Thread: Query output is misleading due to grid cell size

Query output is misleading due to grid cell size

From
Evan Martin
Date:
Running the latest trunk build (g7ac0c60)

When pgAdmin displays the query output in a grid each column seems to be 
sized based on the header size and the value is truncated as needed. 
There is no indication that it's been truncated. This sometimes makes 
the result highly misleading and I've just spent 5-10 minutes scratching 
my head about why a function is returning such a strange result!

Here's what the output looked like: http://i48.tinypic.com/5fkdmp.png
... but resizing the cell shows something very different: 
http://i47.tinypic.com/2ennsqv.png

I would suggest that pgAdmin:

1) Always truncate the end of the string, not the start
2) Show some indication that the string has been truncated, eg. append 
"..." or show some subtle overlay with a wavy line - as long as there's 
something.
3) For numeric types make the column wide enough to always show at least 
the part before the decimal point (or, for integer types, the entire 
number).

Regards,

Evan



Re: Query output is misleading due to grid cell size

From
Guillaume Lelarge
Date:
On Thu, 2012-08-16 at 12:56 +1000, Evan Martin wrote:
> Running the latest trunk build (g7ac0c60)
> 
> When pgAdmin displays the query output in a grid each column seems to be 
> sized based on the header size and the value is truncated as needed. 
> There is no indication that it's been truncated. This sometimes makes 
> the result highly misleading and I've just spent 5-10 minutes scratching 
> my head about why a function is returning such a strange result!
> 
> Here's what the output looked like: http://i48.tinypic.com/5fkdmp.png
> ... but resizing the cell shows something very different: 
> http://i47.tinypic.com/2ennsqv.png
> 

This is part of a change in the new dev release. All numeric columns are
now aligned to the right (previous releases, 1.16 included, treated them
as strings, and though aligned on the left).

> I would suggest that pgAdmin:
> 
> 1) Always truncate the end of the string, not the start

Well, strictly speaking, it isn't a string, but a numeric/float value.
But I agree, we should truncate at the end.

> 2) Show some indication that the string has been truncated, eg. append 
> "..." or show some subtle overlay with a wavy line - as long as there's 
> something.

+1

> 3) For numeric types make the column wide enough to always show at least 
> the part before the decimal point (or, for integer types, the entire 
> number).

Well, that part isn't that easy because, if you have many numeric/float
columns, and many rows, it could take a long time to compute the right
size for each column. I much prefer item 2, which should be sufficent
with item 1.

I added a ticket for items 1 and 2, so that we can work on it later.


-- 
Guillaume
http://blog.guillaume.lelarge.info
http://www.dalibo.com