From: Jehan-Guillaume de Rorthais <jgdr@dalibo.com>
To: Ron Johnson <ronljohnsonjr@gmail.com>
Cc: pgsql-general <pgsql-general@postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: psql: print values and return the COUNT(*) value to bash?
Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2025 09:12:36 +0100
Message-ID: <20251229091236.4ebacf38@karst> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CANzqJaBX-SZZcHn71xgqtSKx6ekZGdHPSgCmP2co5=-KDu4Q-Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CANzqJaBX-SZZcHn71xgqtSKx6ekZGdHPSgCmP2co5=-KDu4Q-Q@mail.gmail.com>
On Mon, 29 Dec 2025 02:21:41 -0500
Ron Johnson <ronljohnsonjr@gmail.com> wrote:
…
> More stuff happens after this. I want to print out these four lines, but
> also test the COUNT(*) value and bypass other bash commands if the count ==
> 0.
You should probably output your result from psql in a parsable way (CSV ? TSV ?
custom ?) for your bash script, then print values from bash. The commands
"column" or "printf" could help you format a pretty table if really needed.
> Is there any relatively simple way to do this (psql print and return
> count(*))?
Not in a clean way. To make psql return something else than 0, you need to
trigger an error with a failing query to make it return 3 when ON_ERROR_STOP is
enabled.
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To: pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Cc: jgdr@dalibo.com, ronljohnsonjr@gmail.com
Subject: Re: psql: print values and return the COUNT(*) value to bash?
In-Reply-To: <20251229091236.4ebacf38@karst>
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