Re: psql and tab-delimited output

Hi Alban.

On Sun, Sep 7, 2014 at 4:18 AM, Alban Hertroys <haramrae(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:

> On 07 Sep 2014, at 10:45, Abelard Hoffman <abelardhoffman(at)gmail(dot)com>
> wrote:
>
> > For reports, everyone else mostly uses other tools? I'd like to stay
> away from GUI-tools, if possible.
>
> For reporting, usually you use the data in the database directly.
>
> A TSV or CSV file is not a report, it’s at best a data source for your
> report. Going through an intermediate format is not a particularly
> effective approach to create reports, but if you have to (for example
> because you aren’t _allowed_ access to the database), generally preferred
> formats seem to be CSV, XML or JSON; as long as it’s a standard format.
> TSV is not a common choice. Are you sure your boss actually cares that
> it’s TSV and not, for example, CSV?
>

Could you expand on that a bit? What sort of tools does management use to
generate reports from the database directly?
You're meaning a database warehouse? We just have an OLTP db, so we've
always generated reports periodically through cron jobs.

Or maybe "reports" is the wrong word. We generate a bunch of db stats which
can then be used however they want (pulled into Excel, etc.).
But would definitely be interested in learning about other approaches.

And yes, I'm sure we could convert everything over to CSV. Just an issue of
inertia.

Thanks.