Re: Make COPY format extendable: Extract COPY TO format implementations

On Saturday, May 3, 2025, Masahiko Sawada <sawada(dot)mshk(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:

> I think that we need to ensure that if users specify text/csv/binary
> the built-in formats are always used, to keep backward compatibility.

That was my original thinking, but it’s inconsistent with how functions
behave today. We don’t promise that installing extensions won’t cause
existing code to change.

>
>
> > I’m all for registration to enable additional options and features - but
> am against moving away from turning format into a namespaced identifier.
> This is a query-facing feature where namespaces are common and
> fundamentally required.
>
> That's a fair concern. But isn't the format name ultimately just an
> option value, but not like a database object?

We get to decide that. And deciding in favor of “extensible database
object in a namespace’ makes more sense - leveraging all that pre-existing
design to play more nicely with extensions and give DBAs control. The SQL
command to add one is “create function” instead of “create copy format”.

David J.