Hi hackers,
After further consideration, I'm withdrawing the patch.
Some fundamental questions remain unresolved:
- Should round-trip fidelity be a strict goal? By "round-trip fidelity",
I mean that data exported and then re-imported should yield exactly
the original values, including the distinction between NULL and empty strings.
- If round-trip fidelity is a requirement, how do we distinguish NULL from empty
strings without delimiters or escapes?
- Is automatic newline detection (as in "csv" and "text") more valuable than
the ability to embed \r (CR) characters?
- Would it be better to extend the existing COPY options rather than introducing
a new format?
- Or should we consider a JSONL format instead, one that avoids the NULL/empty
string problem entirely?
No clear solution or consensus has emerged. For now, I'll step back from the
proposal. If someone wants to revisit this later, I'd be happy to contribute.
Thanks again for all the feedback and consideration.
/Joel
