How to prettify the output coming from the SELECT query in command prompt?

Question

I ran the simple select query in the command prompt,but the output rows are not coming in a single line. See below:

SQL> set pagesize 2000
SQL> select * from xtern_empl_rpt ;

EMP LAST_NAME
--- --------------------------------------------------
FIRST_NAME                                         SSN
-------------------------------------------------- ---------
EMAIL_ADDR
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

YEARS_OF_SERVICE
----------------
001 Hutt
Jabba                                              896743856
[email protected]
              18

002 Simpson
Homer                                              382947382
[email protected]
              20

003 Kent
Clark                                              082736194
[email protected]
               5

004 Kid
Billy                                              928743627
[email protected]
               9

005 Stranger
Perfect                                            389209831
[email protected]
              23

006 Zoidberg
Dr                                                 094510283
[email protected]
               1


6 rows selected.

SQL>

Could you please help me to make each rows in a single line?

Edit

I tried below,but still is not prettified.

SQL> SET LINESIZE 4000
SQL> select * from xtern_empl_rpt ;

EMP LAST_NAME                                          FIRST_NAME
                          SSN       EMAIL_ADDR
                                                         YEARS_OF_SERVICE
--- -------------------------------------------------- -------------------------
------------------------- --------- --------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------- ----------------
001 Hutt                                               Jabba
                          896743856 [email protected]
                                                                       18
002 Simpson                                            Homer
                          382947382 [email protected]
                                                                       20
003 Kent                                               Clark
                          082736194 [email protected]
                                                                        5
004 Kid                                                Billy
                          928743627 [email protected]
                                                                        9
005 Stranger                                           Perfect
                          389209831 [email protected]
                                                                       23
006 Zoidberg                                           Dr
                          094510283 [email protected]
                                                                        1

6 rows selected.

SQL>

Answer 1

set your column widths to fit in the screen

eg:

column EMAIL_ADDR format a30 

where a is hte column width. you can use WRA to wrap the column eg

column EMAIL_ADDR format a30 WRA

or TRU to truncate, WOR to break on word boundaries

for example:

SQL> select * from emp;

        ID FIRST_NAME
---------- ------------------------------
LAST_NAME
------------------------------
EMAIL_ADDR
--------------------------------------------------
         1 Dazza
Smith
[email protected]

so the output is a bit tricky to read as email_addr was padded to 300 characters (as my table had it defined as varchar2(300) which sql*plus uses to format the output).

first set an appropriate linesize:

   SQL> set linesize 100 

now lets set the columns so they fit on one line (linesize should be greater than the total col widths):

   SQL> column email_addr format a30 
   SQL> column last_name format a20 
   SQL> column first_name format a20 
   SQL> select * from emp;

            ID FIRST_NAME           LAST_NAME            EMAIL_ADDR
    ---------- -------------------- -------------------- ------------------------------
             1 Dazza                Smith                [email protected]

so now the columns fit easily onto a reasonably sized terminal.

in your case first_name and last_name are varchar2(50)'s yet the data in them is much smaller, so i'd start with column first_name format a15 (same for last_name). with email, your column is varchar2(100) yet the max sized output was 25 chars, so put column email format a25 for a starter.

if you did that, you should get output (if linesize is high enough) like:

SQL> select * from xtern_empl_rpt ;

EMP LAST_NAME       FIRST_NAME     SSN       EMAIL_ADDR                YEARS_OF_SERVICE
--- --------------- -------------- --------- ------------------------- ----------------
001 Hutt            Jabba          896743856 [email protected]      18

finally as requested. WRA TRU and WOR. WRA is default by the way, so you dont have to use it but lets say we had:

SQL> select * from test;

A
--------------------------------------
THIS IS A SIMPLE WRAPPING TEST

but i wanted to format this as 10 characters width:

S

QL> col a format a10 WRA
SQL> select * from test;

A
----------
THIS IS A
SIMPLE WRA
PPING TEST

the WRA means just chop the string at 10 chars, regardless of whether we are in the middle of a word or not. if we wanted to break ONLY on word endings (where possible as a word > 10 still needs to break):

SQL> col a format a10 WOR
SQL> select * from test;

A
----------
THIS IS A
SIMPLE
WRAPPING
TEST

now the output is broken at word boundaries and not necessarily at 10 chars.

if we only wanted the first 10 chars and no line wrapping, we could use TRU:

SQL> col a format a10 TRU
SQL> select * from test;

A
----------
THIS IS A