Values, the record view and the cell viewer

A grid cell shows one line of a value, written the way you chose in Settings. Two dialogs show more than a cell can: the record view lays out one row as a list of fields, and the cell viewer shows one value in full, laid out for its type.

How values look

Settings▸Results▸How values look decides how the grid writes values. Only the look changes: Copy and Export keep the server’s text, every digit. Like every setting, a change applies at once, to the results already on screen too.

• 1 Numbers. Each choice is a sample written the way the grid would write it: as the server writes them (1234567.89), grouped in threes with spaces (1 234 567.89, the default), or in this computer’s regional format (1,234,567.89 where the computer is set to US English, 1.234.567,89 where it is set to German).
• 2 Dates and times: ISO (2026-11-06 14:02:11), the default, or this computer’s regional format, with its 12-hour or 24-hour clock (Nov 6, 2026 2:02:11 PM in US English).
• 3 Time zone of timestamptz: The session’s (the default) shows a timestamp with time zone as the server sent it, in the time zone of the tab’s session. UTC and This computer’s show the same instant in that zone instead. The offset is always written after the time (+01), so you can see which zone you are reading.
• 4 NULL looks: Italic, tangerine (the default), Grey (grey italics) or Empty. With Empty, a NULL cell is blank, like an empty string; the other two keep them apart at a glance.
• 5 NULL reads: the word shown for NULL, 1 to 16 characters. It is NULL unless you change it.
• 6 Show trailing spaces and tabs: faint dots (spaces) and arrows (tabs) at the end of a value, so 'abc ' does not pass for 'abc'. On unless you turn it off.
• 7 Tint every other row: a light stripe on every second row. On unless you turn it off.

Settings has each of these with its default.

What the choices do in the grid

• 1 A number is grouped in threes once its whole part has five digits or more, so 1234567.89 reads 1 234 567.89 and 1001 stays 1001. The spaces are part of the look only: they are not in the value.
• 2 An integer or bigint is grouped the same way. One that reads as a moment in time gets a hint on hover: see Seconds since 1970.
• 3 Two trailing spaces show as two faint dots.
• 4 NULL, in tangerine italics.
• 5 An empty string is an empty cell.

Details that are easy to miss:

• Numbers applies to smallint, integer, bigint, real, double precision and numeric. An oid is a name, not an amount, and is never grouped. Values that are not plain digits, such as NaN or 1e+20, are shown as the server wrote them.
• pgjumbo works on the digits as text and never passes them through a floating-point number, so no digit of a bigint or a long numeric changes on the way to the screen.
• Dates and times applies to date, timestamp and timestamp with time zone. Fractions of a second are kept as written. Values it cannot read as a date, such as infinity or a date marked BC, are shown as the server wrote them.
• Numbers always line up on the right, whatever you choose.
• The height of the rows is not here: it follows Settings▸General▸Layout▸Density.

This computer’s regional format

The third choice of Numbers and the second of Dates and times follow the regional format set in your operating system: its digit grouping and decimal sign, its order of day, month and year, and its 12-hour or 24-hour clock. The samples on the buttons are written with it, so the button and the grid always agree.

• 1 A number in the regional format. In this format a number is grouped from four digits on: 1,001.
• 2 A timestamp with time zone in the regional format, with its offset after the time.

On Windows, pgjumbo’s window has no data of its own for a few regional formats (Bosnian is one). For those it writes numbers and dates with the separators and the short date and time patterns Windows itself gives.

Where the look applies

Place	What it shows
The grid, the record view, the card of a row on the map	Values as these settings say
Results as text	The server’s text; a NULL always reads NULL
The cell viewer	The value as the server wrote it, laid out for its type
Copy, Copy as, Export	The server’s text, every digit
A value you are changing	The text as you typed it, until it is saved

Seconds since 1970

Applications often store a moment as a number. When an integer or bigint value has 10 or 13 digits and reads as seconds or milliseconds since 1970, somewhere between the years 2000 and 2100, hovering over the cell says what time it is: “As seconds since 1970: 2024-11-13 12:13:20 UTC, 13:13:20 on this computer”. The value itself is left as it is.

The record view

The record view shows one row as a list of fields, one under another. It is for tables with more columns than fit across the window.

