NAME
 pg_format - PostgreSQL SQL syntax beautifier
DESCRIPTION
 This SQL formatter/beautifier supports keywords from SQL-92, SQL-99,
 SQL-2003, SQL-2008, SQL-2011 and PostgreSQL specifics keywords. Works
 with any other databases too.
 pgFormatter can work as a console program or as a CGI. It will
 automatically detect its environment and format output as text or as
 HTML following the context. It can also return a JSON-formatted response
 if used as CGI with 'Accept: application/json'.
 Keywords highlighting will only be available in CGI context.
 Terminal/console execution
 Usage: pg_format [options] file.sql
 PostgreSQL SQL queries and PL/PGSQL code beautifier.
 Arguments:
 file.sql can be a file, multiple files or use - to read query from stdin.
 Returning the SQL formatted to stdout or into a file specified with
 the -o | --output option.
 Options:
 -a | --anonymize : obscure all literals in queries, useful to hide
 confidential data before formatting.
 -b | --comma-start : in a parameters list, start with the comma (see -e)
 -B | --comma-break : in insert statement, add a newline after each comma.
 -c | --config FILE : use a configuration file. Default is to not use
 configuration file unless files ./.pg_format or
 $HOME/.pg_format or the XDG Base Directory file
 $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/pg_format/pg_format.conf exist.
 -C | --wrap-comment : with --wrap-limit, apply reformatting to comments.
 -d | --debug : enable debug mode. Disabled by default.
 -e | --comma-end : in a parameters list, end with the comma (default)
 -f | --function-case N: Change the case of the PostgreSQL functions. Default
 is unchanged: 0. Values: 0=>unchanged, 1=>lowercase,
 2=>uppercase, 3=>capitalize.
 -F | --format STR : output format: text or html. Default: text.
 -g | --nogrouping : add a newline between statements in transaction
 regroupement. Default is to group statements.
 -h | --help : show this message and exit.
 -i | --inplace : override input files with formatted content.
 -k | --keep-newline : preserve empty line in plpgsql code.
 -L | --no-extra-line : do not add an extra empty line at end of the output.
 -m | --maxlength SIZE : maximum length of a query, it will be cutted above
 the given size. Default: no truncate.
 -M | --multiline : enable multi-line search for -p or --placeholder.
 -n | --nocomment : remove any comment from SQL code.
 -N | --numbering : statement numbering as a comment before each query.
 -o | --output file : define the filename for the output. Default: stdout.
 -p | --placeholder RE : set regex to find code that must not be changed.
 -r | --redshift : add RedShift keywords to the list of SQL keywords.
 Obsolete now, use --extra-keyword 'redshift' instead.
 -s | --spaces size : change space indent, default 4 spaces.
 -S | --separator STR : dynamic code separator, default to single quote.
 -t | --format-type : try another formatting type for some statements.
 -T | --tabs : use tabs instead of space characters, when used
 spaces is set to 1 whatever is the value set to -s.
 -u | --keyword-case N : Change the case of the reserved keyword. Default is
 uppercase: 2. Values: 0=>unchanged, 1=>lowercase,
 2=>uppercase, 3=>capitalize.
 -U | --type-case N : Change the case of the data type name. Default is
 lowercase: 1. Values: 0=>unchanged, 1=>lowercase,
 2=>uppercase, 3=>capitalize.
 -v | --version : show pg_format version and exit.
 -w | --wrap-limit N : wrap queries at a certain length.
 -W | --wrap-after N : number of column after which lists must be wrapped.
 Default: puts every item on its own line.
 -X | --no-rcfile : don't read rc files automatically (./.pg_format or
 $HOME/.pg_format or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/pg_format).
 The --config / -c option overrides it.
 --extra-function FILE : file containing a list of functions to use the same
 formatting as PostgreSQL internal function.
 --extra-keyword FILE : file containing a list of keywords to use the same
 formatting as PostgreSQL internal keyword. Use
 special value 'redshift' for support to Redshift
 keywords defined internaly in pgFormatter.
