SHOW(7)

📦
version 18.6 · 20 versions
, in alpine 3.23, alpine 3.24, arch rolling, fedora 43, fedora 44, nixos 26.05, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

✨ SHOW(7) ✨

okay bestie, welcome to the glow-up era of your run-time parameters 💅 This is the SHOW page from the PostgreSQL 18.6 Documentation — yes, the whole thing, no crumbs left behind. Let's get into it 🫶

🌸 NAME 🌸

SHOW — show the value of a run-time parameter 👑

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

SHOW name
SHOW ALL

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

SHOW will display the current setting of run-time parameters. It's giving "peek behind the curtain" energy and we're obsessed 🪞✨

And where do those settings even come from, you ask? Bestie, they can be set using the SET statement, by editing the postgresql.conf configuration file, through the PGOPTIONS environmental variable (when you're using libpq or a libpq-based application), or through command-line flags when starting the postgres server. See Chapter 19 for details 📖💖

💜 PARAMETERS 💜

  • name — the name of a run-time parameter. Available parameters are documented in Chapter 19 and on the SET(7) reference page. In addition, there are a few parameters that can be shown but not set — yes, read-only icons, they simply don't take requests 🙈:
    • SERVER_VERSION — shows the server's version number. It's giving "who am I" but make it official 🏷️
    • SERVER_ENCODING — shows the server-side character set encoding. At present, this parameter can be shown but not set, because the encoding is determined at database creation time. So like… the vibes were locked in at birth, no re-editing 🔒🌸
    • IS_SUPERUSER — True if the current role has superuser privileges. Main character check ✅👑
  • ALL — show the values of all configuration parameters, with descriptions. The whole fit, every piece, laid out 🧚✨

⭐ NOTES ⭐

The function current_setting produces equivalent output; see Section 9.28.1. Also, the pg_settings system view produces the same information. Three paths, same destination, we love a consistent queen 👑💫

🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

Show the current setting of the parameter DateStyle:

SHOW DateStyle;
 DateStyle
-----------
 ISO, MDY
(1 row)

Show the current setting of the parameter geqo:

SHOW geqo;
 geqo
------
 on
(1 row)

Show all settings:

SHOW ALL;
            name         | setting |                description
-------------------------+---------+-------------------------------------------------
 allow_system_table_mods | off     | Allows modifications of the structure of ...
   .
   .
   .
 xmloption               | content | Sets whether XML data in implicit parsing ...
 zero_damaged_pages      | off     | Continues processing past damaged page headers.
(196 rows)

196 rows?? the way that SHOW ALL ate and left zero crumbs 😭🔥

💀 COMPATIBILITY 💀

The SHOW command is a PostgreSQL extension. Not standard SQL, just our girl doing her own thing, and honestly? iconic behavior 🎀

🫶 SEE ALSO 🫶

SET(7), RESET(7) — go read the rest of the friend group, they're all connected besties fr fr ✨

and that's a wrap on the SHOW page, babes — this was PostgreSQL 18.6, documented in 2026, filed under SHOW(7) 🌸💖 slay, go check your settings 💅

📦 where this page comes from