On 01/08/2015 03:05 PM, Aaron Botsis wrote:
>
>
>> It's also unnecessary. CSV format, while not designed for this, is
>> nevertheless sufficiently flexible to allow successful import of json
>> data meeting certain criteria (essentially no newlines), like this:
>>
>> copy the_table(jsonfield)
>> from '/path/to/jsondata'
>> csv quote e'\x01' delimiter e'\x02’;
>
> While perhaps unnecessary, given the size and simplicity of the patch,
> IMO it’s a no brainer to merge (it actually makes the code smaller by
> 3 lines). It also enables non-json use cases anytime one might want to
> preserve embedded escapes, or use different ones entirely. Do you see
> other reasons not to commit it?
Well, for one thing it's seriously incomplete. You need to be able to
change the delimiter as well. Otherwise, any embedded tab in the json
will cause you major grief.
Currently the delimiter and the escape MUST be a single byte non-nul
character, and there is a check for this in csv mode. Your patch would
allow any arbitrary string (including one of zero length) for the escape
in text mode, and would then silently ignore all but the first byte.
That's not the way we like to do things.
And, frankly, I would need to spend quite a lot more time thinking about
other implications than I have given it so far. This is an area where I
tend to be VERY cautious about making changes. This is a fairly fragile
ecosystem.
cheers
andrew