 --no-space-function : remove space between function call and the open
 parenthesis.
 --redundant-parenthesis: do not remove redundant parenthesis in DML.
 Examples:
 cat samples/ex1.sql | pg_format -
 pg_format -n samples/ex1.sql
 pg_format -f 2 -n -o result.sql samples/ex1.sql
 CGI context
 Install pg_format into your cgi-bin folder, grant execution on it as a
 CGI script (maybe you should add the .cgi extension) and get it from
 your favorite browser. Copy files logo_pgformatter.png and
 icon_pgformatter.ico in the CGI directory, pg_format.cgi look for them
 in the same repository.
 You have a live example without limitation than ten thousand characters
 in your SQL query here:
 http://sqlformat.darold.net/
 pg_format will automatically detected that it is running in a CGI
 environment and will output all html code needed to run an online code
 formatter site. There's nothing more to do.
 You need to install the Perl CGI and JSON modules first. If it is not
 already the case do:
 yum install perl-cgi
 yum install perl-json
 or
 apt install libcgi-pm-perl
 apt install libjson-perl
 following your distribution.
INSTALLATION
 Following your Linux distribution you might need to install the autodie
 Perl module:
 sudo yum -y install perl-autodie
 Download the tarball from github and unpack the archive as follow:
 version=5.3 #please use the latest release version from github
 wget https://github.com/darold/pgFormatter/archive/refs/tags/v${version}.tar.gz
 tar xzf v${version}.tar.gz
 cd pgFormatter-${version}/
 perl Makefile.PL
 make && sudo make install
 cd ../ && rm -rf v${version}.tar.gz && rm -rf pgFormatter-${version} #clean up
 This will copy the Perl script pg_format in /usr/local/bin/pg_format
 directory by default and the man page into
 /usr/local/share/man/man1/pg_format.1. Those are the default
 installation directory for 'site' install.
 If you want to install all under /usr/ location, use INSTALLDIRS='perl'
 as argument of Makefile.PL. The script will be installed into
 /usr/bin/pg_format and the manpage into /usr/share/man/man1/pg_format.1.
 For example, to install everything just like Debian does, proceed as
 follow:
 perl Makefile.PL INSTALLDIRS=vendor
 By default INSTALLDIRS is set to site.
 Regression tests can be executed with the following command:
 make test
 If you have docker installed you can build a pgFormatter image using:
 docker build -t darold.net/pgformatter .
 then just use it as
 cat file.sql | docker run --rm -a stdin -a stdout -i darold.net/pgformatter -
SPECIAL FORMATTING
 Option -W, --wrap-after
 This option can be used to set number of column after which lists must
 be wrapped. By default pgFormatter puts every item on its own line. This
 format applies to SELECT and FROM list. For example the following query:
 SELECT a, b, c, d FROM t_1, t_2, t3 WHERE a = 10 AND b = 10;
 will be formatted into with -W 4:
 SELECT a, b, c, d
 FROM t_1, t_2, t3
 WHERE a = 10
 AND b = 10;
 Note this formatting doesn't fits well with sub queries in list.
 Option -w, --wrap-limit
 This option wraps queries at a certain length whatever is the part of
 the query at the limit unless it is a comment. For example if the limit
 is reach in a text constant the text will be wrapped. Indentation is not
 included in the character count. This option is applied in all cases
 even if other options are used.
 Option -C, --wrap-comment
 This option wraps comments at the length defined by -w, --wrap-limit
 whatever is the part of the comment. Indentation is not included in the
 character count.
 Option -t, --format-type
 This option activate an alternative formatting that adds:
 * newline in procedure/function parameter list
 * new line in PUBLICATION and POLICY DDL
 * keep enumeration in GROUP BY clause on a single line
 Expect this list grow following alternative thoughts.
