Re: Emitting JSON to file using COPY TO

jian he <jian.universality@gmail.com>

From: jian he <jian.universality@gmail.com>
To: Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net>
Cc: Joe Conway <mail@joeconway.com>, Junwang Zhao <zhjwpku@gmail.com>, Florents Tselai <florents.tselai@gmail.com>, "Andrey M. Borodin" <x4mmm@yandex-team.ru>, Dean Rasheed <dean.a.rasheed@gmail.com>, Daniel Verite <daniel@manitou-mail.org>, Davin Shearer <davin@apache.org>, PostgreSQL-development <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>
Date: 2026-03-08T16:16:08Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers, pgsql-general

Attachments

hi.

V27-0002 is still not bullet-proof.

drop table if exists t1;
create table t1(a int);
insert into t1 values (1);
copy (select * from t1) to stdout json;
{"a":1}
WARNING:  resource was not closed: TupleDesc 0x7171d0ca3440 (18239,-1)

Also see ExecAssignScanProjectionInfo->ExecConditionalAssignProjectionInfo
So in v28-0002, I changed to
+    /*
+     * composite_to_json() requires a stable TupleDesc. Since the slot's
+     * descriptor (slot->tts_tupleDescriptor) can change during the execution
+     * of a SELECT query, we use cstate->queryDesc->tupDesc instead. This
+     * precaution is only necessary when the output slot's TupleDesc is of
+     * type RECORDOID.
+     */
+    if (!cstate->rel && slot->tts_tupleDescriptor->tdtypeid == RECORDOID)
+        slot->tts_tupleDescriptor = cstate->queryDesc->tupDesc;


+ cstate->json_projvalues = (Datum *) palloc(natts * sizeof(Datum));
+ cstate->json_projnulls = (bool *) palloc(natts * sizeof(bool));
I changed it to
+            cstate->json_projvalues = palloc_array(Datum, natts);
+            cstate->json_projnulls = palloc_array(bool, natts);

+ rowdata = HeapTupleHeaderGetDatum(tup->t_data);
I changed it to
+        rowdata = HeapTupleGetDatum(tup);

Patch v28-0004 adds the json_projvalues and json_projnulls pointers to struct
CopyToStateData. I wondered if adding these would slow the COPY TO with TEXT and
CSV format, so I ran a quick test using a 36-column table.

Surprisingly, v28 actually make COPY TO with TEXT and CSV performs a little bit
faster. But I didn't find out why.
You may also try the attached test script: copyto_json_perfomance_test.nocfbot.



--
jian
https://www.enterprisedb.com/

Commits

  1. Add option force_array for COPY JSON FORMAT

  2. json format for COPY TO

  3. introduce CopyFormat, refactor CopyFormatOptions

  4. Doc: add IDs to copy.sgml's <varlistentry> and <refsect1>

  5. Refactor COPY TO to use format callback functions.