Re: psql command line editing

Ron Johnson <ronljohnsonjr(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> On Wed, Feb 12, 2025 at 1:50 PM Rich Shepard <rshepard(at)appl-ecosys(dot)com>
> wrote:
>> My web searches suggest that using the psql command line I'm limited to
>> moving the cursor one character at a time. Is there a way to use a small
>> editor, e.g., joe on linux, to move by words or to the begining and end of
>> the line?

> The PGDG prebuilt packages are built with libreadline. Thus, if that's how
> you installed psql, Home, End, Ctrl-Left, Ctrl-Right and Ctrl-w should work.

On my machine, Ctrl-Left/Right don't seem to do anything, but
the usual Emacs combinations Ctrl-A, Ctrl-E, Escape-B, Escape-F
and so on work in psql. I don't believe I did anything special
to configure that. Check your local readline documentation.

As Adrian notes, there's also \e, which is good for entering
or editing multi-line queries.

regards, tom lane