 Option -g, --nogrouping
 By default pgFormatter groups all statements when they are in a
 transaction:
 BEGIN;
 INSERT INTO foo VALUES (1, 'text 1');
 INSERT INTO foo VALUES (2, 'text 2');
 ...
 COMMIT;
 By disabling grouping of statement pgFormatter will always add an extra
 newline characters between statements just like outside a transaction:
 BEGIN;
 INSERT INTO foo VALUES (1, 'text 1');
 INSERT INTO foo VALUES (2, 'text 2');
 ...
 COMMIT;
 This might add readability to not DML transactions.
 Option -L, --no-extra-line
 By default pgFormatter always adds an empty line after the end of a
 statement when it is terminated by a ; except in a plpgsql code block.
 If the extra empty line at end of the output is useless, you can remove
 it by adding this option to the command line.
 Option --extra-function
 pgFormatter applies some formatting to the PostgreSQL internal functions
 call but it can not detect user defined function. It is possible to
 defined a list of functions into a file (one function name per line) and
 give it to pgFormatter through the --extra-function option that will be
 formatter as PostgreSQL internal functions.
 Option --extra-keyword
 pgFormatter applies some formatting to the PostgreSQL internal keywords
 but it can not detect keywords for other database. It is possible to
 defined a list of keywords into a file (one keyword per line) and give
 it to pgFormatter through the --extra-keyword option that will be
 formatter as PostgreSQL internal functions.
 You can also pass a special value 'redshift' that will load the keywords
 defined internally in pgFormatter for this database. This was
 historically possible through the -r | --redshift option that is now
 obsolete and will be removed in the future.
 Option --no-space-function
 Use this option to remove the space character between a function call
 and the open parenthesis that follow. By default pgFormatter adds a
 space character, for example:
 DROP FUNCTION IF EXISTS app_public.hello (a text);
 When this option is used the resulting query is formatted as follow:
 DROP FUNCTION IF EXISTS app_public.hello(a text);
 Option --redundant-parenthesis
 By default, pgFormatter tries to remove redundant parenthesis in DML but
 in some cases they must be preseved. Using this option will keep
 redundant parenthesis untouched.
HINTS
 Configuration
 If the default settings of pg_format doesn't fit all your needs you can
 customize the behavior of pg_format by using a configuration file
 instead of repeating the command line option. By default pgFormatter
 look for files ./.pg_format or $HOME/.pg_format or
 $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/pg_format/pg_format.conf if they exists but you can
 choose an alternate configuration file using command line option -c |
 --config
 To customize the CGI pg_format.cgi look for a configuration file named
 pg_format.conf in the same directory as the CGI script.
 For a sample configuration file see doc/pg_format.conf.sample
 To prevent pg_format to look at $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/pg_format or
 $HOME/.pg_format files you can use the command line option -X |
 --no-rcfile
 Formatting from stdin
 You can execute pg_format without any argument or - to give the SQL code
 to format through stdin.
 If you use the interactive mode you have to type `ctrl+d` after typing
 your SQL statement to format to end the typing.
 $ pg_format
 select * from customers;
 < ctrl+d >
 You can use stdin in a one liner as follow:
 echo "select * from customers;" | pg_format
 Formatting from VI
 With pgFormatter, you can just add the following line to your ~/.vimrc
 file:
 au FileType sql setl formatprg=/usr/local/bin/pg_format\ -
 This lets your gq commands use pgFormatter automagically. For example if
 you are on the first line, typing:
 ESC+gq+G
 will format the entire file.
 ESC+gq+2j
 will format the next two line.
 Thanks to David Fetter for the hint.
 There is also the (Neo)vim plugin for formatting code for many file
 types that support pg_format to format SQL file type. Thanks to Anders
 Riutta for the patch to (Neo)vim.
 Formatting from Atom
 If you use atom as your favorite editor you can install the pg-formatter
 package which is a Node.js wrapper of pgFormatter.
 Features:
 * Format selected text or a whole file via keyboard shortcut or command.
 * Format SQL files on save.
