csv format disables PAGER setting altogether

[suimong]

Not sure if this is a bug report or feature request. When i set the output format to csv, whether through \pset format csv or through usql --csv, the output will not be piped in to the pager, even if i \pset pager always. My use case is to use visidata as the pager to navigate the query result.

Thanks for this wonderful project.

[kenshaw]

How are you piping it to visidata? By setting $PAGER? or ...?

[kenshaw]

@suimong This worked as expected for me:

$ usql -c 'select "blah";' --csv --no-rc ~/x.sqlite3 |visidata

Can you elaborate more on the version of usql you're using, what platform, terminal, etc., please?

[kenshaw]

BTW -- this is probably a better test example to work with:

$ usql -c '\d' --csv --no-rc ~/x.sqlite3 |visidata

This is what it looks like in my terminal:

[suimong]

@kenshaw sorry for not stating the problem clearly. Directly piping the result into visidata works perfectly, I usually do \g | visidata. Then I realized that with the default format (aligned), the result of \g is directly piped into a pager specified by PAGER env var. But when I \pset format csv (or any other format, e.g. "unaligned", "csv", "html", "json"), the result of \g directly goes on the screen, not into the pager.

[kenshaw]

Were you aware you could do this?

sq:x.sqlite3=> select "blah" \g | visidata

The schema info commands (\d) don't get piped into $PAGER.

[suimong]

I'm using usql 0.19.15 on NixOS 24.11. The terminal is alacritty

[kenshaw]

Also, sorry, this also works:

sq:x.sqlite3=>select "blah" \gx (format=csv) | visidata

Any of the \pset variables can be set in this fashion:

sq:x.sqlite3=> select "blah" \g (border=2 footer=off)
+--------+
| "blah" |
+--------+
| blah   |
+--------+

[suimong]

Also, sorry, this also works:

sq:x.sqlite3=>select "blah" \gx (format=csv) | visidata

Any of the \pset variables can be set in this fashion:

sq:x.sqlite3=> select "blah" \g (border=2 footer=off)
+--------+
| "blah" |
+--------+
| blah |
+--------+

Yes, I know I can explicitly pipe query results into whatever CLI program of my choice. What I'm talking about is implicitly use the PAGER program to view the result, so that to save me some keystrokes on every invocation of \g. Currently, this only works when format is set to "aligned". To be more explicit, \g (format=aligned) will open the PAGER program with the result, and this is a desirable behavior, and I hope such behavior can be enabled for other formats as well.

[suimong]

Also, thanks for letting me know the \g (OPTION_KEY=VAL) syntax. I'm quite new to usql and couldn't figure that out from the documentation.

[kenshaw]

@suimong The syntax is all taken from psql -- read this page and usql supports basically all of the query stuff. Much of usql's help (ie, \?) was stolen from inspired by psql's own.

[kenshaw]

I'll check/look to see if the $PAGER variable isn't working properly.

[suimong]

@suimong The syntax is all taken from psql -- read this page and usql supports basically all of the query stuff. Much of usql's help (ie, \?) was stolen from inspired by psql's own.

Thanks for the pointer!