Turn off pager for psql's interactive output

Question

We switched from PostgreSQL 8.3 to 9.0. Perhaps it's a new feature or perhaps just a configuration change, but now when output from commands (like, \d tablename) exceeds visible vertical space, psql seem to pipe the output through something similar to less. I could not find a way to turn this behaviour off. Any advice? Thanks.

P.S. I'm scrolling the buffer using PuTTY's Shift+PgUp/PgDn so I don't need psql's paging. Plus, when I press q in the psql's paging, its output disappears from the screen entirely (just like after running less in bash), which is wrong from the general use-cases point of view.

score 132 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 28 '20 at 15:04

TL;DR:

\pset pager 0

From the \pset section of the psql manual:

pager

Controls use of a pager program for query and psql help output. If the environment variable PAGER is set, the output is piped to the specified program. Otherwise a platform-dependent default (such as more) is used.

When the pager option is off, the pager program is not used. When the pager option is on, the pager is used when appropriate, i.e., when the output is to a terminal and will not fit on the screen. The pager option can also be set to always, which causes the pager to be used for all terminal output regardless of whether it fits on the screen. \pset pager without a value toggles pager use on and off.

score 49 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 01 '19 at 11:16

To turn off the pager when using psql in the shell :

psql -P pager=off ...

You could also export an empty PAGER environment variable, so you don't need to add the option to every statement. It will stay set until you close your current shell.

export PAGER=
psql ...

Finally, a workaround that may be easier to remember: pipe the output through cat, which will disable the default pager

psql ... | cat

score 28 · Answer 3 · edited Dec 09 '14 at 15:48

28

Try switcher:

database_name=# \pset pager
Pager is used for long output.
database_name=# \pset pager
Pager usage is off.

edited Dec 09 '14 at 15:48

masegaloeh

18,498

answered Dec 09 '14 at 15:38

Lebnik

389

score 14 · Answer 4 · edited Aug 09 '24 at 19:24

14

Add the code below to ~/.psqlrc to retain the behaviour between psql runs:

\pset pager off

edited Aug 09 '24 at 19:24

Per Lundberg

177

answered May 17 '19 at 21:38

Vivin Veerali

241

David Jones · Answer 5 · 2018-06-21T13:04:28.787

12

Switch the pager off with

\pset pager off

edited Jun 21 '18 at 13:04

answered Jun 21 '18 at 12:12

David Jones

221

score 4 · Answer 6 · answered Nov 29 '19 at 18:49

4

Best way in summary is to set an environment variable for the pager, e.g.

PAGER='less -X' psql

or to set it once

export PAGER='less -X'

then run

psql

answered Nov 29 '19 at 18:49

Brad Parks

803
15
21

Turn off pager for psql's interactive output

6 Answers6