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Timing and Watch Commands in psql

Andreas Scherbaum shows off two internal psql commands:

My preferred client for PostgreSQL is psql, and while it is very powerful I like a few features a most:

  • \timing
  • \watch

Both are internal commands in psql\timing is there for a very long time, but got improved at some point. \watch came later, but is also there for a couple years now.

Read on to see what these two commands can do.