Linux cli command COPY

NAME 🖥️ COPY 🖥️

copy data between a file and a table

SYNOPSIS

COPY table_name [ ( column_name [, ...] ) ]
    FROM { filename | PROGRAM command | STDIN }
    [ [ WITH ] ( option [, ...] ) ]
    [ WHERE condition ]

COPY { table_name [ ( column_name [, ...] ) ] | ( query ) }
    TO { filename | PROGRAM command | STDOUT }
    [ [ WITH ] ( option [, ...] ) ]

where option can be one of:

    FORMAT format_name
    FREEZE [ boolean ]
    DELIMITER delimiter_character
    NULL null_string
    DEFAULT default_string
    HEADER [ boolean | MATCH ]
    QUOTE quote_character
    ESCAPE escape_character
    FORCE_QUOTE { ( column_name [, ...] ) | * }
    FORCE_NOT_NULL ( column_name [, ...] )
    FORCE_NULL ( column_name [, ...] )
    ENCODING encoding_name

DESCRIPTION

COPY moves data between PostgreSQL tables and standard file-system files. COPY TO copies the contents of a table to a file, while COPY FROM copies data from a file to a table (appending the data to whatever is in the table already). COPY TO can also copy the results of a SELECT query.

If a column list is specified, COPY TO copies only the data in the specified columns to the file. For COPY FROM, each field in the file is inserted, in order, into the specified column. Table columns not specified in the COPY FROM column list will receive their default values.

COPY with a file name instructs the PostgreSQL server to directly read from or write to a file. The file must be accessible by the PostgreSQL user (the user ID the server runs as) and the name must be specified from the viewpoint of the server. When PROGRAM is specified, the server executes the given command and reads from the standard output of the program, or writes to the standard input of the program. The command must be specified from the viewpoint of the server, and be executable by the PostgreSQL user. When STDIN or STDOUT is specified, data is transmitted via the connection between the client and the server.

Each backend running COPY will report its progress in the pg_stat_progress_copy view. See Section 28.4.3 for details.

PARAMETERS

table_name

The name (optionally schema-qualified) of an existing table.

column_name

An optional list of columns to be copied. If no column list is specified, all columns of the table except generated columns will be copied.

query

A SELECT, VALUES, INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE command whose results are to be copied. Note that parentheses are required around the query.

For INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE queries a RETURNING clause must be provided, and the target relation must not have a conditional rule, nor an ALSO rule, nor an INSTEAD rule that expands to multiple statements.

filename

The path name of the input or output file. An input file name can be an absolute or relative path, but an output file name must be an absolute path. Windows users might need to use an E string and double any backslashes used in the path name.

PROGRAM

A command to execute. In COPY FROM, the input is read from standard output of the command, and in COPY TO, the output is written to the standard input of the command.

Note that the command is invoked by the shell, so if you need to pass any arguments that come from an untrusted source, you must be careful to strip or escape any special characters that might have a special meaning for the shell. For security reasons, it is best to use a fixed command string, or at least avoid including any user input in it.

STDIN

Specifies that input comes from the client application.

STDOUT

Specifies that output goes to the client application.

boolean

Specifies whether the selected option should be turned on or off. You can write TRUE, ON, or 1 to enable the option, and FALSE, OFF, or 0 to disable it. The boolean value can also be omitted, in which case TRUE is assumed.

FORMAT

Selects the data format to be read or written: text, csv (Comma Separated Values), or binary. The default is text.

FREEZE

Requests copying the data with rows already frozen, just as they would be after running the VACUUM FREEZE command. This is intended as a performance option for initial data loading. Rows will be frozen only if the table being loaded has been created or truncated in the current subtransaction, there are no cursors open and there are no older snapshots held by this transaction. It is currently not possible to perform a COPY FREEZE on a partitioned table.

Note that all other sessions will immediately be able to see the data once it has been successfully loaded. This violates the normal rules of MVCC visibility and users should be aware of the potential problems this might cause.

DELIMITER

Specifies the character that separates columns within each row (line) of the file. The default is a tab character in text format, a comma in CSV format. This must be a single one-byte character. This option is not allowed when using binary format.

NULL

Specifies the string that represents a null value. The default is \N (backslash-N) in text format, and an unquoted empty string in CSV format. You might prefer an empty string even in text format for cases where you dont want to distinguish nulls from empty strings. This option is not allowed when using binary format.

Note

When using COPY FROM, any data item that matches this string will be stored as a null value, so you should make sure that you use the same string as you used with COPY TO.

DEFAULT

Specifies the string that represents a default value. Each time the string is found in the input file, the default value of the corresponding column will be used. This option is allowed only in COPY FROM, and only when not using binary format.

HEADER

Specifies that the file contains a header line with the names of each column in the file. On output, the first line contains the column names from the table. On input, the first line is discarded when this option is set to true (or equivalent Boolean value). If this option is set to MATCH, the number and names of the columns in the header line must match the actual column names of the table, in order; otherwise an error is raised. This option is not allowed when using binary format. The MATCH option is only valid for COPY FROM commands.

QUOTE

Specifies the quoting character to be used when a data value is quoted. The default is double-quote. This must be a single one-byte character. This option is allowed only when using CSV format.

ESCAPE

Specifies the character that should appear before a data character that matches the QUOTE value. The default is the same as the QUOTE value (so that the quoting character is doubled if it appears in the data). This must be a single one-byte character. This option is allowed only when using CSV format.

FORCE_QUOTE

Forces quoting to be used for all non-NULL values in each specified column. NULL output is never quoted. If * is specified, non-NULL values will be quoted in all columns. This option is allowed only in COPY TO, and only when using CSV format.

FORCE_NOT_NULL

Do not match the specified columns values against the null string. In the default case where the null string is empty, this means that empty values will be read as zero-length strings rather than nulls, even when they are not quoted. This option is allowed only in COPY FROM, and only when using CSV format.

FORCE_NULL

Match the specified columns values against the null string, even if it has been quoted, and if a match is found set the value to NULL. In the default case where the null string is empty, this converts a quoted empty string into NULL. This option is allowed only in COPY FROM, and only when using CSV format.

ENCODING

Specifies that the file is encoded in the encoding_name. If this option is omitted, the current client encoding is used. See the Notes below for more details.

WHERE

The optional WHERE clause has the general form

WHERE condition

where condition is any expression that evaluates to a result of type boolean. Any row that does not satisfy this condition will not be inserted to the table. A row satisfies the condition if it returns true when the actual row values are substituted for any variable references.

Currently, subqueries are not allowed in WHERE expressions, and the evaluation does not see any changes made by the COPY itself (this matters when the expression contains calls to VOLATILE functions).

OUTPUTS

On successful completion, a COPY command returns a command tag of the form

COPY count

The count is the number of rows copied.

Note

psql will print this command tag only if the command was not COPY … TO STDOUT, or the equivalent psql meta-command