This is an alias for \dp ("display privileges"). 👑

`\! [ command ]`

With no argument, escapes to a sub-shell — psql resumes when the sub-shell exits. With an argument, executes the shell command command.

Unlike most other meta-commands, the entire remainder of the line is always taken as the argument(s) of \!, and neither variable interpolation nor backquote expansion happens in the arguments. The rest of the line is simply passed literally to the shell. 🐚

`\? [ topic ]`

Shows help information. The optional topic parameter (which defaults to commands) picks which part of psql gets explained:

commands describes psql's backslash commands
options describes the command-line options you can pass to psql
variables shows help about psql configuration variables

`\;`

Backslash-semicolon is not a meta-command in the same way as everything above it — it just causes a semicolon to be added to the query buffer, with no further processing. 🎀

Normally psql dispatches an SQL command to the server the moment it reaches the command-ending semicolon, even if there's more input left on the current line. So like, if you type

select 1; select 2; select 3;

…will result in the three SQL commands being individually sent to the server, with each one's results being displayed before continuing to the next command. But a semicolon entered as \; will not trigger command processing, so the command before it and the one after it are effectively squished together and sent to the server in one single request. So like, for example:

select 1\; select 2\; select 3;

results in sending the three SQL commands to the server in a single request, when the non-backslashed semicolon is reached. And bestie, the server executes such a request as a single transaction, unless there are explicit BEGIN/COMMIT commands included in the string to divide it into multiple transactions. (Peep Section 55.2.2.1 for more details about how the server handles multi-query strings.) 🫶

🎀 Patterns 🎀

Okay so the various \d commands accept a pattern parameter to specify the object name(s) to be displayed. In the simplest case, a pattern is just the exact name of the object. The characters within a pattern are normally folded to lower case, just as in SQL names — for example, \dt FOO will display the table named foo. ✨ As in SQL names, placing double quotes around a pattern stops folding to lower case. Should you need to include an actual double quote character in a pattern, write it as a pair of double quotes within a double-quote sequence; again this is in accord with the rules for SQL quoted identifiers. So like, for example, \dt "FOO""BAR" will display the table named FOO"BAR (not foo"bar). 🦋 Unlike the normal rules for SQL names, you can put double quotes around just part of a pattern — for instance \dt FOO"FOO"BAR will display the table named fooFOObar.

Whenever the pattern parameter is omitted completely, the \d commands display all objects that are visible in the current schema search path — this is equivalent to using * as the pattern. (An object is said to be visible if its containing schema is in the search path and no object of the same kind and name appears earlier in the search path. This is equivalent to the statement that the object can be referenced by name without explicit schema qualification.) To see all objects in the database regardless of visibility, use *.* as the pattern. 👑

Within a pattern, * matches any sequence of characters (including no characters) and ? matches any single character. (This notation is comparable to Unix shell file name patterns.) For example, \dt int* displays tables whose names begin with int. But within double quotes, * and ? lose these special meanings and are just matched literally. 💅

A relation pattern that contains a dot (.) is interpreted as a schema name pattern followed by an object name pattern. For example, \dt foo*.*bar* displays all tables whose table name includes bar that are in schemas whose schema name starts with foo. When no dot appears, then the pattern matches only objects that are visible in the current schema search path. Again, a dot within double quotes loses its special meaning and is matched literally. A relation pattern that contains two dots (.) is interpreted as a database name followed by a schema name pattern followed by an object name pattern. The database name portion will not be treated as a pattern and must match the name of the currently connected database, else an error will be raised. 😭

A schema pattern that contains a dot (.) is interpreted as a database name followed by a schema name pattern. For example, \dn mydb.*foo* displays all schemas whose schema name includes foo. The database name portion will not be treated as a pattern and must match the name of the currently connected database, else an error will be raised. 💀

Advanced users can use regular-expression notations such as character classes, for example [0-9] to match any digit. All regular expression special characters work as specified in Section 9.7.3, except for . which is taken as a separator as mentioned above, * which is translated to the regular-expression notation .*, ? which is translated to ., and $ which is matched literally. You can emulate these pattern characters at need by writing ? for ., (R+|) for R*, or (R|) for R?. $ is not needed as a regular-expression character since the pattern must match the whole name, unlike the usual interpretation of regular expressions (in other words, $ is automatically appended to your pattern). Write * at the beginning and/or end if you don't wish the pattern to be anchored. ✨ Note that within double quotes, all regular expression special characters lose their special meanings and are matched literally. Also, the regular expression special characters are matched literally in operator name patterns (i.e., the argument of \do). 🧚

