Greetings...

I've run into a problem with the way \copy behaves when psql is
reading its input from a file using either the -f command line option
or the \i command.  (Not that it matters in this case, but this is
PostgreSQL 7.4 on i686-pc-linux-gnu, compiled with gcc.)

The following...

---8<--SNIP---
CREATE TABLE junk (
  abbrev CHAR(1),
  name   VARCHAR(80)
);

\copy junk (abbrev, name) FROM STDIN WITH DELIMITER '|' NULL ''
F|Foo
B|Bar
Z|Baz
\.
---8<--SNIP---

...works just fine when keyed directly into psql or is redirected from
a file (i.e., psql < junk.sql).  When using -f or \i, psql sits and
waits for data and an EOF on the standard input and then proceeds to
interpret the next four lines as commands.

This was discussed several years ago in this thread:

  http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers/2000-01/msg00361.php

Peter Eisentraut declared that from that point on, stdin would be
whatever stream the \copy command came from.  I'd like to propose a
variant on the "FROM" clause which makes good on Peter's declaration
without breaking anything already using FROM STDIN and expecting it to
really read from stdin.  (I think this is for the better because there
are lots of good uses for "psql -f foo.sql < foo.dat".)

I'd be more than happy to write and test a patch if folks think this
would be a good thing.  I'm leaning toward "FROM -" as the syntax but
am open to other ideas (i.e., "FROM HERE" or "FROM INPUT").

							- Mark

P.S.: I've been using Postgre(s(95)?|SQL) in its various forms for
close to a decade, and what was a stable platform for lightweight
storage has matured into something I'd pour a few million rows into
without thinking twice about it.  Thanks to everyone for all the great
work!

Tue, 23 Dec 2003 11:04:10 -0500
Mark Feit <mfeit@notonthe.net>
(Mis?)Behavior of \copy with -f and \i