Executing dynamic SQL query right away

PostgreSQL 9.6 comes with a handy psql command called \gexec that sends the current query input buffer to the server and treats the result as a SQL statement to be executed (right, whatever). What that means is that instead of doing this

psql -c "SELECT 'DROP TABLE ' || tablename FROM information_schema.tables WHERE table_name LIKE '%to_be_dropped%" | psql

you’ll do that

SELECT 'DROP TABLE ' || tablename FROM information_schema.tables WHERE table_name LIKE '%to_be_dropped%'\gexec

Brilliant.