postgresql display one column per line

Problem : displaying a table with a lot of columns

You always got that table with a dozens of columns of type text and for which the normal tabular output does not work nicely and you end up with something like

 articleid | plop | pouet | prout | tagada |  id   | newsid  | newstype |                                                          title                                                          | something | something | something | something | something | something | something | something |      something       |      something       | something | something | something | something |          something          |    something    |                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 something                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 |            something            
-----------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+---------+----------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+------------+-------------+-----------+------------+-----------------+---------+--------------+---------+---------------------+---------------------+---------------+-------------+-----------+------------+---------------------------+-----------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------+------------+--------------------------------+--------------+----------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------+----------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------+-----------+-------+------------
   1000163 |     0 |     0 |     0 |     0 |   141 | 1000147 |       10 | blablabla                                                                                           |          3 |           4 |        22 |    1000163 |               0 | 1000163 |          184 |   10028 | 2014-06-30 23:36:00 | 2014-06-30 23:36:00 |             0 |           0 |         0 |          0 |                           |           |          

In MySQL

with MySQL you can replace ; by \G at the end of your SQL statement, i.e turning

SELECT * FROM example ;

into

SELECT * FROM example \G

In PostgreSQL

you need first to use \x and it will activate the ‘one column by line’ display (use \x again to switch back to normal mode)

\x
SELECT * FROM example;
\x

and you will something like that

-[ RECORD 1 ]------
articleid | 1000000
something     | 0
something     | 0
something     | 0
something     | 0
id        | 1
-[ RECORD 2 ]------
articleid | 1000002
something     | 0
something     | 0
something     | 0
something     | 0
something     | 2