From 726725d4d948d54959a535d9a89df2138d8168d7 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Tom Lane Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2009 20:01:13 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] A bit more wordsmithing on the COPY CSV NULL business. --- doc/src/sgml/ref/copy.sgml | 19 +++++++++---------- 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+), 10 deletions(-) diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/ref/copy.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/ref/copy.sgml index 79ed7c204e..b0e0518838 100644 --- a/doc/src/sgml/ref/copy.sgml +++ b/doc/src/sgml/ref/copy.sgml @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@ @@ -183,8 +183,8 @@ COPY { tablename [ ( The string that represents a null value. The default is - \N (backslash-N) in text mode, and a empty - value with no quotes in CSV mode. You might prefer an + \N (backslash-N) in text mode, and an unquoted empty + string in CSV mode. You might prefer an empty string even in text mode for cases where you don't want to distinguish nulls from empty strings. @@ -249,8 +249,7 @@ COPY { tablename [ ( CSV COPY TO mode, forces quoting to be used for all non-NULL values in each specified column. NULL output is never quoted. If * is specified, - non-NULL values for all columns of the table will be - quoted. + non-NULL values will be quoted in all columns. @@ -550,11 +549,11 @@ COPY count The CSV format has no standard way to distinguish a NULL value from an empty string. - PostgreSQL's COPY handles this by - quoting. A NULL is output as the NULL - parameter and is not quoted, while a non-NULL value matching the - the NULL parameter string is quoted. Therefore, using the default - settings, a NULL is written as an unquoted empty + PostgreSQL's COPY handles this by quoting. + A NULL is output as the NULL parameter string + and is not quoted, while a non-NULL value matching the + NULL parameter string is quoted. For example, with the + default settings, a NULL is written as an unquoted empty string, while an empty string data value is written with double quotes (""). Reading values follows similar rules. You can use FORCE NOT NULL to prevent NULL input -- 2.40.0