Re: Real newbie question.

Hi Bill,

Have you solved this yet?

When the psql prompt becomes a ' it means you've started a text string
and not ended it.  i.e. :

psql# INSERT INTO foo (stringfield) VALUES ('blah blah blah);
psql'#

You need to type another ' then press enter to finish the string.  Once
on a new line, type \r to clear the buffer of the command you stuffed,
or \e to open up a window which edits it.  i.e. :

psql# INSERT INTO foo (stringfield) VALUES ('blah blah blah);
psql'# safdsadfa
psql'# 
psql'# Aha...
psql'# '
psql# \r
Query buffer reset.
psql# INSERT INTO foo (stringfield) VALUES ('blah blah blah');

:-)

Hope that's helpful, did it from memory, so the exact output may look
slightly different.

Regards and best wishes,

Justin Clift


"William D. Tallman" wrote:
> 
> Just started fiddling with PostgreSQL, and know nothing of databases.
> 
> I have the documentation that came with the Mandrake-8.0 installation
> written by Thomas Lockhard, and I've perused Bruce Momjian's book online,
> and I cannot find the answer to this problem:
> 
> When I am entering values into a table, and make a mistake, sometimes
> there is an error message, and sometimes the equal sign in the prompt
> becomes a single quote.  Error messages I can puzzle out, but I have not
> discovered how to recover from the single quote in the prompt.  I wind up
> having to kill the terminal and start all over
> 
> Can someone point me to the explanation of this?
> 
> Thanks, and I hope this question isn't too rudimentary for this NG.
> 
> Bill Tallman
> 
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster

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