How to wrap long lines when SELECTing SQL text columns?

If you're using the psql command line tool, issue this command first:

\pset format wrapped

It should then wrap long lines to your terminal window like so:

test_id |              text
--------+-----------------------------
      1 | Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,.
        |.consectetur adipiscing elit.
        |.. Mauris lorem

You can also set the number of columns to wrap to with

\pset columns 100

and you can change the dots to ellipses with

\pset linestyle unicode

More info: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/app-psql.html

My answer won't directly answer your question because I don't think psql itself can specifically do this. But, \x will turn on expanded output, which will place your values like this:

-[ RECORD 1 ]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
id         | 1
longstring | This is a long string of text that will be quite long and most likely be very annoying to read if you are viewing results with more than at most a few columns of data. Words words words words words words lorem ipsum.

You can also configure your pager to not wrap lines.

To switch to normal display, just issue the command \x again. Explanation:

\x [on|off|auto] toggle expanded output (currently off)