Re: [INTERFACES] Fastest import?

On Sat, 10 Apr 1999, Matthew Hagerty wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> What is the fastest way to import data from an ASCII file? I have ~17,000
> records in a .DBF file that I need to get into my pg6.4.2 database. I have
> written a program that reads the .DBF file, massages the data and writes it
> out to a text file, one record per line.
>
> I initially had my program issue the insert commands instead of writing
> them to a text file, but the import took about 2 hours! We are only
> talking about 4Meg worth of data here, it should not take that long should
> it? I was hoping that once in a text file that psql < text.file would be
> faster, but it is not. Is there any way to speed this up?
>
> I was also looking at the copy command and maybe using the binary mode, but
> writing out binary data is not my idea of a good time and I'm on a deadline
> here. Is there a program out there that might take a text file of insert
> statements and convert them to a binary format that copy can use?
>
> Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Why use binary? Just get your program to output Tab delimited ASCII
data, and use ASCII COPY.

Tip: Don't create your indices before the copy. It will load faster
without them. Once the data's in there, then create them.

Peter

--
Peter T Mount peter(at)retep(dot)org(dot)uk
Main Homepage: http://www.retep.org.uk
PostgreSQL JDBC Faq: http://www.retep.org.uk/postgres
Java PDF Generator: http://www.retep.org.uk/pdf