Re: COPY formatting

Thomas Swan wrote:
> > I have never seen such a beast, and if I had been asked off the cuff
> > would have said that it was probably illegal, except that I know of no
> > standard actually defining the format. Perhaps others (Joshua Drake or
> > Josh Berkus?) have wider experience. I think in any case we should
> > ignore those for now and handle the straightforward case.
> >
> > I *have* seen monstrosities like fields that do not begin with the quote
> > character but then break into a quote, e.g.:
> >
> > 1,2,a,123"abc""def",6,7,8
> >
>
> I have dealt with both, frequently. The CSV format allows you to begin a
> block of text with the quote. Newlines are included in that quoted space.
> If qoutes are included in the field then the quotes are double quotes to
> denote they are not part of the quoted space.
>
> Also, the following is valid.
>
> 1,2,,,"",,,""
>
> "" is empty.
>
> 1,2,3,"""",,,,"",
>
> The 4 quotes denote a single double quote.
>
> Writing simple CSV converts that just explode on commas and newlines miss
> these oddities.

OK, so for the separator, quote, and escape options:

separator is ,
quote is "
escape is "

so if the quote and escape are the same, then a double denotes a
single?

--
Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us | (610) 359-1001
+ If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
+ Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073