Re: How to initialize from flat files?

tom lane writes:
> <kynn@panix.com> writes:
> > What's the simplest way (through psql?) to initialize PostgreSQL
> > tables from data stored in flat files?  (In this case the data is
> > stored in several files consisting of newline-delimited records of
> > tab-delimited fields.)

> The COPY command should do what you want.  If the data contains any
> tabs, newlines, or backslashes, you'll need to do a bit of preprocessing
> to quote those characters; else you're good to go.

> BTW, there is a difference between the SQL-level COPY command and psql's
> \copy command.  With COPY the data file is read directly by the backend,
> with \copy the file is read by psql and sent to the backend.  The COPY
> method is faster when it works, but it doesn't work across machines or
> when the data file is protected against access by the postgres user.

Thanks!

kj