Re: Real newbie question.

Hi Bill,

Have you solved this yet?

When the psql prompt becomes a ' it means you've started a text string
and not ended it. i.e. :

psql# INSERT INTO foo (stringfield) VALUES ('blah blah blah);
psql'#

You need to type another ' then press enter to finish the string. Once
on a new line, type \r to clear the buffer of the command you stuffed,
or \e to open up a window which edits it. i.e. :

psql# INSERT INTO foo (stringfield) VALUES ('blah blah blah);
psql'# safdsadfa
psql'# <Uh oh.. something wrong>
psql'# Aha...
psql'# '
psql# \r
Query buffer reset.
psql# INSERT INTO foo (stringfield) VALUES ('blah blah blah');

:-)

Hope that's helpful, did it from memory, so the exact output may look
slightly different.

Regards and best wishes,

Justin Clift

"William D. Tallman" wrote:
>
> Just started fiddling with PostgreSQL, and know nothing of databases.
>
> I have the documentation that came with the Mandrake-8.0 installation
> written by Thomas Lockhard, and I've perused Bruce Momjian's book online,
> and I cannot find the answer to this problem:
>
> When I am entering values into a table, and make a mistake, sometimes
> there is an error message, and sometimes the equal sign in the prompt
> becomes a single quote. Error messages I can puzzle out, but I have not
> discovered how to recover from the single quote in the prompt. I wind up
> having to kill the terminal and start all over
>
> Can someone point me to the explanation of this?
>
> Thanks, and I hope this question isn't too rudimentary for this NG.
>
> Bill Tallman
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster

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