Re: Setting the Field Separator in PSQL

On Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 2:48 PM, David G. Johnston <
david(dot)g(dot)johnston(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:

> On Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 1:39 PM, Osborn, Marty <marty(dot)osborn(at)rsa(dot)com>
> wrote:
>
>> I need to change the field separator to a tab in an input SQL file.
>>
>>
>>
>> I’ve tried every combination of tab, ‘\t’, “\t”, --field-separator=’\t’,
>> etc, etc.
>>
>>
>>
>> Should it be in the command line or in the SQL file?
>>
>> Any help?
>>
>>
>>
> ​More context would helpful but keep in mind that within SQL the
> expression:
>
> '\t' is a literal back-slash and a literal "t"
>
> E'\t' is escaped to mean <tab>​
>
> Dealing with the shell complicates the issue so if you can avoid it I
> suggest that do avoid it.
>
>
​I should probably have tried my own advice first, and I still haven't, but
the documentation states:

"​"""
fieldsep
Specifies the field separator to be used in unaligned output format. That
way one can create, for example, tab- or comma-separated output, which
other programs might prefer. To set a tab as field separator, type \pset
fieldsep '\t'. The default field separator is '|' (a vertical bar).
​"""​

​So I'm not sure if this report is user-error or documentation error. A
self-contained test case would help...

David J.​