Re: Using COPY

> -----Original Message-----
> From: pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org
> [mailto:pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org]On Behalf Of Tom Lane
> Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2002 11:04 AM
> To: joe@jwebmedia.com
> Cc: pgsql-general@postgresql.org
> Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Using COPY
>
>
> Joseph Koenig <joe@jwebmedia.com> writes:
> > We're converting a db from Access to PostgreSQL for a client - I need to
> > export all of his data into postgres on Linux - I'm trying to use the
> > COPY command, however, his comment fields have line breaks in them which
> > causes the copy to throw a parse error at that line. I'm sure others
> > have run into this - is there an easy way to avoid this? Thanks,
>
> You'll need to transform the linebreaks that should be data into \n
> (backslash-n) or \LF (backslash-newline) sequences.

This would be the best way. It arrives perfectly in PG.

Or, if that's tricky for you to do w/the conversion/output tools you have at
your disposal, turn the linebreaks into some unusual marker ("@@~@@") using
any tool (emacs, perl, even Microsoft Word will do), pull the data in using
COPY, and once in pgsql, you can fix this with a query.

If you're going to use Access as a front-end onto the data, there's a
document with some help for this setup at
http://joelburton.com/resources/pgaccess.

HTH.

- J.

Joel BURTON | joel@joelburton.com | joelburton.com | aim: wjoelburton
Knowledge Management & Technology Consultant