🌈 Advanced Features 🌈

🧚 Variables 🧚

psql provides variable substitution features similar to common Unix command shells. Variables are simply name/value pairs, where the value can be any string of any length. The name must consist of letters (including non-Latin letters), digits, and underscores. 🎀

To set a variable, use the psql meta-command \set. For example,

testdb=> \set foo bar

sets the variable foo to the value bar. To retrieve the content of the variable, precede the name with a colon, for example:

testdb=> \echo :foo
bar

This works in both regular SQL commands and meta-commands; there is more detail in SQL Interpolation, below. 🦋

If you call \set without a second argument, the variable is set to an empty-string value. To unset (i.e., delete) a variable, use the command \unset. To show the values of all variables, call \set without any argument. 💜

Note 🫶 The arguments of \set are subject to the same substitution rules as with other commands. Thus you can construct interesting references such as \set :foo 'something' and get "soft links" or "variable variables" of Perl or PHP fame, respectively. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), there is no way to do anything useful with these constructs. On the other hand, \set bar :foo is a perfectly valid way to copy a variable. 😭

A number of these variables are treated specially by psql. They represent certain option settings that can be changed at run time by altering the value of the variable, or in some cases represent changeable state of psql. By convention, all specially treated variables' names consist of all upper-case ASCII letters (and possibly digits and underscores). To ensure maximum compatibility in the future, avoid using such variable names for your own purposes. ⚠️

Variables that control psql's behavior generally cannot be unset or set to invalid values. An \unset command is allowed but is interpreted as setting the variable to its default value. A \set command without a second argument is interpreted as setting the variable to on, for control variables that accept that value, and is rejected for others. Also, control variables that accept the values on and off will also accept other common spellings of Boolean values, such as true and false. ✨

The specially treated variables are:

AUTOCOMMIT — When on (the default), each SQL command is automatically committed upon successful completion. To postpone commit in this mode, you must enter a BEGIN or START TRANSACTION SQL command. When off or unset, SQL commands are not committed until you explicitly issue COMMIT or END. The autocommit-off mode works by issuing an implicit BEGIN for you, just before any command that is not already in a transaction block and is not itself a BEGIN or other transaction-control command, nor a command that cannot be executed inside a transaction block (such as VACUUM). 😮

Note 💀 In autocommit-off mode, you must explicitly abandon any failed transaction by entering ABORT or ROLLBACK. Also keep in mind that if you exit the session without committing, your work will be lost.

Note 🌸 The autocommit-on mode is PostgreSQL's traditional behavior, but autocommit-off is closer to the SQL spec. If you prefer autocommit-off, you might wish to set it in the system-wide psqlrc file or your ~/.psqlrc file.

COMP_KEYWORD_CASE — Determines which letter case to use when completing an SQL key word. If set to lower or upper, the completed word will be in lower or upper case, respectively. If set to preserve-lower or preserve-upper (the default), the completed word will be in the case of the word already entered, but words being completed without anything entered will be in lower or upper case, respectively. 🎀
DBNAME — The name of the database you are currently connected to. This is set every time you connect to a database (including program start-up), but can be changed or unset. 🌈
ECHO — If set to all, all nonempty input lines are printed to standard output as they are read. (This does not apply to lines read interactively.) To select this behavior on program start-up, use the switch -a. If set to queries, psql prints each query to standard output as it is sent to the server. The switch to select this behavior is -e. If set to errors, then only failed queries are displayed on standard error output. The switch for this behavior is -b. If set to none (the default), then no queries are displayed. 💅
ECHO_HIDDEN — When this variable is set to on and a backslash command queries the database, the query is first shown. This feature helps you to study PostgreSQL internals and provide similar functionality in your own programs. (To select this behavior on program start-up, use the switch -E.) If you set this variable to the value noexec, the queries are just shown but are not actually sent to the server and executed. The default value is off. 👑
ENCODING — The current client character set encoding. This is set every time you connect to a database (including program start-up), and when you change the encoding with \encoding, but it can be changed or unset. 🦋
ERROR — true if the last SQL query failed, false if it succeeded. See also SQLSTATE. ⭐
FETCH_COUNT — set this to an integer greater than zero and your SELECT results get fetched and displayed in batches of that many rows instead of the default "hoard the whole result set first, then display" behavior ✨. So like, only a limited amount of memory is used, no matter how chonky the result set is. Peeps commonly use 100 to 1000 when they turn this on. Heads up though: with this feature on, a query might fail after it's already displayed some rows 😭.

