Here’s the contents of my ~/.psqlrc file:
-- Report time used for each query.
\timing
-- Set a cute border around query results.
\pset border 2
-- Set pager to less, rather than more.
\setenv PAGER /usr/bin/less
-- Monkey up the prompt.
-- This one shows user@host:database
-- \set PROMPT1 '%n@%m:%/%# '
-- Same thing, but with pretty colors, across several lines.
\set PROMPT1 '\n%[%033[0;36;29m%]%n@%m:%/%[%033[0m%]\n%# '
Now I get a psql prompt that looks like this:
user@localhost:dbname
# select * from current_timestamp;
+-------------------------------+
| now |
+-------------------------------+
| 2012-10-23 12:22:38.263557-04 |
+-------------------------------+
(1 row)
Time: 1.907 ms