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From: Dominique Devienne <[email protected]>
To: Ron Johnson <[email protected]>
Cc: pgsql-general <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: psql and regex not like
Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2025 10:59:01 +0100
Message-ID: <CAFCRh-8QB7PQS_ny7GEgxBU_VLkAuj-Wwk_vtsM5bivWc-HbXg@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CANzqJaCmmqNjSNitxWPekwM7mQesZCfAdXjOprKao8Ted35E-w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CANzqJaCmmqNjSNitxWPekwM7mQesZCfAdXjOprKao8Ted35E-w@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Mar 6, 2025 at 10:38 AM Ron Johnson <[email protected]> wrote:
> This statement runs great from the psql prompt.  Does exactly what I want.
> select datname from pg_database WHERE datname !~ 'template|postgres' ORDER BY datname;
>
> But it doesn't work so well from the bash prompt.  Not escaping the "!" generates a bunch of garbage, while escaping throws an sql syntax error.
>
> psql -Xc "select datname from pg_database WHERE datname \!~ 'template|postgres' ORDER BY datname;"
> ERROR:  syntax error at or near "\"
>
> What's the magic syntax?
>
> (Yes, I could create a view and then query the view, but I'm going to be running this remotely against dozens of servers, so I don't want to have to create dozens of views, then need to recreate them every time I want to change the query.)

No answer to your question, but I'd argue it's moot, because it's not
the right query in the first place :)
It should be instead, IMHO, the one below, which should be OK in BASH
syntax-wise. --DD

select datname from pg_database WHERE datistemplate = false and
datname <> 'postgres' order by 1

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