Re: Emitting JSON to file using COPY TO

Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net>

From: Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net>
To: Joe Conway <mail@joeconway.com>, Davin Shearer <davin@apache.org>, PostgreSQL-development <pgsql-hackers@postgreSQL.org>
Date: 2023-12-03T19:47:42Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers

Commits

Same data as JSON: GET /api/v1/messages/:b64id/commits the thread's linked commits as JSON, with link sources. API reference →
  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>

On 2023-12-03 Su 12:11, Joe Conway wrote:
> On 12/3/23 11:03, Joe Conway wrote:
>>   From your earlier post, regarding constructing the aggregate -- not
>> extensive testing but one data point:
>> 8<--------------------------
>> test=# copy foo to '/tmp/buf' (format json, force_array);
>> COPY 10000000
>> Time: 36353.153 ms (00:36.353)
>> test=# copy (select json_agg(foo) from foo) to '/tmp/buf';
>> COPY 1
>> Time: 46835.238 ms (00:46.835)
>> 8<--------------------------
>
> Also if the table is large enough, the aggregate method is not even 
> feasible whereas the COPY TO method works:
> 8<--------------------------
> test=# select count(*) from foo;
>   count
> ----------
>  20000000
> (1 row)
>
> test=# copy (select json_agg(foo) from foo) to '/tmp/buf';
> ERROR:  out of memory
> DETAIL:  Cannot enlarge string buffer containing 1073741822 bytes by 1 
> more bytes.
>
> test=# copy foo to '/tmp/buf' (format json, force_array);
> COPY 20000000
> 8<--------------------------


None of this is surprising. As I mentioned, limitations with json_agg() 
are why I support the idea of this patch.


cheers


andrew


--
Andrew Dunstan
EDB: https://www.enterprisedb.com