Re: Re: COPY BINARY file format proposal

Philip Warner <pjw@rhyme.com.au> writes:
> I'd prefer to see a single magic number for all binary COPY output, then a
> few bytes of header including a version number, and flags to indicate
> endianness, OIDs etc. It seems a lot cleaner than overloading the magic
> number.

OK, we can do it that way.  I'm still going to pick a magic number that
looks different depending on endianness, however ;-).

What might we need in the header besides a version indicator and a
has-OIDs flag?

> Also, IIRC part of the problem with text-based COPY is that we can't
> specify field order (I think this affectes dumping the regression DB).
> Would it be possible to add the ability to (a) specify field order, and (b)
> dump a subset of fields?

This is not an issue for the file format, but for the COPY command itself.
And considering we're in beta now (or as soon as Marc gets the tarball
made, anyway) I'm going to call that a new feature and say it should
wait for 7.2.
        regards, tom lane