Re: Proposal: %T Prompt parameter for psql for current time (like Oracle has)

On 22/02/2023 19:59, Nikolay Samokhvalov wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 22, 2023 at 9:55 AM Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us
> <mailto:tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>> wrote:
>
> On the whole I'd rather not eat more of the limited namespace for
> psql prompt codes for this.
>
>
> It depends on personal preferences. When I work on a large screen, I can
> afford to spend some characters in prompts, if it gives convenience –
> and many do (looking, for example, at modern tmux/zsh prompts showing
> git branch context, etc).
>
> Default behavior might remain short – it wouldn't make sense to extend
> it for everyone.

I have no objections to adding a %T option, although deciding what
format to use is a hassle. -1 for changing the default.

But let's look at the original request:

> This has been in sqlplus since I can remember, and I find it really
> useful when I forgot to time something, or to review for Time spent
> on a problem, or for how old my session is...
I've felt that pain too. You run a query, and it takes longer than I
expected. How long did it actually take? Too bad I didn't enable \timing
beforehand..

How about a new backslash command or psql variable to show how long the
previous statement took? Something like:

postgres=# select <unexpectedly slow query>
?column?
----------
123
(1 row)

postgres=# \time

Time: 14011.975 ms (00:14.012)

This would solve the "I forgot to time something" problem.

- Heikki