How to show data in a table by using psql command line interface?

Question

Is there a way to show all the content inside a table by using psql command line interface?

I can use \list to show all the databases, \d to show all the tables, but how can I show all the data in a table?

Answer 1

Newer versions: (from 8.4 - mentioned in release notes)

TABLE mytablename;

Longer but works on all versions:

SELECT * FROM mytablename;

You may wish to use \x first if it's a wide table, for readability.

For long data:

SELECT * FROM mytable LIMIT 10;

or similar.

For wide data (big rows), in the psql command line client, it's useful to use \x to show the rows in key/value form instead of tabulated, e.g.

 \x
SELECT * FROM mytable LIMIT 10;

Note that in all cases the semicolon at the end is important.