Feedback-ID: ie3de48e3:Fastmail
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2025 17:39:20 +0100
From: =?utf-8?Q?=C3=81lvaro?= Herrera <alvherre@kurilemu.de>
To: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Cc: Pg Hackers <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>,
	Daniel Verite <daniel@manitou-mail.org>
Subject: Re: psql --help=variables missing csv_fieldsep
Message-ID: <202511041638.dm4qukcxfjto@alvherre.pgsql>
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On 2025-Nov-03, Tom Lane wrote:

> > 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.)
> 
> Agreed that the set of \pset options has bloated to the point where
> that presentation is unreadable.

How about this?

-- 
Álvaro Herrera         PostgreSQL Developer  —  https://www.EnterpriseDB.com/

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	filename="0001-Refer-to-variables-for-pset-options.patch"

From 626966286636c9fc12adcd02bceb7eaeee94ff79 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: =?UTF-8?q?=C3=81lvaro=20Herrera?= <alvherre@kurilemu.de>
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2025 17:34:52 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] Refer \? to "\? variables" for pset options

---
 src/bin/psql/help.c | 7 +------
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 6 deletions(-)

diff --git a/src/bin/psql/help.c b/src/bin/psql/help.c
index 45d20ea57bc..ec0b49b957b 100644
--- a/src/bin/psql/help.c
+++ b/src/bin/psql/help.c
@@ -290,12 +290,7 @@ slashUsage(unsigned short int pager)
 	HELPN("  \\H                     toggle HTML output mode (currently %s)\n",
 		  ON(pset.popt.topt.format == PRINT_HTML));
 	HELP0("  \\pset [NAME [VALUE]]   set table output option\n"
-		  "                         (border|columns|csv_fieldsep|display_false|display_true|\n"
-		  "                         expanded|fieldsep|fieldsep_zero|footer|format|linestyle|\n"
-		  "                         null|numericlocale|pager|pager_min_lines|recordsep|\n"
-		  "                         recordsep_zero|tableattr|title|tuples_only|\n"
-		  "                         unicode_border_linestyle|unicode_column_linestyle|\n"
-		  "                         unicode_header_linestyle|xheader_width)\n");
+		  "                         see \"\\? variables\" for valid options\n");
 	HELPN("  \\t [on|off]            show only rows (currently %s)\n",
 		  ON(pset.popt.topt.tuples_only));
 	HELP0("  \\T [STRING]            set HTML <table> tag attributes, or unset if none\n");
-- 
2.47.3


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