Re: Add \pset options for boolean value display

Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>

From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>

To: "David G. Johnston" <david.g.johnston@gmail.com>

Cc: PostgreSQL Hackers <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>

Date: 2025-06-24T22:30:58Z

Lists: pgsql-hackers

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Add \pset options for boolean value display
- 645cb44c5490 19 (unreleased) landed

"David G. Johnston" <david.g.johnston@gmail.com> writes:
> On Thu, Mar 20, 2025 at 8:24 PM David G. Johnston <
> david.g.johnston@gmail.com> wrote:
>> It's \pset null for boolean values

> v1, Ready aside from bike-shedding the name.

Do we really want this?  It's the sort of thing that has a strong
potential to break anything that reads psql output --- and I'd
urge you to think that human consumers of psql output may well
be the minority.  There's an awful lot of scripts out there.

I concede that \pset null hasn't had a huge amount of pushback,
but that doesn't mean that making boolean output unpredictable
will be cost-free.  And the costs won't be paid by you (or me),
but by people who didn't ask for it.

			regards, tom lane