Yes, I'd like to do it via Perl, but I don't have control over the server and the admins who do may balk at the idea of loading the necessary db modules. This will work though. Thanks! Alex ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sam Mason" <sam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Sunday, September 20, 2009 6:21:05 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: Re: How to get variable out to shell script On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 04:49:03PM -0500, Alex Gadea wrote: > ie: select into ct count(*) from table; > > I can't figure out how to make the ct variable available to the shell > script once the external sql file completes execution. Just tell psql not to output any surrounding stuff and then just redirect as normal: ct="`psql -tc 'select count(*) from table;'`" echo $ct I expect it'll probably be easier to use a "real" scripting language though; Python and Perl both have reasonable libraries for talking to Postgres with. Python would be something like: import psycopg2; conn = psycopg2.connect("dbname='db1'"); cur = conn.cursor(); cur.execute ("select count(*) from table;"); [[n]] = cur.fetchall(); It's a bit of a fiddle to change over, but having a something more expressive than a bourne shell can help. -- Sam http://samason.me.uk/ -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general