BUG #5964: doc bug -- copy does not take "format" literal
The following bug has been logged online:
Bug reference: 5964
Logged by: Chris Curvey
Email address: chris@chriscurvey.com
PostgreSQL version: 9.0.3
Operating system: Linux (ubuntu 10.10 server 64-bit)
Description: doc bug -- copy does not take "format" literal
Details:
in http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/sql-copy.html, the
documentation implies that you specify a format using the literal "format",
followed by one of the literals "text", "csv" or "binary".
Yet the following statement fails with "syntax error near 'format'"
copy zipcode_stage from '/path/to/zip_codes.csv' format csv header delimiter
e'\t';
and the following command (without 'format' succeeds)
copy zipcode_stage from '/Users/chris/pgperf/data/zip_codes.csv' csv header
delimiter e'\t';
"Chris Curvey" <chris@chriscurvey.com> writes:
in http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/sql-copy.html, the
documentation implies that you specify a format using the literal "format",
followed by one of the literals "text", "csv" or "binary".
Quite.
Yet the following statement fails with "syntax error near 'format'"
copy zipcode_stage from '/path/to/zip_codes.csv' format csv header delimiter
e'\t';
That is the old-style syntax, which doesn't allow newer options such as
FORMAT. Use
copy zipcode_stage from '/path/to/zip_codes.csv' (format csv, header, delimiter e'\t');
If you can make any concrete suggestions about how to make the docs
clearer about this, please do.
regards, tom lane