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From: rogerk@mips.COM (Roger B.A. Klorese)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: INGRES tools
Message-ID: <34362@mips.mips.COM>
Date: 11 Jan 90 04:41:24 GMT
References: <10477@thor.acc.stolaf.edu> <10480@thor.acc.stolaf.edu>
Sender: news@mips.COM
Reply-To: rogerk@mips.COM (Roger B.A. Klorese)
Distribution: comp.databases
Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 22

In article <10480@thor.acc.stolaf.edu> snissen@carleton.edu () writes:
>The COPY command can import data from text files, but there are two
>problems: 1) the user has to specify every column and its format, when
>the table may already be defined ion the systems catalogs...

That's because you're specifying the format in which they appear in the
input stream.  For example, if I define a field as a two-byte integer in
the CREATE TABLE command and as a five-byte character string in my COPY
command, the conversion is performed, but if I call it two-byte integer in
the input stream, it is expected to be binary data.  The format of the
field in the table has no bearing (barring illegal conversions) on the
format in the input file.

>...and 2) COPY's
>handling of embedded delimiters (by escaping them) won't handle CSV. 

True... does your exporter allow tab-separation?
-- 
ROGER B.A. KLORESE      MIPS Computer Systems, Inc.      phone: +1 408 720-2939
928 E. Arques Ave.  Sunnyvale, CA  94086                        rogerk@mips.COM
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