Re: pipe text to copy statement stdin input

On 06/21/11 12:43 PM, Scott Frankel wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> Is there a way to pipe text into a COPY statement's stdin input using
> cmd-line psql?
>
> I'm using the following syntax to enter large strings of text into a
> table. The text itself has a json-like syntax that has the potential
> for carrying numerous special characters.
>
> COPY mytable(name, description, text) FROM stdin;
> <the text>
> \.
>
> Problem is that my terminal's copy-paste buffer is much smaller than
> the text I need to insert.
>
> Note:
> - I do not have superuser perms for the db, so passing a file instead
> of stdin is not an option.
>
> - Ditto for using \i to import a file.
>
> - The db is password protected, so invoking `psql` as a
> non-interactive command may not be possible. Right?
>
> - If I'm wrong, anyone have example syntax of how to create a valid
> COPY statement? I've found an interesting OSX cmd-line util that
> copies/pastes between Terminal and the "pasteboard." Though I think
> this just gets bitten by the file restriction anyway, eg:
>
> % cat bigfile.txt > pbcopy
> % psql DBNAME USERNAME (PASSWORD???) <<EOF
> COPY mytable(name, description, text) FROM stdin;
> pbpaste > stdin(???)
> \.
>

You can get around the password issue via .pgpass, put this file in your
home directory with permissions 600, and lines like...

hostname:port:database:username:password

You may replace any fields with *, so like...

localhost:*:*:youruser:yourpassword

To copy data from a file, use the \copy command in psql, create a .SQL
file like...

\copy yourtable(name,description,text) from stdin
val,val,val
val,val,val
...
\.

then execute this file like

$ psql -f yourfile.sql -d dbname

There is no file size restriction here, as it reads that file as its
going and streams it to the sql COPY command...

(note indents are purely to show verbatim stuff from my mail text, there
are no idents in these files)

--
john r pierce N 37, W 122
santa cruz ca mid-left coast