Re: Switching from OSX to Linux, multi-line queries in \copy don't work anymore

On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 12:06 PM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
> Ryan Kelly <rpkelly22(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
>> I recently switched from OSX to Linux and \copy in psql no longer
>> accepts multi-line queries. For instance:
>
>> \copy (
>> select
>> *
>> from
>> pg_settings
>> ) to '/tmp/settings.csv' with csv header
>
>> This works fine on OSX. On Linux I get:
>> \copy: parse error at end of line
>
> FWIW, I get that error on either OS X or Linux, and I'm a bit astonished
> by your report that there are any versions of psql that allow it.
> psql doesn't do multi-line backslash commands, in any context. Are you
> sure you weren't doing a plain SQL "copy" command, without a backslash?

it can be coerced:

postgres=# \copy (
select 0
) to stdout
0

now -- to do that, I had to use the \e command to do it in vi, then
recall the command with readline :-). \copy can work arbitrarily work
or fail in all kinds of ways.

merlin