Tip 🎀 — you can use any output format with this, but the default aligned format tends to look a mess because each group of FETCH_COUNT rows gets formatted separately, which means the column widths vary across the row groups. The other output formats work better, fr fr.

HIDE_TABLEAM — set this to true and a table's access method details don't get displayed. Mostly useful for regression tests. Lowkey niche but iconic.
HIDE_TOAST_COMPRESSION — set this to true and column compression method details don't get displayed. Again, mainly a regression-test thing 💅.
HISTCONTROL — set it to ignorespace and lines that begin with a space are not entered into the history list. Set it to ignoredups and lines matching the previous history line are not entered. ignoreboth combines the two. Set it to none (the default) and every line read in interactive mode is saved on the history list. 🦋

Note — this feature was shamelessly plagiarized from Bash. (Their words, not mine 🙈.)

HISTFILE — the file name used to store the history list. If it's unset, the file name comes from the PSQL_HISTORY environment variable. If that's not set either, the default is ~/.psql_history, or %APPDATA%\postgresql\psql_history on Windows. For example, putting:

\set HISTFILE ~/.psql_history-:DBNAME

in ~/.psqlrc will cause psql to keep a separate history for each database. Obsessed 😍.

Note — also shamelessly plagiarized from Bash.

HISTSIZE — the maximum number of commands stored in the command history (default 500). Set it negative and no limit is applied. No cap, literally 🌈.

Note — yes, also shamelessly plagiarized from Bash 💀.

HOST — the database server host you're currently connected to. This gets set every time you connect to a database (including program start-up), but you can change it or unset it.
IGNOREEOF — if set to 1 or less, sending an EOF character (usually Ctrl+D) to an interactive psql session will terminate the app. Set it to a larger numeric value and that many consecutive EOF characters have to be typed before an interactive session terminates. Set it to a non-numeric value and it's interpreted as 10. The default is 0.

Note — shamelessly plagiarized from Bash, bestie, it's a whole theme 🫶.

LASTOID — the value of the last affected OID, as returned from an INSERT or \lo_import command. This variable is only guaranteed valid until after the result of the next SQL command has been displayed. Important: PostgreSQL servers since version 12 don't support OID system columns anymore, so LASTOID will always be 0 following INSERT when you're targeting such servers.
LAST_ERROR_MESSAGE, LAST_ERROR_SQLSTATE — the primary error message and its associated SQLSTATE code for the most recent failed query in the current psql session, or an empty string and 00000 if no error has occurred in the current session.
ON_ERROR_ROLLBACK — set to on: if a statement inside a transaction block errors out, the error is ignored and the transaction continues 😌. Set to interactive: those errors are only ignored in interactive sessions, not when reading script files. Set to off (the default): a statement in a transaction block that generates an error aborts the entire transaction 💀. The error rollback mode works by issuing an implicit SAVEPOINT for you right before each command that's in a transaction block, then rolling back to that savepoint if the command fails. Clever, honestly.
ON_ERROR_STOP — by default, command processing keeps going after an error. When this is set to on, processing stops immediately instead. In interactive mode, psql returns to the command prompt; otherwise psql exits, returning error code 3 to distinguish this case from fatal error conditions, which get reported with error code 1. Either way, any currently running scripts (the top-level script, if any, and any other scripts it may have invoked) get terminated immediately. And if the top-level command string contained multiple SQL commands, processing stops with the current command.
PORT — the database server port you're currently connected to. Set every time you connect to a database (including program start-up), but you can change or unset it.
PROMPT1, PROMPT2, PROMPT3 — these specify what the prompts psql issues should look like. See Prompting below 👀.
QUIET — setting this to on is equivalent to the command line option -q. Probably not too useful in interactive mode, ngl.
ROW_COUNT — the number of rows returned or affected by the last SQL query, or 0 if the query failed or didn't report a row count.
SERVER_VERSION_NAME, SERVER_VERSION_NUM — the server's version number as a string, for example 9.6.2, 10.1 or 11beta1, and in numeric form, for example 90602 or 100001. These get set every time you connect to a database (including program start-up), but can be changed or unset.
SHOW_ALL_RESULTS — when this is set to off, only the last result of a combined query (\;) gets shown instead of all of them. The default is on. The off behavior is for compatibility with older versions of psql.
SHOW_CONTEXT — this can be set to never, errors, or always to control whether CONTEXT fields get displayed in messages from the server. The default is errors (meaning context shows up in error messages, but not in notice or warning messages). This setting has no effect when VERBOSITY is set to terse or sqlstate. (See also \errverbose, for when you want a verbose version of the error you just got 👑.)
SINGLELINE — setting this to on is equivalent to the command line option -S.
SINGLESTEP — setting this to on is equivalent to the command line option -s.
SQLSTATE — the error code (see Appendix A) associated with the last SQL query's failure, or 00000 if it succeeded ✨.
USER — the database user you're currently connected as. Set every time you connect to a database (including program start-up), but can be changed or unset.
VERBOSITY — this can be set to default, verbose, terse, or sqlstate to control the verbosity of error reports. (See also \errverbose, for when you want a verbose version of the error you just got.)
VERSION, VERSION_NAME, VERSION_NUM — these get set at program start-up to reflect psql's version, respectively as a verbose string, a short string (e.g., 9.6.2, 10.1, or 11beta1), and a number (e.g., 90602 or 100001). They can be changed or unset.

