postgres.git / summary / log / commit / refs
commit b0154f20b3bb7c74332f5cbf51baf7ebc68c80b4
Author: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Date: Fri Feb 14 17:54:58 2014 +0000
First released in: 9.4.0, 8.4.20, 9.0.16, 9.1.12, 9.2.7, 9.3.3
Suggest shell here-documents instead of psql -c for multiple commands.
The documentation suggested using "echo | psql", but not the often-superior
alternative of a here-document. Also, be more direct about suggesting
that people avoid -c for multiple commands. Per discussion.
doc/src/sgml/ref/psql-ref.sgml | 20 +++++++++++++++++---
1 file changed, 17 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/ref/psql-ref.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/ref/psql-ref.sgml
index 49ad740a4c3..803fc503a64 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/ref/psql-ref.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/ref/psql-ref.sgml
@@ -88,8 +88,8 @@ PostgreSQL documentation
or a single backslash command. Thus you cannot mix
<acronym>SQL</acronym> and <application>psql</application>
meta-commands with this option. To achieve that, you could
- pipe the string into <application>psql</application>, like
- this: <literal>echo '\x \\ SELECT * FROM foo;' | psql</literal>.
+ pipe the string into <application>psql</application>, for example:
+ <literal>echo '\x \\ SELECT * FROM foo;' | psql</literal>.
(<literal>\\</> is the separator meta-command.)
</para>
<para>
@@ -98,7 +98,21 @@ PostgreSQL documentation
<command>BEGIN</>/<command>COMMIT</> commands included in the
string to divide it into multiple transactions. This is
different from the behavior when the same string is fed to
- <application>psql</application>'s standard input.
+ <application>psql</application>'s standard input. Also, only
+ the result of the last SQL command is returned.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Because of these legacy behaviors, putting more than one command in
+ the <option>-c</option> string often has unexpected results. It's
+ better to feed multiple commands to <application>psql</application>'s
+ standard input, either using <application>echo</application> as
+ illustrated above, or via a shell here-document, for example:
+<programlisting>
+psql <<EOF
+\x
+SELECT * FROM foo;
+EOF
+</programlisting>
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
[parent: 7644a7bd8c3b]