COPY JSON: use trailing commas in FORCE_ARRAY output

From: Chao Li <li(dot)evan(dot)chao(at)gmail(dot)com>
To: PostgreSQL Hackers <pgsql-hackers(at)lists(dot)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: COPY JSON: use trailing commas in FORCE_ARRAY output
Date: 2026-05-06 06:40:24
Message-ID: DFAC4097-2559-4DED-B7D5-EB53B02E9DA3@gmail.com
Views: Whole Thread | Raw Message | Download mbox | Resend email
Thread:
Lists: pgsql-hackers

Hi,

Another issue I found with COPY TO (FORMAT json, FORCE_ARRAY) is that it places the delimiter comma at the beginning of the next line, like this:
```
evantest=# copy test_json_copy to stdout with (format json, force_array);
[
{"id":1,"name":"Alice","is_active":true,"tags":["dev","db"],"created_at":"2026-05-01"}
,{"id":2,"name":"Bob","is_active":false,"tags":["manager"],"created_at":"2026-05-02"}
,{"id":3,"name":"Charlie","is_active":null,"tags":null,"created_at":null}
,{"id":4,"name":"Special Case: \"Quotes\"","is_active":true,"tags":["a","b"],"created_at":"2026-05-04"}
]
```

I was surprised by the comma placement. It is valid JSON, but it looks quite uncommon.

For comparison, the existing json_agg() places commas at the end of the line:
```
evantest=# select json_agg(t) from (select id, name from test_json_copy) t;
json_agg
----------------------------------------------
[{"id":1,"name":"Alice"}, +
{"id":2,"name":"Bob"}, +
{"id":3,"name":"Charlie"}, +
{"id":4,"name":"Special Case: \"Quotes\""}]
(1 row)
```

If this feature had already been released, I would not think it worth changing just for formatting. But since "FORMAT json" is a new PG19 feature and has not been released yet, I think it is better to make the output to follow the more common style.

This patch changes the output to place the comma at the end of the previous line instead. The fix only adjusts how commas and newlines are emitted. It does not buffer the whole result, so it should not have any performance impact.

See the attached patch for details.

Best regards,
--
Chao Li (Evan)
HighGo Software Co., Ltd.
https://www.highgo.com/

Attachment Content-Type Size
v1-0001-COPY-JSON-use-trailing-commas-in-FORCE_ARRAY-outp.patch application/octet-stream 5.2 KB

Responses

Browse pgsql-hackers by date

  From Date Subject
Next Message Chao Li 2026-05-06 06:45:46 Re: [PATCH] Clean up property graph error messages
Previous Message Zhongpu Chen 2026-05-06 06:34:46 Re: Proposal: tighten validation for legacy EUC encodings or document that accepted byte sequences may be unconvertible to UTF8