Re: csv format for psql

Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>

From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: "David G. Johnston" <david.g.johnston@gmail.com>
Cc: Fabien COELHO <coelho@cri.ensmp.fr>, Michael Paquier <michael@paquier.xyz>, Daniel Verite <daniel@manitou-mail.org>, Pg Hackers <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>
Date: 2018-11-26T16:14:05Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
"David G. Johnston" <david.g.johnston@gmail.com> writes:
> On Sun, Nov 25, 2018 at 6:27 PM Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
>> 1. Are we limiting the separator to be a single-byte character or not?

> I agree with what others have said that expanding functionality in
> this direction is more likely to mask errors than be useful.

OK, reasonable arguments were made why not to allow multi-character
separators.  Should we then match the server and insist on a single-byte
separator?  It's a bit inconsistent if psql can be made to emit "csv"
files that COPY can't read, especially when it's otherwise a subset
of what COPY allows.

>> 2. Speaking of the field separator, I'm pretty desperately unhappy
>> with the choice of "fieldsep_csv" as the parameter name.[...]
>> We could avoid this self-inflicted confusion by choosing a different
>> parameter name.  I'd be good with "csv_fieldsep" or "csvfieldsep".

> Make sense to me - with the underscore personally.

Barring complaints, I'll switch it to "csv_fieldsep".

			regards, tom lane


Commits

  1. Add CSV table output mode in psql.

  2. Reorganize format options of psql in alphabetical order

  3. Complete TODO item: