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plan-exporter: visualize PostgreSQL EXPLAIN data right from psql

· One min read
Nikolay Samokhvalov

If you love and use psql (like I do), you're equipped with a lot of power. However, when you want to visualize execution plans — using such services as good old explain.depesz.com or modern explain.dalibo.com — you need to deal with inconvenient copy-pasting.

To solve this problem, my colleague Artyom Kartasov has developed a small utility called plan-exporter. It allows sending EXPLAIN data with minimal efforts:

To enable plan-exporter you need to use \o with a pipe:

\o | plan-exporter

After this, psql will start mirroring the output to plan-exporter. When plan-exporter sees the EXPLAIN data, it suggests you sending it to a visualization service.

Both services mentioned above are supported and can be chosen using --target option. The default is explain.depesz.com.

To reset, just use \o command without parameters – and plan-exporter will stop receiving the data. And if you want to always have it enabled when you start psql, consider adjusting your .psqlrc file:

echo '\o | plan-exporter --target=dalibo' >> ~/.psqlrc