Colin Rothnie <colinr@tiwest.com.au> writes:
> I am copying data from a tab delimited text file using the psql command
> test=> \copy collar from collar.txt;
> where the table "collar" contains a date field (not set to "NOT NULL") and
> the text file contains date fields for some records and nothing between two
> tabs for records without date data.
The approved way to represent nulls in copy data is "\N", not just an
empty string. This is the same for all data types.
> The same table structure and load file
> were used successfully with 6.5.3
Really? I tried it and got
play=> \copy collar from collar.txt
ERROR: Bad date external representation ''
PQendcopy: resetting connection
Copy failed.
which is what I'd expect.
> Looking at it again now, I am also uncertain whether "date" is an allowable
> field name (PostrgreSQL didn't object).
We allow it, but the SQL92 spec lists DATE as a <reserved word>, so it's
possible that some other DBMSes would complain.
regards, tom lane
