On Tue, Jan 16, 2024 at 11:07 AM Laurenz Albe <laurenz.albe@cybertec.at> wrote:
> "Round-trip safety" is not so important. If you want to move data from
> PostgreSQL to PostgreSQL, you use the plain or the binary format.
> The CSV format by default renders NULL and empty strings identical, and
> I don't think anybody objects to that.
As Andrew says, the part about the CSV format is not correct, but I
also don't think I agree with the larger point, either. I believe that
round-trip safety is a really desirable property. Is it absolutely
necessary in every case? Maybe not. But, it shouldn't be lacking
without a good reason, either, at least IMHO. If you postulate that
people are moving data from A to B, it is reasonable to think that
eventually someone is going to want to move some data from B back to
A. If that turns out to be hard, they'll be sad. We shouldn't make
people sad without a good reason.
--
Robert Haas
EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com