psql --batch

I find myself regurgitating the incantation

psql -qAtX -v ON_ERRORS_STOP=1

quite a bit. It's not ... super friendly.

It strikes me that we could possibly benefit from a 'psql --batch' option.

Thoughts?

The link between -qAtX and "batch" is not that fully obvious, especially
the unaligned tuples-only part. If so, why not some -F <tab> as well?

ISTM that the real pain is the "-v ON_ERRORS_STOP=1" which I occasionally
encountered as well, the other one letter ones are not too bad. Maybe it
would be enough to have a shortcut for this one, say "-B"?

alias?

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On 28 August 2017 at 14:56, Fabien COELHO <coelho@cri.ensmp.fr> wrote:

I find myself regurgitating the incantation

psql -qAtX -v ON_ERRORS_STOP=1

quite a bit. It's not ... super friendly.

It strikes me that we could possibly benefit from a 'psql --batch' option.

Thoughts?

The link between -qAtX and "batch" is not that fully obvious, especially
the unaligned tuples-only part. If so, why not some -F <tab> as well?

q: quiet

Pretty much always wanted for a batch mode run of anything.

A: unaligned tuples

Because alignment is pretty much never useful when you're parsing result
sets with scripting (splitting, cut, etc) and just makes everything harder.
The alignment psql uses isn't fixed, after all.

t: tuples-only

Headers just make everything more annoying to parse, and force you to do
extra work to skip them. If you're running batch code you know the headers
because you used a column-list form SELECT, or should've. You're unlikely
to be ingesting them and using them to split up the tuple anyway. I think
this one is a bit more arguable than the first two, though, as I can at
least think of some cases where you might want it.

X: skip .psqlrc

Reliable, portable scripted psql shouldn't be using the local .psqlrc IMO.
It's likely to just break things in exciting ways. But I can see it being
reasonable to require this option to be supplied separately and just
document it as "recommended" with --batch.

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2017-08-28 8:56 GMT+02:00 Fabien COELHO <coelho@cri.ensmp.fr>:

I find myself regurgitating the incantation

psql -qAtX -v ON_ERRORS_STOP=1

quite a bit. It's not ... super friendly.

It strikes me that we could possibly benefit from a 'psql --batch' option.

Thoughts?

The link between -qAtX and "batch" is not that fully obvious, especially
the unaligned tuples-only part. If so, why not some -F <tab> as well?

ISTM that the real pain is the "-v ON_ERRORS_STOP=1" which I occasionally
encountered as well, the other one letter ones are not too bad. Maybe it
would be enough to have a shortcut for this one, say "-B"?

I agree with last sentence. I don't think so -qAtX are expected always, but
"-v ON_ERROS_STOP=1" is pretty often.

What do you think about long option "---on-errors-stop" ?

Regards

Pavel

ISTM that the real pain is the "-v ON_ERRORS_STOP=1" which I occasionally
encountered as well, the other one letter ones are not too bad. Maybe it
would be enough to have a shortcut for this one, say "-B"?

I agree with last sentence. I don't think so -qAtX are expected always, but
"-v ON_ERRORS_STOP=1" is pretty often.

Yep. I often "\set" that in the script.

What do you think about long option "--on-errors-stop" ?

It does not really relieve the typing pain Craig is complaining about, but
it would be ok as the long option version if -B is added, and it is
auto-completion friendly.

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2017-08-28 9:33 GMT+02:00 Fabien COELHO <coelho@cri.ensmp.fr>:

ISTM that the real pain is the "-v ON_ERRORS_STOP=1" which I occasionally

encountered as well, the other one letter ones are not too bad. Maybe it
would be enough to have a shortcut for this one, say "-B"?

I agree with last sentence. I don't think so -qAtX are expected always,
but
"-v ON_ERRORS_STOP=1" is pretty often.

Yep. I often "\set" that in the script.

What do you think about long option "--on-errors-stop" ?

It does not really relieve the typing pain Craig is complaining about, but
it would be ok as the long option version if -B is added, and it is
auto-completion friendly.

ok

Pavel

On 28 August 2017 at 15:34, Pavel Stehule <pavel.stehule@gmail.com> wrote:

2017-08-28 9:33 GMT+02:00 Fabien COELHO <coelho@cri.ensmp.fr>:

ISTM that the real pain is the "-v ON_ERRORS_STOP=1" which I occasionally

encountered as well, the other one letter ones are not too bad. Maybe it
would be enough to have a shortcut for this one, say "-B"?

I agree with last sentence. I don't think so -qAtX are expected always,
but
"-v ON_ERRORS_STOP=1" is pretty often.

Yep. I often "\set" that in the script.

What do you think about long option "--on-errors-stop" ?

It does not really relieve the typing pain Craig is complaining about,
but it would be ok as the long option version if -B is added, and it is
auto-completion friendly.

This doesn't really address the original issue though, that it's far from
obvious how to easily and correctly script psql.

I guess there's always the option of a docs patch for that. *shrug*

I'll see what others have to say.

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PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training & Services

This doesn't really address the original issue though, that it's far from
obvious how to easily and correctly script psql.

That is another interesting argument. I understood that the issue was
having to type these options, but now it is also to remember which one are
relevant and wanted, which is a little different and more justifiable as
an option.

On that account, ISTM that '|' as a field separator is debatable, that
pager should be turned off... and maybe a few other things.

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On 28 August 2017 at 16:23, Fabien COELHO <coelho@cri.ensmp.fr> wrote:

This doesn't really address the original issue though, that it's far from

obvious how to easily and correctly script psql.

That is another interesting argument. I understood that the issue was
having to type these options, but now it is also to remember which one are
relevant and wanted, which is a little different and more justifiable as an
option.

On that account, ISTM that '|' as a field separator is debatable, that
pager should be turned off... and maybe a few other things.

Good point re pager, though it's turned off automatically when stdout isn't
a terminal, so in practice that'll only matter if you're using something
like 'expect' that uses a pty. Still worth doing.

I agree that | is a bit iffy, but so's anything really. null bytes aren't
usable for all scripts, and nothing else cannot also be output in the data
its self. No easy answers there. In cases where I expect that to be an
issue I sometimes use \COPY ... TO STDOUT WITH (FORMAT CSV) though.

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PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training & Services

2017-08-28 11:05 GMT+02:00 Craig Ringer <craig@2ndquadrant.com>:

On 28 August 2017 at 16:23, Fabien COELHO <coelho@cri.ensmp.fr> wrote:

This doesn't really address the original issue though, that it's far from

obvious how to easily and correctly script psql.

That is another interesting argument. I understood that the issue was
having to type these options, but now it is also to remember which one are
relevant and wanted, which is a little different and more justifiable as an
option.

On that account, ISTM that '|' as a field separator is debatable, that
pager should be turned off... and maybe a few other things.

Good point re pager, though it's turned off automatically when stdout
isn't a terminal, so in practice that'll only matter if you're using
something like 'expect' that uses a pty. Still worth doing.

I agree that | is a bit iffy, but so's anything really. null bytes aren't
usable for all scripts, and nothing else cannot also be output in the data
its self. No easy answers there. In cases where I expect that to be an
issue I sometimes use \COPY ... TO STDOUT WITH (FORMAT CSV) though.

I don't doubt about a sense of this configuration - but this specific
combination depends on usage - so I don't think so using special option is
good idea.

Regards

Pavel

I don't doubt about a sense of this configuration - but this specific
combination depends on usage - so I don't think so using special option is
good idea.

Although I agree with you that detailed settings are definitely debatable,
I'd say that at least it would be a more reasonable starting point for
scripting than the default configuration which is more interactive usage
oriented.

So even if unperfect, one is free to update defaults to suit more closely
their needs, eg "psql -B -F ':' ...", at least most of the scripting
conviniencies are already there.

I think that such a scripting mode should also imply --no-readline.

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