Re: importing a messy text file

On 04/30/2014 03:50 AM, Willy-Bas Loos wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Rémi Cura <remi(dot)cura(at)gmail(dot)com
> <mailto:remi(dot)cura(at)gmail(dot)com>> wrote:
>
> with latest version 9.3 you can use a copy from with a programm as
> argument.
> You can use the unix | pipe for most of the stuff.
>
> If you have an older version you can use the mkfifo command to
> "trick" postgres into believing he will copy from a file.
>
>
> Hi, you're right i can see the new feature in the docs.
> But since i am working from the (bash) command line already, i don't
> see any use for this.
> I already pass the data like this:
> cat <file> |psql -c "copy <table> from stdin NULL ''" <db> >
> <file>.log 2>&1
>
> It's especially handy if you want to stay in sql(transaction), i gues.
>
> Cheers,
>
> --
> Willy-Bas Loos
Unless you know this is the only problem (extra/missing tab) I would
triage the file with a scripting language. One favourite check is

awk '{a[NF]++}END{print "Field count: Record count";for (i in
a){printf "%11d : %d", i, a[i]}}

If you only have the tab problem you will get two lines of output with
field count = N, N-1. Take care in setting the field separator.