The attached patch adds some clarification to the documentation of the
binary format read/created by COPY BINARY. It also mentions the
contrib/binarycopy module.
Regards, Lee Kindness.
Index: doc/src/sgml/ref/copy.sgml
===================================================================
RCS file: /projects/cvsroot/pgsql-server/doc/src/sgml/ref/copy.sgml,v
retrieving revision 1.46
diff -c -r1.46 copy.sgml
*** doc/src/sgml/ref/copy.sgml 9 May 2003 21:19:48 -0000 1.46
--- doc/src/sgml/ref/copy.sgml 5 Aug 2003 13:09:19 -0000
***************
*** 380,386 ****
The file format used for <command>COPY BINARY</command> changed in
<application>PostgreSQL</application> 7.4. The new format consists
of a file header, zero or more tuples containing the row data, and
! a file trailer.
</para>
<refsect3>
--- 380,386 ----
The file format used for <command>COPY BINARY</command> changed in
<application>PostgreSQL</application> 7.4. The new format consists
of a file header, zero or more tuples containing the row data, and
! a file trailer. Headers and data are now in network byte order.
</para>
<refsect3>
***************
*** 481,486 ****
--- 481,495 ----
assumed to be in binary format (format code one). It is anticipated that a
future extension may add a header field that allows per-column format codes
to be specified.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ To determine the appropriate binary format for the actual tuple data you
+ should consult the <application>PostgreSQL</application> source, in
+ particular the <function>*send</> and <function>*recv</> functions for
+ the data type (typically found in the <filename>src/backend/utils/adt</filename>
+ directory). The <application>contrib/binarycopy</application> module
+ can also be used to create an appropriate format file.
</para>
<para>
