Обсуждение: [PATCH] psql: add size-based sorting options (O/o) for tables and indexes

On Wed, Nov 26, 2025, at 4:48 AM, M.Atıf Ceylan wrote:
> Hello,
> This patch adds two new meta-command modifiers for \dt(+) and \di(+):
>
>   - O  : sort by total relation size descending
>   - o  : sort by total relation size ascending
>

Thanks for your contribution. Register your patch in the next commitfest [1] so
we don't loose track of it.

I didn't look at your patch but I was wondering if a general solution isn't a
better way to add this feature. I wouldn't modify these specific psql
meta-commands, instead, I would add a new psql meta-command that defines this
property for all objects if applicable.

\sort [ name | size [ asc | desc ] ]

I thought about a list to be cover other sort cases too but if things starting
to be complex, it is time to write your own query.

With a parameter, it appends the ORDER BY clause in the SQL commands executed by
psql if applicable. Without a parameter, it uses the current behavior.

[1] https://commitfest.postgresql.org/57/


--
Euler Taveira
EDB   https://www.enterprisedb.com/

Hi

st 26. 11. 2025 v 13:44 odesílatel Euler Taveira <euler@eulerto.com> napsal:

On Wed, Nov 26, 2025, at 4:48 AM, M.Atıf Ceylan wrote:
> Hello,
> This patch adds two new meta-command modifiers for \dt(+) and \di(+):
>
>   - O  : sort by total relation size descending
>   - o  : sort by total relation size ascending
>

Thanks for your contribution. Register your patch in the next commitfest [1] so
we don't loose track of it.

I didn't look at your patch but I was wondering if a general solution isn't a
better way to add this feature. I wouldn't modify these specific psql
meta-commands, instead, I would add a new psql meta-command that defines this
property for all objects if applicable.

\sort [ name | size [ asc | desc ] ]

I thought about a list to be cover other sort cases too but if things starting
to be complex, it is time to write your own query.

It is big question - if there should be specialized metacommand, or just variable or \pset setting

it can be 

\set PREFERRED_ORDER size_desc

\pset preffered_order size_desc

 

With a parameter, it appends the ORDER BY clause in the SQL commands executed by
psql if applicable. Without a parameter, it uses the current behavior.

There were a lot of proposals related to this topic some years ago. I wrote a lot of variants of this patch

Generic design is very big, and solutions like proposed are not generic :-). We talked about this feature for maybe more than one year, and we didn't find a generally acceptable design. 

At the end I wrote pspg, and the sort can be done (over result) there. Using a vertical cursor (column cursor) is very natural and user friendly.

https://github.com/okbob/pspg

Regards

Pavel

 

[1] https://commitfest.postgresql.org/57/


--
Euler Taveira
EDB   https://www.enterprisedb.com/