BUG #6527: Error in COPY documentation syntax

On Mon, 2012-03-12 at 19:34 +0000, samuel.gilbert@ec.gc.ca wrote:

The following bug has been logged on the website:

Bug reference: 6527
Logged by: Samuel Gilbert
Email address: samuel.gilbert@ec.gc.ca
PostgreSQL version: 9.0.4
Operating system: Linux
Description:

There is an error in the syntax of the COPY statement in the documentation
for versions 9.0.x and 9.1.x. I tested on 9.0.4 and 9.1.3.

According to the documentation, given the table exists and is compatible
with the CSV file, the following statement should work :

COPY improve_station FROM '/local/improve.csv' FORMAT CSV HEADER TRUE;

No, it shouldn't work. You forgot parentheses, and commas. This should
work:

COPY improve_station FROM '/local/improve.csv' (FORMAT CSV, HEADER
TRUE);

However, it doesn't work. Instead I get the following error :

ERROR: syntax error at or near "FORMAT"
LINE 1: ...ns FROM '/local/improve.csv' FORMAT CSV...
^

After trying a few trials and errors, I managed to find that ommiting FORMAT
gave me another error instead :

COPY improve_stations FROM '/local/improve.csv' CSV HEADER TRUE;
ERROR: syntax error at or near "TRUE"
LINE 1: ...M '/local/improve.csv' CSV HEADER TRUE;
^

Removing the boolean value (TRUE) actually works. This means that there are
at least two errors in the syntax specification in the documentation.
Instead of "FORMAT format_name", it should be "[ TEXT | CSV | BINARY ]" and
"HEADER [ boolean ]" should be "[ HEADER ]".

No error, and no bug. The documentation says (even if it's hard to see)
that you need parentheses and commas. The examples show it too.

--
Guillaume
http://blog.guillaume.lelarge.info
http://www.dalibo.com