On Mon, Nov 7, 2011 at 10:04 PM, Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't strongly object to this, but I wonder how useful it will
> really be in practice. It strikes me as the sort of advanced psql
> hackery that only a few people will use, and only some of those will
> gain any benefit.
I'm probably just not going to bother, based on the (lack of) response
so far. I'd like to have it for myself, but not enough to make the
patch and then fight for its inclusion :-)
> Empty columns don't really take up that much screen
> width, and even one value in any given column will require its
> inclusion anyway.
What really prompted the proposal was my somewhat antiquated use of
80-column terminal windows (so that 2 or 3 fit side-by-side
comfortably on my screen). A lot of the backslash commands are
creeping well over that 80-column limit, even with the most basic of
outputs, and I find the default line-wrapping hard to follow. And I'd
bet that the use of column comments and column statistics targets, for
example, are quite rare -- and that's almost 30 columns of horizontal
space lost for the common case of \d+ tablename.
Maybe I just have to get comfortable with the "expanded" mode.
> I can also see myself turning it on and then going
> - oh, wait, is that column not there, or did it just disappear because
> I'm in concise mode?
Yeah, that would be a bit of a nuisance in some cases.
> Not saying we shouldn't do it, just some food for thought.
Thanks for the feedback, anyway.
Josh