Re: COPY enhancements

On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 11:26 AM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
> Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
>> I don't see any reasonable way to sandwhich the FORCE NOT NULL syntax
>> into a keyword/value notation.
>
> Any number of ways, for example "force_not_null = true" or multiple
> occurrences of "force_not_null = column_name".  Andrew was on the verge
> of admitting we don't need that option anymore anyway ;-), so I don't
> think we should allow it to drive an exception to the simplified syntax.

While I'm at least as big a fan of generic options as the next person,
syntax is cheap. I don't see any reason to get worked up about one
exception to a generic options syntax. If the feature is useless, of
course we can rip it out, but that's a separate discussion. For what
it's worth, I think your proposed alternative is ugly and an abuse of
the idea of keyword-value pairs. In the EXPLAIN-world, a later value
for the same option overrides a previous assignment earlier in the
list, and I am in favor of sticking with that approach.

...Robert