Re: how to preserve \n in select statement

I have been entering the data by having a command file that inserts the rows
one by one. (yes I know a copy command would probably be faster for
importing bulk data, but I prefer to insert each line individually)

IE: psql -U myusername mydatabase -f '/path/to/commandfile'

Inside the commandfile I have lines like:
INSERT INTO tablename (col1, col2, col3) VALUES ($val1, $val2, $val3);

How do I escape the data from a select statement? Something like: SELECT \*
FROM tablename; ?

----Original Message Follows----
From: Guy Fraser <guy(at)incentre(dot)net>
To: Matt Van Mater <nutter_(at)hotmail(dot)com>
Subject: Re: [SQL] how to preserve \n in select statement
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 08:43:59 -0700

What are you using to enter and retrieve the data?

Either escape the data before you put it in the database or when you retieve
it, whichever gives you the results you are looking for.

Matt Van Mater wrote:

>I have a table that has a few text value types, and I enter a bunch of text
>with '\n' representing a newline. When I select the records from that
>table, postgresql 7.3 represents those \n as newlines and actually outputs
>the a newline rather than as a \n as entered. I want to be able to get my
>\n text out of the select statement in the exact same manner it was
>inserted.
>
>I found a workaround where I can use the copy to command to copy a table to
>a text file, and the command preserves the \n characters. The problem with
>that is the copy to command overwrites the output file every time it is
>written to. That stinks because then I can't run multiple queries and
>direct the output to a file all at once. (I would prefer to set the output
>file as \o '/path/to/oufile.txt' and have all queries dump their results
>there)
>
>Is there a way to make the select statement not interpret newline escape
>characters?
>
>Matt Van Mater

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