Re: Add switches for DELIMITER and NULL in pg_dump COPY

From: Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>
To: David Fetter <david(at)fetter(dot)org>
Cc: PG Hackers <pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org>, PostgreSQL Patches <pgsql-patches(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: Add switches for DELIMITER and NULL in pg_dump COPY
Date: 2006-03-08 16:03:00
Message-ID: 14919.1141833780@sss.pgh.pa.us
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David Fetter <david(at)fetter(dot)org> writes:
> From the earlier discussion, it appears that there is a variety of
> opinions on what the COPY delimiter should be in pg_dump. This patch
> allows people to set it and the NULL string.

Did anyone provide a convincing use case for this? It's of zero value
from the perspective of pg_dump itself; the only possible argument is
that it makes it easier for program-foo to parse the output of pg_dump.
But I don't see any programs around to parse arbitrary SQL scripts,
especially not the pretty-PG-specific scripts that pg_dump emits.

I think it much more likely that people needing this sort of thing would
be using something like "psql -c 'copy foo to stdout'", so as to get the
data without any added overhead.

So this seems like mere creeping featurism to me. pg_dump has too many
switches already.

regards, tom lane

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