X-Original-To: pgsql-hackers-postgresql.org@localhost.postgresql.org Received: from localhost (mx1.hub.org [200.46.208.251]) by postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AF9DA9FA5E9 for ; Wed, 31 May 2006 13:30:17 -0300 (ADT) Received: from postgresql.org ([200.46.204.71]) by localhost (mx1.hub.org [200.46.208.251]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 71927-09 for ; Wed, 31 May 2006 13:30:09 -0300 (ADT) X-Greylist: from auto-whitelisted by SQLgrey- Received: from sss.pgh.pa.us (sss.pgh.pa.us [66.207.139.130]) by postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7408E9FA5E1 for ; Wed, 31 May 2006 13:30:08 -0300 (ADT) Received: from sss2.sss.pgh.pa.us (tgl@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sss.pgh.pa.us (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id k4VGU7Ja013209; Wed, 31 May 2006 12:30:07 -0400 (EDT) To: Andreas Pflug cc: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org Subject: Re: Possible TODO item: copy to/from pipe In-reply-to: <447DB910.2020607@pse-consulting.de> References: <12436.1149087794@sss.pgh.pa.us> <447DB844.6010507@pse-consulting.de> <447DB910.2020607@pse-consulting.de> Comments: In-reply-to Andreas Pflug message dated "Wed, 31 May 2006 17:41:04 +0200" Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 12:30:07 -0400 Message-ID: <13208.1149093007@sss.pgh.pa.us> From: Tom Lane X-Virus-Scanned: Maia Mailguard 1.0.1 X-Archive-Number: 200605/1334 X-Sequence-Number: 84199 Andreas Pflug writes: > Forgot to mention: > COPY COMPRESSED was also meant to introduce a portable format that's > efficient for both text and binary data. Relying on some external XYZzip > version seems not too portable to me. I dislike putting this into the backend precisely because it's trying to impose a one-size-fits-all compression solution. Someone might wish to use bzip2 instead of gzip, for instance, or tweak the compression level options of gzip. It's trivial for the user to do that if the compression program is separate, not trivial at all if it's wired into COPY. Also, a pipe feature would have uses unrelated to compression, such as on-the-fly analysis or generation of data. regards, tom lane