#POSTGRESQL CLIENT LINUX COMMAND LINE HOW TO#
#POSTGRESQL CLIENT LINUX COMMAND LINE INSTALL#

This can be a gateway into learning many of the underlying catalog tables in PostgreSQL that control every aspect of how the database is used.Īnd last, but certainly not least, is that many (many!) articles, tutorials, books, and videos that show you how to use PostgreSQL features will often demonstrate concepts using psql. It’s like having a tool with hundreds of efficient shortcuts to quickly work with the database.Įven more powerful is that you can configure psql to return the SQL that it runs for each command along with the results. Using the meta-commands becomes second nature for getting details about database objects. As a former, long-time SQL Server developer I know the lack of a consistent, standardized GUI tool felt really frustrating at times.Īfter a while, however, I realized that it is often much easier to jump into a database with psql when I just need to connect, look at schemas, and run simple queries. If you’re new to the PostgreSQL space, using a command line utility to connect to and query the database might feel outdated. With every release of PostgreSQL, additional features and improvements are made to the psql utility to provide more power to end users. PostgreSQL 6.0 was released under the guidance of the new PostgreSQL Global Development Group and amazing work hasn’t stopped since. Postgres95 is released with a very liberal PostgreSQL License, based on POSTGRES source code, but QUEL is replaced with SQL! The monitor terminal application will no longer work, and psql was provided as the new terminal tool for interacting with Postgres95 It maintained the QUEL query language now called POSTQUEL, and so the monitorapplication could continue to be used with POSTGRES POSTGRES (after INGRES) was started and developed. One of the terminal programs that was used to interact with INGRESS was called monitor INGRES, the grandfather of PostgreSQL, developed and used a proprietary query language called QUEL. To understand why PostgreSQL has its own command line utility and why it is so integrated into how developers work with PostgreSQL, we need to take a quick step into the time-travel machine and remind ourselves how PostgreSQL became PostgreSQL.

#POSTGRESQL CLIENT LINUX COMMAND LINE INSTALL#

Knowing how to install and use basic psql commands is an essential skill to have for anyone that will connect to PostgreSQL. Many long-term PostgreSQL users, developers, and administrators rely on psql to help them quickly connect to databases, examine the schema, and execute SQL queries. PostgreSQL has a separate command-line tool that’s been available for decades and is included with any installation of PostgreSQL.

Postgresql client linux command line