Thread: Does PostGresSQL have this feature?
I am wondering if a very useful feature of some DB's is available in postgres For example in DB2 you can execute SQL from the command line (via terminal emulator) It will perform it entirely then display the results, but only one page at a time You can then page down and page up within the results (or scroll across) I notice that PSQL doesn't do this which makes large tables difficult to maintain Of course you could put a decent Where clause in but in the real world most people like to narrow things down to a certain point then scroll around a few hundred records looking for the data by hand. Currently this doesn't seem to be possible The only way I can think of doing this is to write a program in C (or use ODBC/JDBC) to perform the SQL then retrieve x records and display them and allows paging to be performed When paging down the current set would be cached so that page up's would be possible Doing this in VB would be easy and you could allow data to be editted to... NB Unfortunately MS Access is no good because it tries to load ALL the data in one go and you CANT get out of it!!! Anyone got any better ideas??? Martin C. -- NOTICE: The information contained in this electronic mail transmission is intended by Convergys Corporation for the use of the named individual or entity to which it is directed and may contain information that is privileged or otherwise confidential. If you have received this electronic mail transmission in error, please delete it from your system without copying or forwarding it, and notify the sender of the error by reply email or by telephone (collect), so that the sender's address records can be corrected.
On Tue, 27 Feb 2001 martin.chantler@convergys.com wrote:
> I notice that PSQL doesn't do this which makes large tables difficult to
> maintain
This is already implemented in psql - you have to make sure your PAGER
environment variable is set correctly - there might be some other
requirements that I'm not familiar with, but just 5 minutes ago, I paged
around in a 39k row table using "less" ...
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Dominic J. Eidson
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In PostgreSQL you can (almost) do this. When i terminal mode logged in as user postgres use these commands: 1. "psql MyDatabase" to log into the database. 2. "select * from MyVeryBigTable" 3. Press space to view a page at the time. I think you can enter regular expressions, instead of pressing space to see the next page. But I don't know how to scroll up within the results. Does anybody know if this is possible? I'd suggest you browse the utilities in www.greatbridge.org - there might be some smart tool to manage large tables. Poul L. Christiansen martin.chantler@convergys.com wrote: > > I am wondering if a very useful feature of some DB's is available in > postgres > > For example in DB2 you can execute SQL from the command line (via terminal > emulator) > It will perform it entirely then display the results, but only one page at > a time > You can then page down and page up within the results (or scroll across) > > I notice that PSQL doesn't do this which makes large tables difficult to > maintain > Of course you could put a decent Where clause in but in the real world most > people > like to narrow things down to a certain point then scroll around a few > hundred records > looking for the data by hand. Currently this doesn't seem to be possible > > The only way I can think of doing this is to write a program in C (or use > ODBC/JDBC) to > perform the SQL then retrieve x records and display them and allows paging > to be performed > When paging down the current set would be cached so that page up's would be > possible > > Doing this in VB would be easy and you could allow data to be editted to... > > NB Unfortunately MS Access is no good because it tries to load ALL the data > in one go and > you CANT get out of it!!! > > Anyone got any better ideas??? > > Martin C. > > -- > > NOTICE: The information contained in this electronic mail transmission is > intended by Convergys Corporation for the use of the named individual or > entity to which it is directed and may contain information that is > privileged or otherwise confidential. If you have received this electronic > mail transmission in error, please delete it from your system without > copying or forwarding it, and notify the sender of the error by reply email > or by telephone (collect), so that the sender's address records can be > corrected.
