pgcli 3.0.0

macOS:

The easiest way to install pgcli is using Homebrew.

$ brew install pgcli

Done!

Alternatively, you can install pgcli as a python package using a package manager called called pip. You will need postgres installed on your system for this to work.

In depth getting started guide for pip - https://pip.pypa.io/en/latest/installing.html.

$ which pip

If it is installed then you can do:

$ pip install pgcli

If that fails due to permission issues, you might need to run the command with sudo permissions.

$ sudo pip install pgcli

If pip is not installed check if easy_install is available on the system.

$ which easy_install

$ sudo easy_install pgcli

Linux:

In depth getting started guide for pip - https://pip.pypa.io/en/latest/installing.html.

Check if pip is already available in your system.

$ which pip

If it doesn’t exist, use your linux package manager to install pip. This might look something like:

$ sudo apt-get install python-pip   # Debian, Ubuntu, Mint etc

or

$ sudo yum install python-pip  # RHEL, Centos, Fedora etc

pgcli requires python-dev, libpq-dev and libevent-dev packages. You can install these via your operating system package manager.

$ sudo apt-get install python-dev libpq-dev libevent-dev

or

$ sudo yum install python-devel postgresql-devel

Then you can install pgcli:

$ sudo pip install pgcli

Docker

Pgcli can be run from within Docker. This can be useful to try pgcli without installing it, or any dependencies, system-wide.

To build the image:

$ docker build -t pgcli .

To create a container from the image:

$ docker run --rm -ti pgcli pgcli <ARGS>

To access postgresql databases listening on localhost, make sure to run the docker in “host net mode”. E.g. to access a database called “foo” on the postgresql server running on localhost:5432 (the standard port):

$ docker run --rm -ti --net host pgcli pgcli -h localhost foo

To connect to a locally running instance over a unix socket, bind the socket to the docker container:

$ docker run --rm -ti -v /var/run/postgres:/var/run/postgres pgcli pgcli foo

IPython

Pgcli can be run from within IPython console. When working on a query, it may be useful to drop into a pgcli session without leaving the IPython console, iterate on a query, then quit pgcli to find the query results in your IPython workspace.

Assuming you have IPython installed:

$ pip install ipython-sql

After that, run ipython and load the pgcli.magic extension:

$ ipython

In [1]: %load_ext pgcli.magic

Connect to a database and construct a query:

In [2]: %pgcli postgres://someone@localhost:5432/world
Connected: someone@world
someone@localhost:world> select * from city c where countrycode = 'USA' and population > 1000000;
+------+--------------+---------------+--------------+--------------+
| id   | name         | countrycode   | district     | population   |
|------+--------------+---------------+--------------+--------------|
| 3793 | New York     | USA           | New York     | 8008278      |
| 3794 | Los Angeles  | USA           | California   | 3694820      |
| 3795 | Chicago      | USA           | Illinois     | 2896016      |
| 3796 | Houston      | USA           | Texas        | 1953631      |
| 3797 | Philadelphia | USA           | Pennsylvania | 1517550      |
| 3798 | Phoenix      | USA           | Arizona      | 1321045      |
| 3799 | San Diego    | USA           | California   | 1223400      |
| 3800 | Dallas       | USA           | Texas        | 1188580      |
| 3801 | San Antonio  | USA           | Texas        | 1144646      |
+------+--------------+---------------+--------------+--------------+
SELECT 9
Time: 0.003s

Exit out of pgcli session with Ctrl + D and find the query results:

someone@localhost:world>
Goodbye!
9 rows affected.
Out[2]:
[(3793, u'New York', u'USA', u'New York', 8008278),
 (3794, u'Los Angeles', u'USA', u'California', 3694820),
 (3795, u'Chicago', u'USA', u'Illinois', 2896016),
 (3796, u'Houston', u'USA', u'Texas', 1953631),
 (3797, u'Philadelphia', u'USA', u'Pennsylvania', 1517550),
 (3798, u'Phoenix', u'USA', u'Arizona', 1321045),
 (3799, u'San Diego', u'USA', u'California', 1223400),
 (3800, u'Dallas', u'USA', u'Texas', 1188580),
 (3801, u'San Antonio', u'USA', u'Texas', 1144646)]

The results are available in special local variable _, and can be assigned to a variable of your choice:

In [3]: my_result = _

Pgcli only runs on Python3.6+ since 2.2.0, if you use an old version of Python, you should use install pgcli <= 2.2.0.