Re: problems transfering databases

Looks like you already have the answer. The error message is a dead giveaway. Some field, in this case having a null value (represented as '\N') contains a carriage return character, like: '\NCR'. PostgreSQL cannot make sense out of this combination, so it returns an error. The CR contained in the error message causes the output to return to the start of the line, outputting the rest of the message from the beginning: see how the final " ' " overwrites the "p" in "psql".
Edit out the CR characters, and the problem will go away.
This is what Tom already said; I am expanding on it.
----- Original Message -----
From: Miroslav Koncar
To: Tom Lane
Cc: pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org
Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2001 3:18 AM
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] problems transfering databases

Hello Tom,
thanks for the answer. This is the procedure, how we tried to transfer the data from one machine to another.
My collegue has used the pg_dumpall command, in the following way:

pg_dumpall > backups/2001-06-04db.out

Since it is a simple test database, the 2001-06-04db.out file was around 40kB, so he has sent it to me via email.
I tried to load the data from the file in two different ways:

psql -f 2001-08-21db.out
cat 2001-06-04db.out | psql

but got the error like stated before. I've tried to do this on Solaris and Linux (I've set postgreSQL up on my Linux box for testing purposes), but the same error pops up.

Could it have something to do with the versions of the databases, and how it was installed? The version I use is
psql (PostgreSQL) 7.1.2 (the output of psql -V command), but I'm not sure what version did my collegue use (I'll find that out, but I think it is 7.x.x).

Regards,
Miroslav

Tom Lane wrote:

Miroslav Koncar <miroslav(dot)koncar(at)etk(dot)ericsson(dot)se> writes:
> 'sql:2001-08-21db.out:5: ERROR: copy: line 1, Bad abstime external
> representation '\N
> psql:2001-08-21db.out:5: PQendcopy: resetting connection
Given the weird line-wrapping of the message, I'm going to bet that the
problem is that newlines in the dump file have gotten converted to DOS
format (ie, \n became \r\n), and COPY is unhappy because it sees the \r
as part of the data. When it echoes the data it didn't like, the
presence of the \r messes up the format of the error message.

Not sure *how* that happened in a Linux-to-Solaris transfer, though;
what tool did you use to transfer the dump file?

regards, tom lane

--
Miroslav Koncar
Software Engineer
Ericsson Nikola Tesla
ETK/D/R
Tel: +385 1 365 3479
Fax: +385 1 365 3548
mailto:miroslav(dot)koncar(at)etk(dot)ericsson(dot)se