Re: Real newbie question.

"William D. Tallman" wrote:
  >When I am entering values into a table, and make a mistake, sometimes
  >there is an error message, and sometimes the equal sign in the prompt
  >becomes a single quote.  Error messages I can puzzle out, but I have not
  >discovered how to recover from the single quote in the prompt.  I wind up
  >having to kill the terminal and start all over
  >
  >Can someone point me to the explanation of this?

It simply means that you have typed a starting single quote but have
not yet typed the closing quote.  You can get a similar effect with
parentheses.

Close the quote, then use \r to clear the buffer.

Example:
junk=# select 'x
junk'# ',*
junk-# from (
junk(# select * from a
junk(# ) as ss
junk-# ;
ERROR:  Relation 'a' does not exist

junk=# select '
junk'# aga
junk'# dsfhsh
junk'# \r
junk'# '
junk-# \r
Query buffer reset (cleared).
junk=#

--
Oliver Elphick                                Oliver.Elphick@lfix.co.uk
Isle of Wight                              http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver
PGP: 1024R/32B8FAA1: 97 EA 1D 47 72 3F 28 47  6B 7E 39 CC 56 E4 C1 47
GPG: 1024D/3E1D0C1C: CA12 09E0 E8D5 8870 5839  932A 614D 4C34 3E1D 0C1C
                 ========================================
     "But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren,
      concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not,
      even as others which have no hope. For if we believe
      that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also
      which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him."
                                I Thessalonians 4:13,14