Re: COPY enhancements

Greg Smith wrote:
> On Fri, 11 Sep 2009, Emmanuel Cecchet wrote:
>
>> I guess the problem with extra or missing columns is to make sure
>> that you know exactly which data belongs to which column so that you
>> don't put data in the wrong columns which is likely to happen if this
>> is fully automated.
>
> Allowing the extra column case is easy: everwhere in copy.c you find
> the error message "extra data after last expected column", just ignore
> the overflow fields rather than rejecting the line just based on
> that. And the default information I mentioned you might want to
> substitute for missing columns is already being collected by the code
> block with the comment "Get default info if needed".
If I understand it well, you expect the garbage to be after the last
column. But what if the extra or missing column is somewhere upfront or
in the middle? Sometimes you might have a type conflict problem that
will help you detect the problem, sometimes you will just insert
garbage. This might call for another mechanism that would log the lines
that are automatically 'adjusted' to be able to rollback any mistake
that might happen during this automated process.

Emmanuel

--
Emmanuel Cecchet
Aster Data Systems
Web: http://www.asterdata.com