Re: Updated COPY CSV patch

Bruce Momjian said:
> Second, I found a problem with NULLs.  If I do:
> .
>        test=> create table test (x text, y text);
>        CREATE TABLE
>        test=> insert into test values ('', NULL);
>        INSERT 17221 1
>        test=>
>
> then this:
>
>        test=> copy test to '/tmp/b' with csv;
>
> creates:
>
>        "",
>
> and this:
>
>        test=> copy test to '/tmp/b' with csv NULL 'fred';
>
> creates:
>
>        ,fred
>
> Is that logical?  A non-null field went from "" to nothing.
>

One more point about this - we can't force quoting of every non-null
value, which would remove the "inconsistency" you see here, because
spreadsheets especially infer information from whether or not a CSV value
is quoted. In particular, they will not usually treat a quoted numeric
value as numeric, which would be a very undesirable effect.

cheers

andrew