Lynna,
> Does anyone know of some reason why importing a text file that contains no
> data for one date field would cause psql to tell me:
>
> ERROR: copy: line 1, Bad date external representation ''
> lost synchronization with server, resetting connection
Yes. For the "blank" date, you need to have an \N marker to indicate a NULL.
Or you need to change your copy parameters to indicate that a zero length
string is a NULL; check the COPY docs for details.
--
-Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco