Option to intelligently enable pager based on output size (pset is not working)

Description

It gets annoying that the pager is either on (set to less) or off (set to cat). When the query has a large number of output lines, it’s helpful to have the pager on, but when doing a bunch of small queries in preparation for a larger query, it’s helpful to have the pager off so you can see the query results in scrollback.

Would it be possible to have a pager option similar to \x auto that decides whether to use the pager based on the size of the output?

Your environment

• OS: Mac OS 10.12.6
• pgcli version: 1.8.1

[maxrothman]

I’m looking for pgcli to implement the same behavior for \pset pager that psql has. For example, in psql:

postgres> \pset pager on
postgres> SELECT table_name from information_schema.tables;
...pager used...
postgres> SELECT table_name from information_schema.tables LIMIT 1;
...pager not used...

As expected, with \pset pager always, the pager is always used, and with \pset pager off, the pager is never used. In cases where the pager is used, whether the screen is cleared or not afterwards depends on the pager. In cases where it is not, the pager is never invoked.

However, \pset pager seems to be completely ignored by pgcli:

postgres> \pset pager off
postgres> SELECT table_name from information_schema.tables LIMIT 1;
...pager used...

So perhaps this issue would be more accurately titled “pgcli ignores \pset pager value”?

[j-bennet]

@maxrothman export LESS=-XFR may help here. See this for more information.