Provided by: pgloader_2.3.3~dev3-1.1_all 
NAME
pgloader - Import CSV data and Large Object to PostgreSQL
SYNOPSIS
pgloader [--version] [-c configuration file] [-p pedantic] [-d debug] [-v verbose] [-q quiet] [-s
summary] [-l loglevel] [-L logfile] [-n dryrun] [-Cn count] [-Fn from] [-In from id] [-E input files
encoding] [-R reformat:path] [Section|Filename ...]
DESCRIPTION
pgloader imports data from a flat file and insert it into a database table. It uses a flat file per
database table, and you can configure as many Sections as you want, each one associating a table name and
a data file.
Data are parsed and rewritten, then given to PostgreSQL COPY command. Parsing is necessary for dealing
with end of lines and eventual trailing separator characters, and for column reordering: your flat data
file may not have the same column order as the database table has.
pgloader is also able to load some large objects data into PostgreSQL, as of now only Informix UNLOAD
data files are supported. This command gives large objects data location information into the main data
file. pgloader parse it add the text or bytea content properly escaped to the COPY data.
pgloader issue some timing statistics every commit_every commits (see Configuration for this setting). At
the end of each section processing, a summary of overall operations, numbers of rows copied and commits,
time it took in seconds, errors logged and database errors is issued.
pgloader is available from pgfoundry at http://pgfoundry.org/projects/pgloader/, where you’ll find a
debian package, a source package and an anonymous CVS.
ARGUMENTS
pgloader as of version 2.3.3 accepts two kinds of arguments, either section names of file names. If both
a section and a file exist with the same name, preference is given to the section, where you can edit
your settings rather than using default ones.
Section
is the name of a configured Section describing some data to load
Section arguments are optional, if no section is given all configured sections are processed.
Filename
The name of a file containing the data to load. pgloader will internally setup a Section for this
filename, with the default field separator or the given --field-separator and the columns parameter
set to *, and more importantly the format set to CSV. It’s the only supported format with sane enough
defaults to apply here.
OPTIONS
In order for pgloader to run, you have to edit a configuration file (see Configuration) consisting of
Section definitions. Each section refers to a PostgreSQL table into which some data is to be loaded.
--version
print out pgloader version, then quit.
-c, --config
specifies the configuration file to use. The default file name is pgloader.conf, searched into
current working directory.
-p, --pedantic
activates the pedantic mode, where any warning is considered as a fatal error, thus stopping the
processing of the input file.
-d, --debug
makes pgloader say it all about what it does. debug implies verbose.
-v, --verbose
makes pgloader very verbose about what it does.
-q, --quiet
makes pgloader very quiet about what it does: only output errors.
-l, --loglevel
log level to use when reporting to the console, see client_min_messages.
-L, --logfile
file where to log messages, see log_min_messages.
-r, --reject-log
Filename, with a single "%s" placeholder, where to store the bad data logs (that’s the error messages
given by PostgreSQL). If you want to put a percent in the file name, write it %%.
-j, --reject-data
Filename, with a single "%s" placeholder, where to store the bad data (the exact lines that didn’t
make it from your input file). If you want to put a percent in the file name, write it %%.
-s, --summary
makes pgloader print a nice summary at the end of operations.
-n, --dry-run
makes pgloader simulate operations, that implies no database connection and no data extraction from
blob files.
-D, --disable-triggers
makes pgloader issue a ALTER TABLE <table> DISABLE TRIGGER ALL before loading the data, and ENABLE
them again once data is loaded.
-T, --truncate
makes pgloader issue a TRUNCATE <table> SQL command before importing data.
-V, --vacuum
makes pgloader issue a VACUUM ANALYZE <table> SQL command after data loading.
-C, --count
Number of input lines to process, default is to process all the input lines.
-F, --from
Input line number from which we begin to process (and count). pgloader will skip all preceding lines.
You can’t use both -F and -I at the same time.
-I, --from-id
From which id do we begin to process (and count) input lines.
When a composite key is used, you have to give each column of the key separated by comma, on the form
col_name=value.
Please notice using the --from-id option implies pgloader will try to get row id of each row, it
being on the interval processed or not. This could have some performance impact, and you may end up
preferring to use --from instead.
