all,
> TS> the COPY command is the sorriest excuse for a data load tool i have
> TS> ever had the displeasure of working with.
sorry to be so sarcastic, i'm having a bad day. the main point is along the lines, of what tom has stated below.
> COPY was never intended as a data format conversion tool. It started out
> as a quick & dirty tool for saving and restoring database contents.
> It's accreted a few frammishes over the years, notably the user-settable
> delimiter option, but basically it's still designed to read files that it
> wrote itself.
> I agree with Tony that a separate tool for format conversions would be
> mighty handy. I don't think that trying to load down COPY with more
> features is an appropriate approach --- let it do what it does well,
> namely database backup and restore. But we do need something that can
> handle the layout and data-conversion tasks needed to import data from
> other DBMSes.
>
> regards, tom lane
>
my hope is that using ODBC will be a good first crack at this. also, i'm interested in loading other kinds of "free
format"text
files that are too complex for the COPY command to handle. my hope is that this tool can be the basis for something
comprehensive
in this department, possible even of use to other database users.
now only one problem: if i write this little tool and pop it into contrib, everyone will know how badly i code ...
tonys.