Re: Proposal: new pg_dump options --copy-delimiter and --copy-null

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>
Subject: Re: Proposal: new pg_dump options --copy-delimiter and --copy-null
Date: 2006-01-27 03:17:05
Message-ID: 26997.1138331825@sss.pgh.pa.us
Views: Raw Message | Whole Thread | Download mbox | Resend email
Thread:
Lists: pgsql-hackers

David Fetter <david(at)fetter(dot)org> writes:
> I have seed database scripts quasi-generated from pg_dump which
> include COPY statements, but the data is hard to edit (especially cut
> & paste operations) when the COPY delimiter is some non-visible
> character like \t.

This seems like an awfully weak use-case for adding to pg_dump's already
overly complicated feature set. The difficulty of parsing COPY output
is not simplified by making the delimiter variable --- more likely the
reverse. Furthermore, it's quite unclear why you'd use pg_dump at all
to generate a data file that you intend to feed to some other program.
Seems to me that "psql -c 'COPY ...'" is a more likely front-end for
such a process.

regards, tom lane

In response to

Responses

Browse pgsql-hackers by date

  From Date Subject
Next Message David Fetter 2006-01-27 03:41:45 Re: Proposal: new pg_dump options --copy-delimiter and --copy-null
Previous Message David Fetter 2006-01-27 01:03:25 Proposal: new pg_dump options --copy-delimiter and --copy-null