🦋 SQL Interpolation 🦋

Okay bestie, this is genuinely one of the slayest features of psql variables: you can substitute ("interpolate") them into regular SQL statements, and into the arguments of meta-commands too 💅. On top of that, psql gives you the tools to make sure variable values used as SQL literals and identifiers are properly quoted. The syntax for interpolating a value with no quoting at all is to stick a colon (:) in front of the variable name. Like:

testdb=> \set foo 'my_table'
testdb=> SELECT * FROM :foo;

That would query the table my_table. But note this can be unsafe: the variable's value is copied literally, so it can contain unbalanced quotes, or even backslash commands 😬. You have to make sure it makes sense where you put it.

When a value is going to be used as an SQL literal or identifier, it's safest to arrange for it to be quoted. To quote a variable's value as an SQL literal, write a colon followed by the variable name in single quotes. To quote it as an SQL identifier, write a colon followed by the variable name in double quotes. These constructs deal correctly with quotes and other special characters embedded in the variable value, which is the whole point 🎀. The previous example would be more safely written like this:

testdb=> \set foo 'my_table'
testdb=> SELECT * FROM :"foo";

Variable interpolation will not be performed inside quoted SQL literals and identifiers. So a construction like ':foo' doesn't work to produce a quoted literal from a variable's value — and it would be unsafe if it did work, since it wouldn't correctly handle quotes embedded in the value 🙈.

One example use of this mechanism is copying the contents of a file into a table column. First load the file into a variable, then interpolate the variable's value as a quoted string:

testdb=> \set content `cat my_file.txt`
testdb=> INSERT INTO my_table VALUES (:'content');

Note 📌 — this still won't work if my_file.txt contains NUL bytes. psql does not support embedded NUL bytes in variable values. Periodt.

Since colons can legally appear in SQL commands, an apparent attempt at interpolation (that is, :name, :'name, or :"name") is not replaced unless the named variable is currently set. And in any case, you can escape a colon with a backslash to protect it from substitution 🌸.

The :{?name} special syntax is giving little boolean bestie energy — it returns TRUE or FALSE depending on whether the variable exists or not, so it's always substituted, unless you've backslash-escaped the colon. 💅

The colon syntax for variables is standard SQL for embedded query languages like ECPG. The colon syntaxes for array slices and type casts are PostgreSQL extensions, and lowkey they can sometimes conflict with the standard usage. The colon-quote syntax for escaping a variable's value as an SQL literal or identifier is a psql extension. iykyk. ✨

🌸 Prompting 🌸

The prompts psql throws at you can be customized to your preference, bestie. The three variables PROMPT1, PROMPT2, and PROMPT3 hold strings and special escape sequences that describe what your prompt looks like. Prompt 1 is the normal prompt that gets issued when psql wants a new command. Prompt 2 shows up when more input is expected during command entry — like, because the command wasn't terminated with a semicolon or a quote wasn't closed. Prompt 3 is what you get when you're running an SQL COPY FROM STDIN command and you need to type in a row value on the terminal.

