From: Álvaro Herrera <alvherre@kurilemu.de>
To: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Cc: Pg Hackers <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>
Cc: Daniel Verite <daniel@manitou-mail.org>
Subject: Re: psql --help=variables missing csv_fieldsep
Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2025 21:20:28 +0100
Message-ID: <202511032011.xiybfttm3rwc@alvherre.pgsql> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <349600.1762193031@sss.pgh.pa.us>
On 2025-Nov-03, Tom Lane wrote:
> =?utf-8?Q?=C3=81lvaro?= Herrera <alvherre@kurilemu.de> writes:
> > While messing with the \pset boolean display patch, I noticed that psql
> > --help=variables is missing csv_fieldsep. Is there a reason for this?
>
> But wait ... is it actually a variable? help.c does list it, but
> as a \pset option:
>
> HELP0(" \\pset [NAME [VALUE]] set table output option\n"
> " (border|columns|csv_fieldsep|display_false|display_true|\n"
Yeah, there are two lists: one here in the "\?" output, and another in
the "\? variables" output, which is also `psql --help=variables`. It
lists actual variables but also \pset options and environment variables
psql recognizes. I find this one you quote somewhat unreadable, so I
was going to propose to remove it, and instead direct the user to look
at "\? variables" for the exhaustive list. That one is also a bit
easier to cross-check, I think. (There's also tab-complete.)
--
Álvaro Herrera 48°01'N 7°57'E — https://www.EnterpriseDB.com/
"No renuncies a nada. No te aferres a nada."
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To: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Cc: alvherre@kurilemu.de, tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us, pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org, daniel@manitou-mail.org
Subject: Re: psql --help=variables missing csv_fieldsep
In-Reply-To: <202511032011.xiybfttm3rwc@alvherre.pgsql>
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