Hi hackers,
I'd like to propose a new feature for the COPY FROM command to allow
skipping multiple header lines when loading data. This enhancement
would enable files with multi-line headers to be loaded without any
preprocessing, which would significantly improve usability.
In real-world scenarios, it's common for data files to contain
multiple header lines, such as file descriptions or column
explanations. Currently, the COPY command cannot load these files
directly, which requires users to preprocess them with tools like sed
or tail.
Although you can use "COPY t FROM PROGRAM 'tail -n +3 /path/to/file'",
some environments do not have the tail command available.
Additionally, this approach requires superuser privileges or
membership in the pg_execute_server_program role.
This feature also has precedent in other major RDBMS:
- MySQL: LOAD DATA ... IGNORE N LINES [1]
- SQL Server: BULK INSERT … WITH (FIRST ROW=N) [2]
- Oracle SQL*Loader: sqlldr … SKIP=N [3]
I have not yet created a patch, but I am willing to implement an
extension for the HEADER option. I would like to discuss the
specification first.
The specification I have in mind is as follows:
- Command: COPY FROM
- Formats: text and csv
- Option syntax: HEADER [ boolean | integer | MATCH] (Extend the
HEADER option to accept an integer value in addition to the existing
boolean and MATCH keywords.)
- Behavior: Let N be the specified integer.
- If N < 0, raise an error.
- If N = 0 or 1, same behavior when boolean is specified.
- If N > 1, skip the first N rows.
Thoughts?
[1] https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.4/en/load-data.html#load-data-field-line-handling
[2]
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/t-sql/statements/bulk-insert-transact-sql?view=sql-server-ver17#firstrow--first_row
[3]
https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/23/sutil/oracle-sql-loader-commands.html#SUTIL-GUID-84244C46-6AFD-412D-9240-BEB0B5C2718B
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Best regards,
Shinya Kato
NTT OSS Center
