Tips and tricks

Debugging

Git supports a number of environment variables, several of which are particularly helpful for debugging. Try setting GIT_TRACE_PACKET=1 to see what’s happening at the networking level, or GIT_TRACE_PERFORMANCE=1 to get timing information about discrete steps Git is taking.

Client configuration

Below is a .psqlrc configuration that improves on the default psql configuration with a more useful prompt, a per-database command history, timing output and various table rendering directives.

\set QUIET 1

\set PROMPT1 '%[%033[1m%]%M %n@%/%R%[%033[0m%]%x%# '
\set PROMPT2 '[more] %R > '
\set VERBOSITY verbose
\set HISTFILE ~/.psql_history- :DBNAME
\set HISTCONTROL ignoredups
\set COMP_KEYWORD_CASE upper
\set ON_ERROR_STOP on
\set ON_ERROR_ROLLBACK interactive
\set intervalstyle to 'postgres_verbose'

\pset null '*'
\pset linestyle 'unicode'
\pset unicode_border_linestyle single
\pset unicode_column_linestyle single
\pset unicode_header_linestyle double
\pset border 2

\setenv PAGER 'pspg -bX'

\x auto
\timing

\unset QUIET

For a detailed walkthrough of several of these options, see this thoughtbot blog post.