The value of the selected prompt variable is printed literally, except where a percent sign (%) shows up. Depending on the next character, certain other text gets substituted instead. The defined substitutions are, and I'm obsessed with all of them:

%M — The full host name (with domain name) of the database server, or [local] if the connection is over a Unix domain socket, or [local:/dir/name] if the Unix domain socket is not at the compiled in default location.
%m — The host name of the database server, truncated at the first dot, or [local] if the connection is over a Unix domain socket.
%> — The port number at which the database server is listening.
%n — The database session user name. (The expansion of this value might change during a database session as the result of the command SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION.)
%/ — The name of the current database.
%~ — Like %/, but the output is ~ (tilde) if the database is your default database.
%# — If the session user is a database superuser, then a #, otherwise a >. (The expansion of this value might change during a database session as the result of the command SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION.)
%p — The process ID of the backend currently connected to.
%R — In prompt 1 normally =, but @ if the session is in an inactive branch of a conditional block, or ^ if in single-line mode, or ! if the session is disconnected from the database (which can happen if \connect fails). In prompt 2 %R is replaced by a character that depends on why psql expects more input: - if the command simply wasn't terminated yet, but * if there is an unfinished /* ... */ comment, a single quote if there is an unfinished quoted string, a double quote if there is an unfinished quoted identifier, a dollar sign if there is an unfinished dollar-quoted string, or ( if there is an unmatched left parenthesis. In prompt 3 %R doesn't produce anything at all. rude but ok.
%x — Transaction status: an empty string when not in a transaction block, or * when in a transaction block, or ! when in a failed transaction block, or ? when the transaction state is indeterminate (for example, because there is no connection).
%l — The line number inside the current statement, starting from 1.
%digits — The character with the indicated octal code is substituted.
%:name: — The value of the psql variable name. See Variables, above, for details.
%`command` — The output of command, similar to ordinary "back-tick" substitution.
%[ ... %] — Prompts can contain terminal control characters which, for example, change the color, background, or style of the prompt text, or change the title of the terminal window. In order for the line editing features of Readline to work properly, these non-printing control characters must be designated as invisible by surrounding them with %[ and %]. Multiple pairs of these can occur within the prompt. For example:

testdb=> \set PROMPT1 '%[%033[1;33;40m%]%n@%/%R%[%033[0m%]%# '

results in a boldfaced (1;) yellow-on-black (33;40) prompt on VT100-compatible, color-capable terminals. iconic behavior honestly 🎀

%w — Whitespace of the same width as the most recent output of PROMPT1. This can be used as a PROMPT2 setting, so that multi-line statements are aligned with the first line, but there is no visible secondary prompt.

To insert a percent sign into your prompt, write %%. The default prompts are '%/%R%x%# ' for prompts 1 and 2, and '>> ' for prompt 3.

Note This feature was shamelessly plagiarized from tcsh. not me gasping 💀

🦋 Command-Line Editing 🦋

psql uses the Readline or libedit library, if available, for convenient line editing and retrieval. The command history is automatically saved when psql exits and is reloaded when psql starts up. Type up-arrow or control-P to retrieve previous lines. so convenient bestie 🫶

You can also use tab completion to fill in partially-typed keywords and SQL object names in many (by no means all) contexts. For example, at the start of a command, typing ins and pressing Tab will fill in insert into. Then, typing a few characters of a table or schema name and pressing Tab will fill in the unfinished name, or offer a menu of possible completions when there's more than one. (Depending on the library in use, you may need to press Tab more than once to get a menu.)

Tab completion for SQL object names requires sending queries to the server to find possible matches. In some contexts this can interfere with other operations. For example, after BEGIN it will be too late to issue SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL if a tab-completion query is issued in between. If you do not want tab completion at all, you can turn it off permanently by putting this in a file named .inputrc in your home directory:

$if psql
set disable-completion on
$endif

(This is not a psql but a Readline feature. Read its documentation for further details.)

