Re: COPY FROM - force a value

That works like a charm. Thanks, Alvaro!

-Jeff

-----Original Message-----
From: Alvaro Herrera [mailto:alvherre(at)commandprompt(dot)com]
Sent: Thursday, February 08, 2007 1:22 PM
To: Demel, Jeff
Cc: pgsql-sql(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: [SQL] COPY FROM - force a value

Demel, Jeff wrote:
> Is there a way to force a value when you're doing a COPY FROM,
> importing a file into a table?
>
> Here's my query as it is now:
>
> COPY filetable (value1, value2, value3, value4, forcevalue1,
> forcevalue2)
> FROM 'C:\\InsertFiles\\thisfile.txt'
> WITH DELIMITER AS ' '
> ;
>
> The file only contains data for values 1 through 4. I'd like to
> insert values for the last two fields. This is what I had in mind,
> which doesn't work:
>
> COPY filetable (value1, value2, value3, value4, forcevalue1,
> forcevalue2)
> FROM 'C:\\InsertFiles\\thisfile.txt'
> WITH DELIMITER AS ' ',
> forcevalue1 = 1,
> forcevalue2 = 'this value'
> ;

I'd try setting a DEFAULT for those two columns using ALTER TABLE, then
the COPY FROM call excluding those columns, then removing the DEFAULT.
If you do it in a transaction block, no other transaction can be
molested by the default values, though they will be blocked of the table
during that transaction.

--
Alvaro Herrera
http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.
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