The following bug has been logged on the website:
Bug reference: 10052
Logged by: PFudd
Email address: postgresql.org@ch.pkts.ca
PostgreSQL version: 9.2.8
Operating system: CentOS 6.5
Description:
In psql, this command works:
# copy (select * from history) to STDOUT;
It prints 957 lines to stdout.
However, if I do:
# copy (select * from history) to '/tmp/foo.txt';
it prints
COPY 957
but doesn't create the file /tmp/foo.txt.
If the filename is changed to 'foo.txt' it says:
ERROR: relative path not allowed for COPY to file
so we know that it's at least looking at the filename critically.
If the filename is changed to /tmp/foo.txt without the single quotes, it
says:
ERROR: syntax error at or near "/"
as expected.
It doesn't matter if I'm doing this as a regular user or as the root user.
Using strace, it can be seen there was no attempt to stat or open that
filename for writing:
# env PGPASSWORD=password strace -fo/tmp/strace.log psql -h 1.2.3.4 -U
username -c "copy (select * from history where num=5) to '/tmp/foo.txt'"
analyzer_local
# cat /tmp/foo.txt
cat: /tmp/foo.txt: No such file or directory
# grep -c foo.txt /tmp/strace.log
0
This was tried with psql 9.2.8 and psql 9.1.13, connecting to a server
running 9.2.4.