martin.chantler@convergys.com writes: > For example in DB2 you can execute SQL from the command line (via terminal > emulator) > It will perform it entirely then display the results, but only one page at > a time > You can then page down and page up within the results (or scroll across) > > I notice that PSQL doesn't do this which makes large tables difficult to > maintain As another poster correctly guessed, you need to set the PAGER environment variable to 'less'. The default pager is 'more', which is less sophisticated, but it is the standard, more or less. (Pun not intended, but tolerated.) -- Peter Eisentraut peter_e@gmx.net http://yi.org/peter-e/
Martin, What platform are you running psql on? On Unix all you have to do is set your shell environment variable PAGER (PAGER=more or PAGER=less) and psql will then do what you want. If you're running it on Windows, though, I'm not sure what to suggest. If your postgresql installation is running on a Unix server, you might telnet to that machine and run psql from there. Norm -------------------------------------- Norman Clarke Combimatrix Corp Software Development Harbour Pointe Tech Center 6500 Harbour Heights Pkwy, Suite 301 Mukilteo, WA 98275 tel: 425.493.2240 fax: 425.493.2010 -------------------------------------- On Tue, 27 Feb 2001 martin.chantler@convergys.com wrote: > I am wondering if a very useful feature of some DB's is available in > postgres > > For example in DB2 you can execute SQL from the command line (via terminal > emulator) > It will perform it entirely then display the results, but only one page at > a time > You can then page down and page up within the results (or scroll across) > > I notice that PSQL doesn't do this which makes large tables difficult to > maintain > Of course you could put a decent Where clause in but in the real world most > people > like to narrow things down to a certain point then scroll around a few > hundred records > looking for the data by hand. Currently this doesn't seem to be possible > > The only way I can think of doing this is to write a program in C (or use > ODBC/JDBC) to > perform the SQL then retrieve x records and display them and allows paging > to be performed > When paging down the current set would be cached so that page up's would be > possible > > Doing this in VB would be easy and you could allow data to be editted to... > > NB Unfortunately MS Access is no good because it tries to load ALL the data > in one go and > you CANT get out of it!!! > > Anyone got any better ideas??? > > Martin C.
when i read "command line" i took it as the unix commmand line, in which case you can do something like this psql -c "SELECT * FROM tablename" databasename | less or , like others said, if PAGER is set properly, you can leave off the |less jeff On Tue, 27 Feb 2001, Norman J. Clarke wrote: > Martin, > > What platform are you running psql on? On Unix all you have to do is set > your shell environment variable PAGER (PAGER=more or PAGER=less) and psql > will then do what you want. If you're running it on Windows, though, I'm > not sure what to suggest. If your postgresql installation is running on a > Unix server, you might telnet to that machine and run psql from there. > > Norm > > -------------------------------------- > Norman Clarke > Combimatrix Corp Software Development > Harbour Pointe Tech Center > 6500 Harbour Heights Pkwy, Suite 301 > Mukilteo, WA 98275 > > tel: 425.493.2240 > fax: 425.493.2010 > -------------------------------------- > > On Tue, 27 Feb 2001 martin.chantler@convergys.com wrote: > > > I am wondering if a very useful feature of some DB's is available in > > postgres > > > > For example in DB2 you can execute SQL from the command line (via terminal > > emulator) > > It will perform it entirely then display the results, but only one page at > > a time > > You can then page down and page up within the results (or scroll across) > > > > I notice that PSQL doesn't do this which makes large tables difficult to > > maintain > > Of course you could put a decent Where clause in but in the real world most > > people > > like to narrow things down to a certain point then scroll around a few > > hundred records > > looking for the data by hand. Currently this doesn't seem to be possible > > > > The only way I can think of doing this is to write a program in C (or use > > ODBC/JDBC) to > > perform the SQL then retrieve x records and display them and allows paging > > to be performed > > When paging down the current set would be cached so that page up's would be > > possible > > > > Doing this in VB would be easy and you could allow data to be editted to... > > > > NB Unfortunately MS Access is no good because it tries to load ALL the data > > in one go and > > you CANT get out of it!!! > > > > Anyone got any better ideas??? > > > > Martin C. > Jeff MacDonald, ----------------------------------------------------- PostgreSQL Inc | Hub.Org Networking Services jeff@pgsql.com | jeff@hub.org www.pgsql.com | www.hub.org 1-902-542-0713 | 1-902-542-3657 ----------------------------------------------------- Facsimile : 1 902 542 5386 IRC Nick : bignose PGP Public Key : http://bignose.hub.org/public.txt