Re: CSV mode option for pg_dump

Bruce Momjian wrote:
> Good point.  The number of CSV options would be hard to support for
> pg_dump.  Any thoughts from anyone on how to do that cleanly?  Could we
> just support the default behavior?

Although I don't see a real need for the feature, I do think that if we 
were to support "1" (well two if you include the already tab delimited) 
csv output it would be a large amount of bloat.

Perhaps we could pick "1" output, say comma delimted with quoted fields?

"foo","bar    ","baz"

Joshua D. Drake

> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Tom Lane wrote:
>> "Andrew Dunstan" <andrew@dunslane.net> writes:
>>> I wish I could understand why people are so keen to make other people turn
>>> handsprings in order to avoid a feature which, as Bruce points out, is
>>> already on the TODO list, and which, by my 10 minute analysis, would involve
>>> almost trivial code impact and risk. If this involved major impact I might
>>> understand, but it really doesn't.
>> Supporting all of the CSV options in pg_dump would involve major bloat
>> in its option set, and it already has far too many options.  If it were
>> just a matter of adding a "--csv" switch I wouldn't be complaining, but
>> there are half a dozen more sub-options, and it seems like every time we
>> turn around someone is finding a reason for another one.  Propagating
>> all that cruft through pg_dump would be a PITA, and updating it to track
>> future additions would be too.
>>
>> Furthermore, the entire rationale for the feature is predicated on the
>> claim that programs other than pg_restore might find it useful.  But
>> this conveniently ignores the fact that if there are any such programs
>> in existence, what this will really do is BREAK them, because they won't
>> be able to cope with all the variants that pass for CSV.
>>
>> My opinions would be less negative if I thought that CSV were a
>> well-defined format that would never change.  I don't believe that it
>> has either property, however, and so I'm against letting it get into our
>> dump file format.  I think we'll just live to regret it if we do.
>>
>>             regards, tom lane
>>
>> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
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> 


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