diff options
| author | Tom Lane | 2014-02-14 17:54:58 +0000 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Tom Lane | 2014-02-14 17:54:58 +0000 |
| commit | b0154f20b3bb7c74332f5cbf51baf7ebc68c80b4 (patch) | |
| tree | 9e26f60282cddd85e5840b2c58a21a90ec3ced2f | |
| parent | 7644a7bd8c3bfe35f9f39039304cb16c93b7a943 (diff) | |
Suggest shell here-documents instead of psql -c for multiple commands.
The documentation suggested using "echo | psql", but not the often-superior
alternative of a here-document. Also, be more direct about suggesting
that people avoid -c for multiple commands. Per discussion.
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/src/sgml/ref/psql-ref.sgml | 20 |
1 files changed, 17 insertions, 3 deletions
diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/ref/psql-ref.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/ref/psql-ref.sgml index 49ad740a4c3..803fc503a64 100644 --- a/doc/src/sgml/ref/psql-ref.sgml +++ b/doc/src/sgml/ref/psql-ref.sgml @@ -88,8 +88,8 @@ PostgreSQL documentation or a single backslash command. Thus you cannot mix <acronym>SQL</acronym> and <application>psql</application> meta-commands with this option. To achieve that, you could - pipe the string into <application>psql</application>, like - this: <literal>echo '\x \\ SELECT * FROM foo;' | psql</literal>. + pipe the string into <application>psql</application>, for example: + <literal>echo '\x \\ SELECT * FROM foo;' | psql</literal>. (<literal>\\</> is the separator meta-command.) </para> <para> @@ -98,7 +98,21 @@ PostgreSQL documentation <command>BEGIN</>/<command>COMMIT</> commands included in the string to divide it into multiple transactions. This is different from the behavior when the same string is fed to - <application>psql</application>'s standard input. + <application>psql</application>'s standard input. Also, only + the result of the last SQL command is returned. + </para> + <para> + Because of these legacy behaviors, putting more than one command in + the <option>-c</option> string often has unexpected results. It's + better to feed multiple commands to <application>psql</application>'s + standard input, either using <application>echo</application> as + illustrated above, or via a shell here-document, for example: +<programlisting> +psql <<EOF +\x +SELECT * FROM foo; +EOF +</programlisting> </para> </listitem> </varlistentry> |