Weird ghost records in PostgreSQL - what are they? - postgresql

Question

I have a very weird issue on our postgresql DB. I have a table called "statement" which has some strange records in it.
Using the command line console psql, I query select * from customer.statement where type in ('QUOTE'); and get 12 rows back. 7 rows look normal, 5 are missing all data except a single column which is a nullable column but seems to hold real values entered by the user. psql tells me that 7 rows were returned even though there are 12. Most of the other columns are not nullable. The weird records look like this:
select * from customer.statement where type = 'QUOTE';
id | issuer_id | recipient_id | recipient_name | recipient_reference | source_statement_id | catalogue_id | reference | issue_date | due_date | description | total | currency | type | tax_level | rounding_mode | status | recall_requested | time_created | time_updated | time_paid
------------------+------------------+------------------+----------------+---------------------+---------------------+--------------+-----------+------------+------------+------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------+----------+-------+-----------+---------------+-----------+------------------+----------------------------+----------------------------+-----------
... 7 valid records removed ...
| | | | | | | | | | Build bulkheads and sheet with plasterboard. +| | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | Patch all patches. +| | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | Set and sand all joints ready for painting. +| | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | Use wall angle on bulkhead in main bedroom. +| | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | Build nib and sheet and set in entrance | | | | | | | | | |
(7 rows)
If I run the same query using pgAdmin, I don't see those weird records.
Anyone know what these are?

Answer 1

The plus sign before the separator (+|) indicates a newline character in the displayed string value in psql. So no additional rows, just the same row continued with line breaks. The final line of output in your quote confirms as much: (7 rows).
In pgAdmin you don't see the extra lines as long as you don't increase the height of the field (or copy / paste the content somewhere), but there are multiple lines as well.
Try in psql and in pgAdmin:
test=# SELECT E'This\nis\na\ntest.' AS multi_line, 'foo' AS single_line;
multi_line | single_line
--------------+-------------
This +| foo
is +|
a +|
test. |
(1 row)
The manual about psql:
linestyle
Sets the border line drawing style to one of ascii, old-ascii, or unicode. [...] The default setting is ascii. [...]
ascii style uses plain ASCII characters. Newlines in data are shown using a + symbol in the right-hand margin. [...]