Re: psql wrapped format default for backslash-d commands

Bryce Nesbitt wrote:
> It's not that hard to do.
>
> I chose not to, when writing the patch, because it makes the result flow
> over many more lines.
> And regardless, it pretty much has to cut long "words", of which there
> are many in typical SQL output.
> And, I hardly ever read actual large blocks of English at the SQL
> prompt, so: designing for that use case did
> not float my boat at the time.
> And, word wrapping messes with the cell contents more than I was
> comfortable doing. With the current wrapping all whitespace is preserved
> and apparent.
>
> But, if your boat is floated, then by all means go for it.

Yea, you could probably call it a 'chopped' format rather than a
'wrapped' format.

While I got a lot of feedback on screen width detection for wrapped, I
got little freedback on the display format. We can address that now.

I think we can wrap if there is whitespace within a few characters
before the break point, and use a dash if we have to break a word. Is
that what people want?

Also, about the format 'auto' idea that uses expanded display, I am
thinking because expanded is a separate setting and not a format, I
should just add a possible 'auto' value to the expanded format that
could be triggered by either 'aligned' or 'wrapped' formats when the
output doesn't fit on the screen.

(In hindsight, I think we should have had pager be on/auto/off rather
than always/on/off; the later is kind of confusing and would be
inconsistent if I add 'auto' to expanded.)

--
Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> http://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com

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