Thread

Re: [PATCH] psql: add size-based sorting options (O/o) for tables and indexes

Pavel Stehule <pavel.stehule@gmail.com> — 2025-11-27T03:51:17Z

st 26. 11. 2025 v 14:01 odesílatel Pavel Stehule <pavel.stehule@gmail.com>
napsal:

> Hi
>
> st 26. 11. 2025 v 13:44 odesílatel Euler Taveira <euler@eulerto.com>
> napsal:
>
>> On Wed, Nov 26, 2025, at 4:48 AM, M.Atıf Ceylan wrote:
>> > Hello,
>> > This patch adds two new meta-command modifiers for \dt(+) and \di(+):
>> >
>> >   - O  : sort by total relation size descending
>> >   - o  : sort by total relation size ascending
>> >
>>
>> Thanks for your contribution. Register your patch in the next commitfest
>> [1] so
>> we don't loose track of it.
>>
>> I didn't look at your patch but I was wondering if a general solution
>> isn't a
>> better way to add this feature. I wouldn't modify these specific psql
>> meta-commands, instead, I would add a new psql meta-command that defines
>> this
>> property for all objects if applicable.
>>
>> \sort [ name | size [ asc | desc ] ]
>>
>> I thought about a list to be cover other sort cases too but if things
>> starting
>> to be complex, it is time to write your own query.
>>
>
> It is big question - if there should be specialized metacommand, or just
> variable or \pset setting
>
> it can be
>
> \set PREFERRED_ORDER size_desc
> \pset preffered_order size_desc
>
>
>
>>
>> With a parameter, it appends the ORDER BY clause in the SQL commands
>> executed by
>> psql if applicable. Without a parameter, it uses the current behavior.
>>
>
> There were a lot of proposals related to this topic some years ago. I
> wrote a lot of variants of this patch
> Generic design is very big, and solutions like proposed are not generic
> :-). We talked about this feature for maybe more than one year, and we
> didn't find a generally acceptable design.
>

https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/CAFj8pRAVV2TFHsFCV=c9Aaeq7kPWGQBLkOwGronpAN583zqhWg@mail.gmail.com



>
> At the end I wrote pspg, and the sort can be done (over result) there.
> Using a vertical cursor (column cursor) is very natural and user friendly.
>
> https://github.com/okbob/pspg
>
> Regards
>
> Pavel
>
>
>>
>>
>> [1] https://commitfest.postgresql.org/57/
>>
>>
>> --
>> Euler Taveira
>> EDB   https://www.enterprisedb.com/
>>
>>
>>