Exporting postgres query to CSV

On Tue, 09 May 2006 10:58:07 -0400
Ryan Suarez <ryan.suarez@sheridanc.on.ca> wrote:

Greetings,

I am running postgres 7.4.7 on debian sarge.

I need to run an SQL query and store the results in a file. The
format needs to be comma separated values (CSV), so I can import this
later in Excel.

Any ideas on how to accomplish this?

much appreciated,
Ryan

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Ryan,

Two tips.

First:
psql -U <PGSQL USER> -o <OUPUT FILE NAME> --pset format=unaligned
--pset fieldsep=',' -c '<SQL COMMAND HERE>' -d <DATABASE NAME HERE>

I think that will give you the output you were after assuming you're
scripting psql and that you replace the values in <> with appropriate
values. The syntax is slightly different from the psql command line.

Second:
man psql is your friend.

John Purser

A word of advice: if there is any chance that a column (e.g. text) contains
an embedded newline, you will be much better off outputting the data in
simple xml, instead of CSV. This works very well with Excel for import. I
just did a simple program for this recently.

Susan

Ryan Suarez
<ryan.suarez@sheridanc. To: pgsql-general@postgresql.org
on.ca> cc:
Sent by: Subject: [GENERAL] Exporting postgres query to CSV

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05/09/2006 07:58
AM

Greetings,

I am running postgres 7.4.7 on debian sarge.

I need to run an SQL query and store the results in a file. The format
needs to be comma separated values (CSV), so I can import this later in
Excel.

Any ideas on how to accomplish this?

much appreciated,
Ryan

---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend

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SCassidy@overlandstorage.com wrote:

A word of advice: if there is any chance that a column (e.g. text) contains
an embedded newline, you will be much better off outputting the data in
simple xml, instead of CSV. This works very well with Excel for import. I
just did a simple program for this recently.

If the csv generator correctly quotes values containing quotes, commas
and newlines, Excel is going to be happy with the csv file as well

/Nis

On Tue, May 09, 2006 at 08:57:57AM -0700, John Purser wrote:

I am running postgres 7.4.7 on debian sarge.

First:
psql -U <PGSQL USER> -o <OUPUT FILE NAME> --pset format=unaligned
--pset fieldsep=',' -c '<SQL COMMAND HERE>' -d <DATABASE NAME HERE>

I think that will give you the output you were after assuming you're
scripting psql and that you replace the values in <> with appropriate
values. The syntax is slightly different from the psql command line.

Second:
man psql is your friend.

Third:
7.4.7 is ancient and suffers from a number of data loss bugs. If you
need to stick with 7.4 you should at least be running the most current
version.
--
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jnasby@pervasive.com
Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461