Thread: Copying data from a tab delimited file into a table
I'm trying to copy the data from a tab delimited file into a postgres table. The table has a primary key that's designatedas a serial data type. When I try to do the copy, it "blows up" unless I put a integer number in the field wherethe primary key will be. That defeats the purpose of designating this field as serial. When I put data into that fieldthe copy works but an insert statement fails because it says there is a duplicate key. How can I get the data from thisfile into my table and still have the key field designated with a "serial data type"? Thanks, Carol
On 11 February 2014 17:13, Carol Walter <carol.walter@sbcglobal.net> wrote: > I'm trying to copy the data from a tab delimited file into a postgres table. The table has a primary key that's designatedas a serial data type. When I try to do the copy, it "blows up" unless I put a integer number in the field wherethe primary key will be. That defeats the purpose of designating this field as serial. When I put data into that fieldthe copy works but an insert statement fails because it says there is a duplicate key. How can I get the data from thisfile into my table and still have the key field designated with a "serial data type"? > > Thanks, > Carol > Sorry, should have sent the below to the whole list: Hi Carol, Why not import the data first, and then add the serial column afterwards? That's what I'd do. James
FYI, I was able to do this with the COPY command which takes a field list as arguments. I don't know if the "\copy" commanddoes or not, but I was able to use COPY and it worked. On Feb 11, 2014, at 12:13 PM, Carol Walter wrote: > I'm trying to copy the data from a tab delimited file into a postgres table. The table has a primary key that's designatedas a serial data type. When I try to do the copy, it "blows up" unless I put a integer number in the field wherethe primary key will be. That defeats the purpose of designating this field as serial. When I put data into that fieldthe copy works but an insert statement fails because it says there is a duplicate key. How can I get the data from thisfile into my table and still have the key field designated with a "serial data type"? > > Thanks, > Carol > > -- > Sent via pgsql-novice mailing list (pgsql-novice@postgresql.org) > To make changes to your subscription: > http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-novice
On Tue, Feb 11, 2014 at 8:21 PM, Carol Walter <carol.walter@sbcglobal.net> wrote: > FYI, I was able to do this with the COPY command which takes a field list as arguments. I don't know if the "\copy" commanddoes or not, but I was able to use COPY and it worked. Yes it does (see http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/app-psql.html). Luca