possible to specify field enclosure in psql command line?

Question

In psql if I have a field separator of ",", but there are commas in some fields, is it possible to specify a field enclosure character? I have looked through the documentation but I can't find it.

example:

psql -h my_server -U my_user -d my_db -f sql_in/my_sql.sql -o sql_out/my_sql_out.csv -A -F','

-A will turn off the table formatting, -F specifies the field separator

If I have a row that looks like

id types
1 zebra, lion, cat
2 horse

I want it to output to csv like:

1,"zebra, lion, cat"
2,"horse"

• user1822: Use copy, see e.g. here: stackoverflow.com/a/61636282/330315
• raphael75: Wow, it's hard to believe they left that out of the command line version. Thank you!
• user1822: No idea what you mean with "left that out", the solution using copy will work "with the command line"
• raphael75: I meant command line in the sense of not using the psql shell. I meant straight from the bash command line like in my example in the original question.
• user1822: You just need to replace your query in my_sql.sql with copy (your query here...) to stdout and everything is fine.

Answer 1

In v12, psql introduced the --csv option. However, it still seems like the wrong tool for the job. You should use COPY or \copy instead (probably still invoked through psql)