COPY to table with array columns (Longish)

Hi All,

Hope someone can help me - our main company system runs on Raining Data
PICK/D3 (if anyone familiar with it) which stores records in it's "tables"
as variable length items. Every item has a unique Primary Key (per table)
then each item can have a variable number of fields. These fields are
delimited by Char 254, then each field can have sub-values delimited by Char
253, then sub-sub-values delimited by Char 252.

Anyway, we are trying to export everything to Postgres for reporting and
querying etc (not to actually run the system.. Yet) and hasn't been a
problem so far - everything like stock and purchase orders, sales orders etc
can pretty easily be turned in to a flat file with standard number of
columns and consistent data. We truncate every table each night then import
that latest TSV export from D3 using a COPY command.

The problem arises with tables like our SYS table which store generic system
data, so one record could have 3 fields, but the next could have 300. The
only way I can work out how to export multi-valued data like this to
Postgres is to use an array column. So the table has 2 columns - the pkey
and a data array.

How do I get this imported to the truncated table each night? At the moment
I think my best option is to modify the export for the SYS table to call
PSQL and use standard SQL INSERT statements to directly insert it instead of
exporting to a flat file, then import to Postgres.

Thanks all,

-p

For those who are interested, or if it might help, here's a rough comparison
of the database structure of D3:

Windows = PICK/D3 = Postgres

Drive = Account = Database

Directory = File = Table

File = Item = Row

Line in text file = Attribute = Field

(none) = Value = Array Element (?)

(none) = Sub Value = (none?)

Phillip Smith

IT Coordinator

Weatherbeeta P/L

8 Moncrief Rd

Nunawading, VIC, 3131

AUSTRALIA

E. phillips(at)NO-SPAM(dot)weatherbeeta(dot)com(dot)au

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