Insert `tsv` files into postgresql db

Question

I have several files which are saved as tsv. I want to insert them into a postgresql db, to analyze them with sql.

However, my problem is how to INSERT this tsv files into postgresql 9.2 under windows 7?

I appreciate your reply!

PS.: I have created the table with the right values like:

CREATE TABLE ratings (distribution VARCHAR, votes VARCHAR, rank FLOAT, title VARCHAR);

the file is in the directory:

C:/Users/testUser/Desktop/TSV/ratings.list.tsv

Answer 1

For tab separated values, you can use COPY:

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/sql-copy.html

Depending on the exact format of your file, it could be something like:

COPY ratings FROM 'C:/Users/testUser/Desktop/TSV/ratings.list.tsv' DELIMITER '\t'

Answer 2

You want something like this:

COPY ratings FROM 'C:/Users/testUser/Desktop/TSV/ratings.list.tsv' DELIMITER E'\t';

The E'\t' is required, otherwise you'll get an error like this:

ERROR: DELIMITER for COPY must be a single one-byte character

---

If the columns in your TSV don't line up perfectly with your table, you can also define the mapping by doing the following:

COPY ratings (column_1, column_2, ... column_n)
  FROM 'C:/Users/testUser/Desktop/TSV/ratings.list.tsv'
  DELIMITER E'\t';

Answer 3

I'm able to do this with csvsql from csvkit.

To read a TSV (or CSV) and create/insert it to a table, my command line script looks like this:

csvsql --insert input.tsv  --table table_t --tabs --no-constraints --db postgresql://user:passwd@localhost/mydb

Answer 4

Sad to say, but the easiest way is to convert the TSV to a CSV. Most of the built in Postgres import utilities to do things like converting empty strings to nulls, skipping headers, etc are Only for CSV.

See this simple 6 line Python answer on SO. I use it and then CSV loaded like normal without a problem in Postgres after trying for and hour to load a TSV.