Example: pgloader -I col1:val1,col2:val2
You can’t use both -F and -I at the same time.
-f, --field-sep
Default field separator to use, when not set pgloader will use |. Useful when using filename
arguments rather than section ones.
-E, --encoding
Input data files encoding. Defaults to latin9.
-o, --pg-options
Any option to give to the PostgreSQL server by mean of the SET command. You can use this argument
more than once to set more than one option.
Example: -o standard_conforming_strings=on -o client_encoding=utf8
-t, --section-threads
How many threads per section to use, defaults to 1. The command line value override the configuration
file one.
-m, --max-parallel-sections
How many sections to load in parallel, defaults to 1. The command line value override the
configuration file one. That’s a max value because you will end up having less sections to load than
this number.
-R, --reformat_path
PATH where to find reformat python modules, defaults to /usr/share/pgloader/reformat. See
reformat_path option for syntax and default value.
-1, --psycopg1
Force usage of psycopg version 1.
-2, --psycopg2
Force usage of psycopg version 2.
--psycopg-version
Force pgloader to use given version of psycopg, either 1 or 2.
INTERNAL USAGE OPTIONS
Those have been developped for internal pgloader usage only, but still need to be documented. Also, they
are maintained and you could find an usage for them.
--load-from-stdin
Consider standard input as the data file. When using this function, either give a section name from
which to apply all the setup except for the filename to load from, or use --load-to-table.
--load-to-table
This option’s argument must be the name of the PostgreSQL table you’re loading the data to, it’s
useful when you want to load from stdin and avoid editing a full configuration section.
--boundaries
Allow for limiting the range of bytes to read and process, must be given in the X..Y format, with X
and Y integers.
GLOBAL CONFIGURATION SECTION
The configuration file has a .ini file syntax, its first section has to be the pgsql one, defining how to
access to the PostgreSQL database server where to load data. Then you may define any number of sections,
each one describing a data loading task to be performed by pgloader.
The [pgsql] section has the following options, which all must be set.
host
PostgreSQL database server name, for example localhost. For Unix Domain connection, give the
directory where to find the Unix Socket, e.g. /tmp. The port will then get used to locate the Unix
Socket filename.
port
PostgreSQL database server listening port, 5432. You have to fill this entry.
base
The name of the database you want to load data into.
user
Connecting PostgreSQL user name.
pass
The password of the user. The better is to grant a trust access privilege in PostgreSQL pg_hba.conf.
Then you can set this entry to whatever value you want to.
client_encoding
Set this parameter to have pgloader connects to PostgreSQL using this encoding.
This parameter is optional and defaults to latin9.
As of pgloader 2.3.3 you can also use pg_option_client_encoding which is the more general approach.
datestyle
Set this parameter to have pgloader connects to PostgreSQL using this datestyle setting.
This parameter is optional and has no default value, thus pgloader will use whatever your PostgreSQL
is configured to as default.
As of pgloader 2.3.3 you can also use pg_option_datestyle which is the more general approach.
pg_option_<foo>
Replace <foo> with any option you’re allowed to setup for the session only with the SET command, and
pgloader will do just that for you. Consider for example pg_option_standard_conforming_strings = on.
copy_every
When issuing COPY PostgreSQL commands, pgloader will not make a single big COPY attempt, but copy
copy_every lines at a time.
This parameter is optional and defaults to 10000.
copy_delimiter
The field separator to use in COPY FROM produced statements. If you don’t specify this, the same
separator as the one given in field_sep parameter will be used.
Please note PostgreSQL requires a single char properly encoded (see your client_encoding parameter),
or it abort in error and even may crash.
This parameter is optional and defaults to field_sep.
newline_escapes
For parameter effect description, see below (same name, table local setting).
You can setup here a global escape character, to be considered on each and every column of each and
every text-format table defined thereafter.
null
You can configure here how null value is represented into your flat data file.
This parameter is optional and defaults to '' (that is empty string).
empty_string
You can configure here how empty values are represented into your flat data file.