Open it on the row of the cell with the outline:

• Press Shift+Enter in the grid.
• Or right-click a cell and choose Record view.

It works on every result and in data tabs, whether the rows can be edited or not. With psql’s \x turned on for the tab, a result opens in the record view by itself: see psql commands in the editor.

• 1 Which row this is, counted as the grid shows the rows: row 2 of 50.
• 2 Each field has the column’s name, its value and, at the right, its type. PK marks the columns of the table’s primary key, on a result you can edit. FK marks a column that is part of a foreign key.
• 3 → public.customers follows the foreign key: it opens the row this value refers to in a data tab of its own, and closes the record view. It is not there when the value is NULL. Following a key is explained on View data.
• 4 Values look as Settings▸Results▸How values look says, NULL included.
• 5 The arrow buttons go to the row before and the row after. So do ← and →. The grid behind follows: its selection moves to the same row.
• 6 Close, Esc or the × closes the record view.

More to know:

• The record view reads the rows as the grid shows them, sorted or filtered. The fields come in the order of the grid’s columns, and columns you hid in the grid follow after them.
• A long value shows its first 64 kB, followed by a note such as “… (first 64 kB of 1,204,331 bytes)”. Open the cell viewer for the whole value.
• The record view is for reading. To change a value, close it and edit the cell in the grid.

The cell viewer

The cell viewer shows one value in full. Open it in one of these ways:

• Right-click a cell and choose View value. This works on every result.
• Double-click a cell, or select it and press Enter, on a result that cannot be edited. On a result that can (the bar shows Editable), a double-click and Enter start editing the value instead.

• 1 The column’s name, with its type and the row number under it.
• 2 The ways this type can be shown. The switch is there for the types in the table below; other values have one way, as text.
• 3 The value. Here a jsonb value as a tree: click ▾ or ▸ to close or open an object or an array. The first two levels start open.
• 4 The value’s size in bytes. For bytea, it is the size of the binary data, not of its hex text. The viewer says Loading… while the value is on its way.
• 5 Copy puts the value on the clipboard as text. The button says Copied for a moment. It is greyed out for a NULL.
• 6 Done, Esc or the × closes the viewer.

What each type gets

Type	Shown as	What you see
bytea	Image, Hex, Text	Image when the bytes are a PNG, JPEG, GIF or WebP picture, with its kind and its size in pixels under it. Hex lists the bytes sixteen to a line, each line with its offset and the printable characters; it lists the first 4,096 bytes and then says how many more there are. Text reads the bytes as UTF-8.
json, jsonb	Tree, Text	Tree opens and closes objects and arrays and says how many keys or elements each holds. Text is the value laid out over several lines with indentation. Both keep the keys in the order the server sent them and every digit of the numbers.
Arrays (text[], integer[]…) and record	List, Text	List numbers the elements, or the record’s fields, by their place, with quoting and escapes taken off. A NULL element shows as your NULL reads word. An array inside an array is one element, shown as its own text.
xml	Indented, As stored	Indented puts each element on its own line, two spaces deeper per level; an element that holds only text stays on one line.
interval	Text	Under the value, the interval in words, for example 1 day, 2 hours, 30 minutes, and its length in hours (26.5 hours in all) when it has no years or months.
Everything else	Text	The value as the server wrote it, with its own line breaks.

• 1 List and Text for an array.
• 2 The elements by their place. The array is stored as {"a b",c}; the list shows a b and c.

More to know about the viewer:

• A NULL shows as your NULL reads word, in grey italics.
• A picture is drawn only for PNG, JPEG, GIF and WebP. An SVG is never drawn, because an SVG can carry scripts: it shows as hex and as text. Whatever a value holds, pgjumbo shows it as text or as one of those four kinds of picture, never as a web page.
• A value larger than one megabyte shows its first megabyte, and the size line adds “showing the first megabyte”. Its JSON is then not laid out and its picture is not drawn, and the viewer’s Copy takes that first megabyte. Copying the cell in the grid, and Export, still give you the whole value.
• If the clipboard refuses the copy, a red line beside the size says “Could not copy:” and why.
• The record view and the cell viewer close by themselves when another tab comes to the front, for example after you follow a foreign key.