 Installation:
 Search for pg-formatter in Atom UI or get it via command line:
 apm install pg-formatter
 Usage:
 Hit Ctrl-Alt-F to format selected text (or a whole file) or define your
 shortcut:
 'ctrl-alt-p': 'pg-formatter:format'
 Also, you can automatically format SQL files on save (disabled by
 default).
 You can download the package from url:
 https://atom.io/packages/pg-formatter
 the sources are available at https://github.com/gajus/pg-formatter
 Thanks to Alex Fedoseev for the atom package.
 Formatting from Visual Studio
 Thanks to Brady Holt a Visual Studio Code extension is available to
 formats PostgresSQL SQL using pgFormatter.
 https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=bradymholt.pgformatter
 For installation and use have a look at URL above.
 Prevent replacing code snippets
 Using -p or --placeholder command line option it is possible to keep
 code untouched by pgFormatter in your SQL queries. For example, in query
 like:
 SELECT * FROM projects WHERE projectnumber
 IN <<internalprojects>> AND username = <<loginname>>;
 you may want pgFormatter to not interpret << and >> as bit-shift
 keywords and modify your code snippets. You can use a Perl regular
 expression to instruct pgFormatter to keep some part of the query
 untouched. For example:
 pg_format samples/ex9.sql -p '<<(?:.*)?>>'
 will not format the bit-shift like operators.
 If you would like to wrap queries after 60 characters (-w 60) and to
 apply that limit to comments as well (-C), then urls in comments may get
 wrapped. If you would prefer not to wrap urls, you can use a regular
 expression to avoid wrapping urls. For example:
 pg_format samples/ex62.sql -C -w 60 -p 'https?:\/\/(www\.)?[-a-zA-Z0-9@:%._\+~#=]{1,256}\.[a-zA-Z0-9()]{1,6}\b([-a-zA-Z0-9()@:%_\+.~#?&//=]*)'
 will wrap the queries and the comments, but not the urls.
 Prevent dynamic code formatting
 By default pgFormatter takes all code between single quote as string
 constant and do not perform any formatting on this code. It is common to
 use a string as code separator to avoid doubling single quote in dynamic
 code generation, in this case pgFormatter can fail to auto detect the
 code separator. By default it will search for any string after the
 EXECUTE keyword starting with dollar sign. If it can not auto detect
 your code separator you can use the command line option -S or
 --separator to set the code separator that must be used.
 Node.js thin-wrapper
 Gajus Kuizinas has written a Node.js wrapper for executing pgFormatter.
 You can find it at https://github.com/gajus/pg-formatter
 Customize CSS for the CGI output
 You can change the HTML style rendered through the default CSS style by
 creating a file named custom_css_file.css into the pgFormatter CGI
 script directory. The default CSS will be fully overridden by this
 custom file content. You have to look at the generated HTML output to
 get the default CSS code used.
 Using pgFormatter as an API
 You may use pgFormatter as an API by setting the 'Accept' HTTP header to
 value 'application/json' when calling it as a CGI app. In case you do
 not want to enable this feature, set "$self->{ 'enable_api' } = 0" in
 the "set_config" sub of lib/pgFormatter/CGI.pm.
USING AS PRE-COMMIT HOOK
 - repo: https://github.com/darold/pgFormatter
 rev: "v5.8"
 hooks:
 - id: pg_format
 args: ["--inplace", "--wrap-limit", "120"]
 files: '.*\.sql$'
AUTHORS
 pgFormatter is an original work from Gilles Darold with major code
 refactoring by Hubert depesz Lubaczewski.
COPYRIGHT
 Copyright 2012-2026 Gilles Darold. All rights reserved.
LICENSE
 pgFormatter is free software distributed under the PostgreSQL Licence.
 A modified version of the SQL::Beautify Perl Module is embedded in
 pgFormatter with copyright (C) 2009 by Jonas Kramer and is published
 under the terms of the Artistic License 2.0.