bulk copy

Hello all,

I'm pulling in a csv file nightly and need to pump in into my db.  My plan is to pump it into a temp table and then to an update or insert from the temp table to the real table.  I'm having an issue, however, with the copy.

Here is a my syntax.

COPY cars FROM 'cars04.txt'
            USING DELIMITERS ',' WITH NULL AS '\null';


I'm getting there error:  must be superuser to COPY to or from a file
HINT:  Anyone can COPY to stdout or from stdin. psql's \copy command also works for anyone. [4]

Ok, fair enough, in theory, I don't want to simply trust the file to have clean data so will want to put the data into a huge array (php) which I can clean and then pump into the db.  What is the best way to pump all this data in without doing inserts?  How can I use stdin?

Thanks!