This parameter is optional and defaults to '\ ' (that is backslash followed by space).
reformat_path
When using reformat option, provide here a colon separated path list where to look for reformatting
module.
reformat_path = .:/home/dim/PostgreSQL/pgfoundry/pgloader/reformat
The directories given here should exist and contain a __init__.py file (for python to consider them
as packages), the only modules and functions used in the package will be the one you configure with
reformat section specific option.
Default value is /usr/share/pgloader/reformat, which is where the provided debian package of pgloader
installs the reformat modules.
If the -R or --reformat_path command line option is used, it will have precedence over configuration
file setting.
client_min_messages
Minimum level of messages to print to the console while running. Defined levels are DEBUG, INFO,
WARNING, ERROR, CRITICAL, from min to max.
log_min_messages
Minimum level of messages to print out to the log file, which defaults to /tmp/pgloader.log. See
client_min_messages for available levels.
log_file
Relative or absolute path to the log_file where to log messages of level of at least log_min_messages
level. The dirname of the given log_file, if it doesn’t exists, will be created by pgloader. If any
error prevents pgloader to use the log_file, it will default to using /tmp/pgloader.log and say so.
lc_messages
The PostgreSQL session will use this LC_MESSAGES setting if given, defaults to server configuration
by not issuing anything with respect to this setting when not set.
max_parallel_sections
Number of sections to load at the same time, each in its own thread. Default to 1, which is the
legacy behaviour and the more common wanted one.
COMMON FORMAT CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS
You then can define any number of data section, and give them an arbitrary name. Some options are
required, some are actually optional, in which case it is said so thereafter.
First, we’ll go through common parameters, applicable whichever format of data you’re referring to. Then
text-format only parameters will be presented, followed by csv-only parameters.
template
When this option is set, current section is to be considered a template, that is only read from
section(s) using it as so (see use_template below).
The value given to the option is not taken into account by pgloader, only the fact that it exists has
meaning. But ConfigParser requires a value to be affected to consider the option set. Use True as a
value, for example.
use_template
This option setting have to be the name of a template section, which can define the exact same
options as a normal section. If the actual section and the use_template template section both define
the same option, the former is used: actual setting overrides template’s one.
table
The table name of the database where to load data.
format
The format data are to be found, either text, csv or fixed.
See next sections for format specific options.
filename
The absolute path to the input data file. The large object files are to be found into the same
directory. Their name can be in the used by pgloader.
input_encoding
The encoding of the configured filename.
reject_log
In case of errors processing input data, a human readable log per rejected input data line is
produced into the reject_log file.
reject_data
In case of errors processing input data, the rejected input line is appended to the reject_data file.
field_sep
The field separator used into the data file. The same separator will be used by the generated COPY
commands, thus pgloader does not have to deal with escaping the delimiter it uses (input data has to
have escaped it).
This parameter is optional and defaults to pipe char '|'.
client_encoding
Set this parameter to have pgloader connects to PostgreSQL using this encoding.
This parameter is optional and defaults to latin9.
As of pgloader 2.3.3 you can also use pg_option_client_encoding which is the more general approach.
datestyle
Set this parameter to have pgloader connects to PostgreSQL using this datestyle setting.
This parameter is optional and has no default value, thus pgloader will use whatever your PostgreSQL
is configured to as default.
As of pgloader 2.3.3 you can also use pg_option_datestyle which is the more general approach.
pg_option_<foo>
Replace <foo> with any option you’re allowed to setup for the session only with the SET command, and
pgloader will do just that for you. Consider for example pg_option_standard_conforming_strings = on.
null
You can configure here how null value is represented into your flat data file.
This parameter is optional and defaults to '' (that is empty string). If defined on a table level,
this local value will overwrite the global one.
empty_string
You can configure here how empty values are represented into your flat data file.
This parameter is optional and defaults to '\ ' (that is backslash followed by space). If defined on
a table level, this local value will overwrite the global one.
skip_head_lines
Skip the n first lines of the given files (headers)
columns
You can define here table columns, by giving their names and optionally column number (as found into
your data file, and counting from 1) separated by a colon.
columns = x, y, a, b, d:6, c:5
Note you’ll have to define here all the columns to be found in data file, whether you want to use
them all or not. When not using them all, use the only_cols parameter to restrict.
