Message-ID: <20040316161357.52404.qmail@web20812.mail.yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 08:13:57 -0800 (PST)
From: Jeff Eckermann <jeff_eckermann@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Import from Ms Excel
To: Andrew Sullivan <ajs@crankycanuck.ca>,
	psql <pgsql-sql@postgresql.org>
In-Reply-To: <20040316112930.GA4436@phlogiston.dyndns.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

--- Andrew Sullivan <ajs@crankycanuck.ca> wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 16, 2004 at 03:13:38PM +0530, Kumar
> wrote:
> > Dear Friends,
> > 
> > Is possible to import data from MS Excel sheet
> into postgres
> > database 7.3.4 running on Linux 7.2
> 
> Yes.  I find the easiest way is to export a
> delimited file from Excel
> and use the \copy command in psql.

A couple of quick points:

* Don't use .csv, unless you are quite sure that your
data does not include any commas.  "Copy" isn't smart
enough to know that the quotes mean "ignore the
delimiters inside here".

* If your data does include commas, even using
tab-delimited will cause Excel to pointlessly quote
those columns, and the quotes will be imported as data
unless you remove them.

* Make sure to remove any carriage returns that may
have been included with your line endings.  I think
newer versions of "copy" are better about handling
that, but best to be sure...

> 
> A
> 
> -- 
> Andrew Sullivan  | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
> I remember when computers were frustrating because
> they *did* exactly what 
> you told them to.  That actually seems sort of
> quaint now.
> 		--J.D. Baldwin
> 
> ---------------------------(end of
> broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster


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