The -n (--no-readline) command line option can also be useful to disable use of Readline for a single run of psql. This prevents tab completion, use or recording of command line history, and editing of multi-line commands. It is particularly useful when you need to copy-and-paste text that contains Tab characters. lowkey a lifesaver 😭

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

COLUMNS — If \pset columns is zero, controls the width for the wrapped format and width for determining if wide output requires the pager or should be switched to the vertical format in expanded auto mode.
PGDATABASE, PGHOST, PGPORT, PGUSER — Default connection parameters (see Section 34.15).
PG_COLOR — Specifies whether to use color in diagnostic messages. Possible values are always, auto and never.
PSQL_EDITOR, EDITOR, VISUAL — Editor used by the \e, \ef, and \ev commands. These variables are examined in the order listed; the first that is set is used. If none of them is set, the default is to use vi on Unix systems or notepad.exe on Windows systems.
PSQL_EDITOR_LINENUMBER_ARG — When \e, \ef, or \ev is used with a line number argument, this variable specifies the command-line argument used to pass the starting line number to the user's editor. For editors such as Emacs or vi, this is a plus sign. Include a trailing space in the value of the variable if there needs to be space between the option name and the line number. Examples:

PSQL_EDITOR_LINENUMBER_ARG='+'
PSQL_EDITOR_LINENUMBER_ARG='--line '

The default is + on Unix systems (corresponding to the default editor vi, and useful for many other common editors); but there is no default on Windows systems.

PSQL_HISTORY — Alternative location for the command history file. Tilde (~) expansion is performed.
PSQL_PAGER, PAGER — If a query's results do not fit on the screen, they are piped through this command. Typical values are more or less. Use of the pager can be disabled by setting PSQL_PAGER or PAGER to an empty string, or by adjusting the pager-related options of the \pset command. These variables are examined in the order listed; the first that is set is used. If neither of them is set, the default is to use more on most platforms, but less on Cygwin.
PSQL_WATCH_PAGER — When a query is executed repeatedly with the \watch command, a pager is not used by default. This behavior can be changed by setting PSQL_WATCH_PAGER to a pager command, on Unix systems. The pspg pager (not part of PostgreSQL but available in many open source software distributions) can display the output of \watch if started with the option --stream.
PSQLRC — Alternative location of the user's .psqlrc file. Tilde (~) expansion is performed.
SHELL — Command executed by the \! command.
TMPDIR — Directory for storing temporary files. The default is /tmp.

This utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, also uses the environment variables supported by libpq (see Section 34.15). 💜

🎀 FILES 🎀

💖 `psqlrc` and `~/.psqlrc` 💖

Okay so unless you pass it an -X option, psql tries to read and execute commands from the system-wide startup file (psqlrc) and then the user’s personal startup file (~/.psqlrc), after connecting to the database but before accepting normal commands. These files are literally made for setting up the client and/or the server to taste, typically with \set and SET commands. 💅

The system-wide startup file is named psqlrc. By default it is sought in the installation’s “system configuration” directory, which is most reliably identified by running pg_config --sysconfdir. Typically this directory will be ../etc/ relative to the directory containing the PostgreSQL executables. The directory to look in can be set explicitly via the PGSYSCONFDIR environment variable. ✨

The user’s personal startup file is named .psqlrc and is sought in the invoking user’s home directory. On Windows the personal startup file is instead named %APPDATA%\postgresql\psqlrc.conf. In either case, this default file path can be overridden by setting the PSQLRC environment variable. 🫶

Both the system-wide startup file and the user’s personal startup file can be made psql-version-specific by appending a dash and the PostgreSQL major or minor release identifier to the file name, for example ~/.psqlrc-15 or ~/.psqlrc-15.19. The most specific version-matching file will be read in preference to a non-version-specific file. These version suffixes are added after determining the file path as explained above. 💖

🌸 `.psql_history` 🌸

The command-line history is stored in the file ~/.psql_history, or %APPDATA%\postgresql\psql_history on Windows. 🦋

The location of the history file can be set explicitly via the HISTFILE psql variable or the PSQL_HISTORY environment variable. ✨

⚠️ NOTES ⚠️

psql works best with servers of the same or an older major version. Backslash commands are particularly likely to fail if the server is of a newer version than psql itself. However, backslash commands of the \d family should work with servers of versions back to 9.2, though not necessarily with servers newer than psql itself. The general functionality of running SQL commands and displaying query results should also work with servers of a newer major version, but this cannot be guaranteed in all cases. 😭

If you want to use psql to connect to several servers of different major versions, it is recommended that you use the newest version of psql. Alternatively, you can keep around a copy of psql from each major version and be sure to use the version that matches the respective server. But in practice, this additional complication should not be necessary. 💅