As of pgloader 2.2 the column list used might not be the same as the table columns definition.
As of pgloader 2.2.1 you can omit column numbering if you want to, a counter is then maintained for
you, starting from 1 and set to last value + 1 on each column, where last value was either computed
or given in the config. So you can even omit only some columns in there.
In case you have a lot a columns per table, you will want to use multiple lines for this parameter
value. Python ConfigParser module knows how to read multi-line parameters, you don’t have to escape
anything.
An easy way to get the list of attributes (columns) of your tables (say a, b and c) is by the
following query:
BEGIN;
CREATE AGGREGATE array_acc(anyelement) (
SFUNC = array_append,
STYPE = anyarray,
INITCOND = '{}'
);
SELECT relname, array_acc(attname)
FROM pg_attribute a join pg_class c on a.attrelid = c.oid
WHERE relname in ('a', 'b', 'c')
and attname not in ('tableoid','cmax','xmax','cmin','xmin','ctid')
GROUP BY relname;
ROLLBACK;
As of pgloader 2.3.0 you can simply set columns = * and pgloader will issue the needed SQL for you.
This only works if your data file and your table definition both present the columns in the exact
same order, obviously.
Internally, pgloader will issue a COPY statement without the column names if possible, meaning when
only_cols is not used at the same time as columns = * is used.
user_defined_columns
Those are special columns not found in the data file but which you want to load into the database.
The configuration options beginning with udc_ are taken as column names with constant values. The
following example define the column c as having the value constant value for each and every row of
the input data file.
udc_c = constant value
The option copy_columns is used to define the exact columnsList given to COPY.
A simple use case is the loading into the same database table of data coming from more than one file.
If you need to keep track of the data origin, add a column to the table model and define a udc_ for
pgloader to add a constant value in the database.
Using user-defined columns require defining copy_columns and is not compatible with only_cols usage.
copy_columns
This options defines the columns to load from the input data file and the user defined columns, and
in which order to do this. Place here the column names separated by commas.
copy_columns = b, c, d
This option is required if any user column is defined, and conflicts with the only_cols option. It
won’t have any effect when used in a section where no user column is defined.
only_cols
If you want to only load a part of the columns you have into the data file, this option let you
define which columns you’re interested in. only_col is a comma separated list of ranges or values,
as in following example.
only_cols = 1-3, 5
This parameter is optional and defaults to the list of all columns given on the columns parameter
list, in the colname order.
This option conflicts with user defined columns and copy_columns option.
blob_columns
The definition of the columns where to find some blob or clob reference. This definition is composed
by a table column name, a column number (counting from one) reference into the Informix UNLOAD data
file, and a large object type, separated by a colon. You can have several columns in this field,
separated by a comma.
Supported large objects type are Informix blob and clob, the awaited configuration string are
respectively ifx_blob for binary (bytea) content type and ifx_clob for text type values.
Here’s an example:
blob_type = clob_column:3:ifx_blob, other_clob_column:5:ifx_clob
reformat
Use this option when you need to preprocess some column data with pgloader reformatting modules, or
your own. The value of this option is a comma separated list of columns to rewrite, which are a colon
separated list of column name, reformat module name, reformat function name. Here’s an example to
reformat column dt_cx with the mysql.timestamp() reformatting function:
reformat = dt_cx:mysql:timestamp
See global setting option reformat_path for configuring where pgloader will look for reformat
packages and modules.
If you want to write a new formating function, provide a python package called reformat (a directory
of this name containing an empty __init__.py file will do) and place in there arbitrary named modules
(foo.py files) containing functions with the following signature:
def bar(reject, input)
The reject object has a log(self, messages, data = None) method for you to log errors into
section.rej.log and section.rej files.
PARALLEL LOADING
This section is about loading a single given section by multiple threads. To load several sections at
once in a parallel fashion, please refer to max_parallel_sections global option.
section_threads
This option allows to configure how many threads pgloader will use to process current section. See
split_file_reading for more information about how those threads will serve the loading. Defaults to
1, which is the legacy behaviour and the more needed one too.
split_file_reading
This option is only used by pgloader when section_threads is more than 1, and configures how the work
will be spread to threads. It defaults to False.
