XML ouput for psql

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Patch to add XML output to psql:

http://www.gtsm.com/xml.patch.txt

Notes and questions:

The basic output looks something like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="SQL_ASCII"?>
<resultset psql_version="7.4devel" query="select * from foo;">

<columns>
<col num="1">a</col>
<col num="2">b</col>
<col num="3">c</col>
<col num="4">mucho nacho </col>
</columns>
<row num="1">
<a>1</a>
<b>pizza</b>
<c>2003-02-25 15:19:22.169797</c>
<"mucho nacho "></"mucho nacho ">
</row>
<row num="2">
<a>2</a>
<b>mushroom</b>
<c>2003-02-25 15:19:26.969415</c>
<"mucho nacho "></"mucho nacho ">
</row>
<footer>(2 rows)</footer>
</resultset>

and with the \x option:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="SQL_ASCII"?>
<resultset psql_version="7.4devel" query="select * from foo;">

<columns>
<col num="1">a</col>
<col num="2">b</col>
<col num="3">c</col>
<col num="4">mucho nacho </col>
</columns>
<row num="1">
<cell name="a">1</cell>
<cell name="b">pizza</cell>
<cell name="c">2003-02-25 15:19:22.169797</cell>
<cell name="mucho nacho "></cell>
</row>
<row num="2">
<cell name="a">2</cell>
<cell name="b">mushroom</cell>
<cell name="c">2003-02-25 15:19:26.969415</cell>
<cell name="mucho nacho "></cell>
</row>
</resultset>

The default encoding "SQL-ASCII" is not valid for XML.
Should it be automatically changed to something else?

The flag "-X" is already taken, unfortunately, although \X is not.
I used "-L" and "\L" but they are not as memorable as "X". Anyone
see a way around this? Can we still use \X inside of psql?

It would be nice to include the string representation of the column
types in the xml output:
<col type="int8">foo</col>
....but I could not find an easy way to do this: PQftype returns the
OID only (which is close but not quite there). Is there an
existing way to get the name of the type of a column from a
PQresult item?

The HTML, XML, and Latex modes should have better documentation -
I'll submit a separate doc patch when/if this gets finalized.

- --
Greg Sabino Mullane greg(at)turnstep(dot)com
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200302261518

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