Re: Proposal: new pg_dump options --copy-delimiter and --copy-null

On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 10:17:05PM -0500, Tom Lane wrote:
> David Fetter <david@fetter.org> writes:
> > I have seed database scripts quasi-generated from pg_dump which
> > include COPY statements, but the data is hard to edit (especially
> > cut & paste operations) when the COPY delimiter is some
> > non-visible character like \t.
>
> This seems like an awfully weak use-case for adding to pg_dump's
> already overly complicated feature set.

Those who don't use it will never see it.

> The difficulty of parsing COPY output is not simplified by making
> the delimiter variable --- more likely the reverse.

It's fairly straight-forward.

> Furthermore, it's quite unclear why you'd use pg_dump at all to
> generate a data file that you intend to feed to some other program.

In my case, it's about being copy/paste friendly.

> Seems to me that "psql -c 'COPY ...'" is a more likely front-end for
> such a process.

Actually, it's not.  I'm attaching my preliminary patch, as I see I
haven't explained it well enough.

Cheers,
D
--
David Fetter david@fetter.org http://fetter.org/
phone: +1 415 235 3778

Remember to vote!