Before PostgreSQL 9.6, the -c option implied -X (--no-psqlrc); this is no longer the case.
Before PostgreSQL 8.4, psql allowed the first argument of a single-letter backslash command to start directly after the command, without intervening whitespace. Now, some whitespace is required. 🫶

🪟 NOTES FOR WINDOWS USERS 🪟

psql is built as a “console application”. Since the Windows console windows use a different encoding than the rest of the system, you must take special care when using 8-bit characters within psql. If psql detects a problematic console code page, it will warn you at startup. To change the console code page, two things are necessary: 💀

Set the code page by entering cmd.exe /c chcp 1252. (1252 is a code page that is appropriate for German; replace it with your value.) If you are using Cygwin, you can put this command in /etc/profile. 🌈
Set the console font to Lucida Console, because the raster font does not work with the ANSI code page. ✨

💅 EXAMPLES 💅

The first example shows how to spread a command over several lines of input. Notice the changing prompt: 👑

testdb=> CREATE TABLE my_table (
testdb(>  first integer not null default 0,
testdb(>  second text)
testdb-> ;
CREATE TABLE

Now look at the table definition again: 🦋

testdb=> \d my_table
              Table "public.my_table"
 Column |  Type   | Collation | Nullable | Default
--------+---------+-----------+----------+---------
 first  | integer |           | not null | 0
 second | text    |           |          |

Now we change the prompt to something more interesting: 💖

testdb=> \set PROMPT1 '%n@%m %~%R%# '
peter@localhost testdb=>

Let’s assume you have filled the table with data and want to take a look at it: 🌸

peter@localhost testdb=> SELECT * FROM my_table;
 first | second
-------+--------
     1 | one
     2 | two
     3 | three
     4 | four
(4 rows)

You can display tables in different ways by using the \pset command: ✨

peter@localhost testdb=> \pset border 2
Border style is 2.
peter@localhost testdb=> SELECT * FROM my_table;
+-------+--------+
| first | second |
+-------+--------+
|     1 | one    |
|     2 | two    |
|     3 | three  |
|     4 | four   |
+-------+--------+
(4 rows)

peter@localhost testdb=> \pset border 0
Border style is 0.
peter@localhost testdb=> SELECT * FROM my_table;
first second
----- ------
    1 one
    2 two
    3 three
    4 four
(4 rows)

peter@localhost testdb=> \pset border 1
Border style is 1.
peter@localhost testdb=> \pset format csv
Output format is csv.
peter@localhost testdb=> \pset tuples_only
Tuples only is on.
peter@localhost testdb=> SELECT second, first FROM my_table;
one,1
two,2
three,3
four,4
peter@localhost testdb=> \pset format unaligned
Output format is unaligned.
peter@localhost testdb=> \pset fieldsep '\t'
Field separator is "    ".
peter@localhost testdb=> SELECT second, first FROM my_table;
one     1
two     2
three   3
four    4

Alternatively, use the short commands: 🎀

peter@localhost testdb=> \a \t \x
Output format is aligned.
Tuples only is off.
Expanded display is on.
peter@localhost testdb=> SELECT * FROM my_table;
-[ RECORD 1 ]-
first  | 1
second | one
-[ RECORD 2 ]-
first  | 2
second | two
-[ RECORD 3 ]-
first  | 3
second | three
-[ RECORD 4 ]-
first  | 4
second | four

Also, these output format options can be set for just one query by using \g: 💅

peter@localhost testdb=> SELECT * FROM my_table
peter@localhost testdb-> \g (format=aligned tuples_only=off expanded=on)
-[ RECORD 1 ]-
first  | 1
second | one
-[ RECORD 2 ]-
first  | 2
second | two
-[ RECORD 3 ]-
first  | 3
second | three
-[ RECORD 4 ]-
first  | 4
second | four

Here is an example of using the \df command to find only functions with names matching int*pl and whose second argument is of type bigint: 🌟

testdb=> \df int*pl * bigint
                          List of functions
   Schema   |  Name   | Result data type | Argument data types | Type
------------+---------+------------------+---------------------+------
 pg_catalog | int28pl | bigint           | smallint, bigint    | func
 pg_catalog | int48pl | bigint           | integer, bigint     | func
 pg_catalog | int8pl  | bigint           | bigint, bigint      | func
(3 rows)

When suitable, query results can be shown in a crosstab representation with the \crosstabview command: 🐚

testdb=> SELECT first, second, first > 2 AS gt2 FROM my_table;
 first | second | gt2
-------+--------+-----
     1 | one    | f
     2 | two    | f
     3 | three  | t
     4 | four   | t
(4 rows)

testdb=> \crosstabview first second
 first | one | two | three | four
-------+-----+-----+-------+------
     1 | f   |     |       |
     2 |     | f   |       |
     3 |     |     | t     |
     4 |     |     |       | t
(4 rows)

This second example shows a multiplication table with rows sorted in reverse numerical order and columns with an independent, ascending numerical order. 🔥

testdb=> SELECT t1.first as "A", t2.first+100 AS "B", t1.first*(t2.first+100) as "AxB",
testdb(> row_number() over(order by t2.first) AS ord
testdb(> FROM my_table t1 CROSS JOIN my_table t2 ORDER BY 1 DESC
testdb(> \crosstabview "A" "B" "AxB" ord
 A | 101 | 102 | 103 | 104
---+-----+-----+-----+-----
 4 | 404 | 408 | 412 | 416
 3 | 303 | 306 | 309 | 312
 2 | 202 | 204 | 206 | 208
 1 | 101 | 102 | 103 | 104
(4 rows)

That’s the whole page, bestie: PostgreSQL 15.19, dated 2026, PSQL(1). Periodt. 💅✨

📦 where this page comes from

opensuse-leap 16.0: postgresql15 15.19-160000.1.1 · PostgreSQL
opensuse-leap 16.0: postgresql15 15.19-160000.1.1 · PostgreSQL
opensuse-leap 16.0: postgresql15 15.19-160000.1.1 · PostgreSQL
opensuse-leap 16.0: postgresql15 15.19-160000.1.1 · PostgreSQL
💖 girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017 on 2026-11-04: a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms

PSQL(1)

💅 PSQL(1) — PostgreSQL 15.19 Documentation 💅

✨ NAME ✨

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

🚪 EXIT STATUS

🛠️ USAGE

🔌 Connecting to a Database

⌨️ Entering SQL Commands

🪄 Meta-Commands

\C [ title ]

\cd [ directory ]

\conninfo

\copy

\copyright

\crosstabview [ colV [ colH [ colD [ sortcolH ] ] ] ]

\d[S+] [ pattern ]

\da[S] [ pattern ]

\dA[+] [ pattern ]

\dAc[+] [access-method-pattern [input-type-pattern]]

\dAf[+] [access-method-pattern [input-type-pattern]]

\dAo[+] [access-method-pattern [operator-family-pattern]]

\dO[S+] [ pattern ]</p> 💅

\dp [ pattern ] 🔐

\dP[itn+] [ pattern ] 🧩

\drds [ role-pattern [ database-pattern ] ] ⚙️

\dRp[+] [ pattern ] 📡

\dRs[+] [ pattern ] 📥

\dT[S+] [ pattern ] 🏷️

\du[S+] [ pattern ] 👑

\dx[+] [ pattern ] 🧩

\dX [ pattern ] 📊

\dy[+] [ pattern ] 🔔

\e or \edit [ filename ] [ line_number ] ✏️

\echo text [ ... ] 🗣️

\ef [ function_description [ line_number ] ] 🧚

\encoding [ encoding ] 🌈

\errverbose 😭

\ev [ view_name [ line_number ] ] 🦋

\f [ string ] 🍓

\g [ (option=value [...]) ] [ filename ]

\g [ (option=value [...]) ] [ |command ] 🚀

🌟 \g — the semicolon's cooler cousin

🔍 \gdesc — the sneak peek

🌱 \getenv psql_var env_var — grab that env

🔥 \gexec — query-ception, genuinely iconic

💜 \gset [ prefix ] — snatch that output into variables

🌈 \gx [ (option=value [...]) ] [ filename ]

🌈 \gx [ (option=value [...]) ] [ |command ]

📚 \h or \help [ command ] — the homework helper

🎨 \H or \html — the toggle

📂 \i or \include filename — read the file, bestie

🧠 \if expression / \elif expression / \else / \endif — conditional blocks, the main character energy

🦋 \ir or \include_relative filename — same but path-aware

👑 \l[+] or \list[+] [ pattern ] — the database roll call

📤 \lo_export loid filename — big object, meet filesystem

📥 \lo_import filename [ comment ] — file, meet big object

🗒️ \lo_list[+] — the big object guest list

✨ Adjustable printing options, aka the \pset cinematic universe ✨