David: On Wed, Jun 6, 2018 at 5:36 PM, David Gauthier <davegauthierpg@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Hi: > > Is there a way to do the equivalent of a "\set foo 1" through perl dbi ? > I tried... > $dbh->do("\\set foo 1"); > and got a syntax error > > Of course, I'd also have to be able to access the value of foo once its set. > I'm guessing the usual way ??? (select :foo) You are looking at it wrong. Psql vars are similar to perl vars, and it is psql ( the program in your machine ) who interpolates them before sending the query to the server. The equivalent perl code to \set foo 1 select :foo; Would be my $foo = '1'; $dbh->do("select $foo") Which is not terribly useful, in perl. To use the current ( client ) user in a query ( like your next message states ), you just need $dbh->do("select * from some_table where user_id_column=$<") ( Of course, you could "use English;" to get $UID, or use placeholders to avoid injections, that's just an initial pointer ) ( or "perldoc perlvar" if you do not know what $< is, and that is enough perl stuff for a postres list ) Francisco Olarte