Re: Using \copy to populate a table

On 3/15/26 12:11 AM, rob stone wrote:
> psql (18.3 (Debian 18.3-1+b1))
> Type "help" for help.
>
> Debian OS is forky.
>
> When setting up a new development database, the following occurred:-
>

> How do we fix this? Alter all the nulls to zeroes in the file or write
> a program to dissect the file and create individual insert statements?

CSV is a text format and in:

C|0|pageloader|||null|null|null|null|t|f|f|0

the null values are the string 'null' which indeed is not a valid syntax
for a smallint.

>
> Has anybody else had this problem and if so what was the solution?

Do you have control over whatever creates the file?

An option is to create a staging table that is has all string fields,
import into it and then do clean up before moving to final table.

>
> Thanks,
> Rob
>
>

--
Adrian Klaver
adrian(dot)klaver(at)aklaver(dot)com