When split_file_reading is True, pgloader will have each section thread process a part of the input
file. The file splitting is done at the byte level, not at the line count level: knowing how many
lines the input file has would require loading it first...
When split_file_reading is False, pgloader will have one thread read the input file and give workers
threads input lines to process in a round-robin fashion. Please note the reader thread will have to
parse the lines (according to format parameter).
rrqueue_size
When split_file_reading is False, this is the size of the pgloader queue used to balance input lines
to workers threads. Instead of giving them one line at a time in a round-robin fashion, pgloader will
feed workers rrqueue_size lines at a time. This defaults to copy_every.
TEXT FORMAT CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS
field_count
The UNLOAD command does not escape newlines when they appear into table data. Hence, you may obtain
multi-line data files, where a single database row (say tuple if you prefer to) can span multiple
physical lines into the unloaded file.
If this is your case, you may want to configure here the number of columns per tuple. Then pgloader
will count columns and buffer line input in order to re-assemble several physical lines into one data
row when needed.
This parameter is optional.
trailing_sep
If this option is set to True, the input data file is known to append a field_sep as the last
character of each of its lines. With this option set, this last character is then not considered as a
field separator.
This parameter is optional and defaults to False.
newline_escapes
Sometimes the input data file has field values containing newlines, and the export program used (as
Informix UNLOAD command) escape in-field newlines. So you want pgloader to keep those newlines, while
at the same time preserving them.
This option does the described work on specified fields and considering the escaping character you
configure, following this syntax:
newline_escapes = colname:\, other_colname:§
This parameter is optional, and the extra work is only done when set. You can configure
newline_escapes for as many fields as necessary, and you may configure a different escaping character
each time.
Please note that at the moment, pgloader does only support one character length newline_escapes.
When both a global (see [pgsql] section) newline_escapes parameter and a table local one are set,
pgloader issues a warning and only consider the global setting.
CSV FORMAT CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS
doublequote
Controls how instances of quotechar appearing inside a field should be themselves be quoted. When
True, the character is doubled. When False, the escapechar is used as a prefix to the quotechar. It
defaults to True.
escapechar
A one-character string used by the writer to escape the delimiter if quoting is set to QUOTE_NONE and
the quotechar if doublequote is False. On reading, the escapechar removes any special meaning from
the following character. It defaults to None, which disables escaping.
quotechar
A one-character string used to quote fields containing special characters, such as the delimiter or
quotechar, or which contain new-line characters. It defaults to ".
skipinitialspace
When True, whitespace immediately following the delimiter is ignored. The default is False.
field_size_limit
Sets the maximum field size allowed by the python CSV parser. Accepts an number of bytes (integer),
or a string containing a number then one of those units (case sensitive): kB, MB, GB, TB. Requires a
at least python 2.5.
FIXED FORMAT CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS
fixed_specs
This parameter allows to specify start position and byte length for each columns to load. Syntax is
column_name:start:len, separated by comas.
fixed_specs = a:0:10, b:10:8, c:18:8, d:26:17
CONFIGURATION EXAMPLE
Please see the given configuration example which should be distributed in
/usr/share/doc/pgloader/examples/pgloader.conf.
The example configuration file comes with example data and can be used a unit test of pgloader.
EXIT STATUS
0
success; including the case when some records were rejected due constraint violations
1
a fatal error, such as a database connection failure, has occured
HISTORY
pgloader has first been a tcl tool written by Jan Wieck and released by Christopher Kings-Lynne, who
created the pgfoundry[1] project for it to be published. Later on, Jean-Paul Argudo took over the
maintenance. When it became clear that it would be easier to rewrite it in another language than to
properly learn tcl and develop some missing options, pgloader was rewritten in python by Dimitri
Fontaine.
pgloader was rewritten to act as an Informix to PostgreSQL migration helper which imported Informix large
objects directly into a PostgreSQL database.
Then as we got some data we couldn’t file tools to care about, we decided ifx_blob would become pgloader,
as it had to be able to import all Informix UNLOAD data. Those data contains escaped separator into
unquoted data field and multi-lines fields (\r and \n are not escaped).
pgloader has since gained some more features allowing it to directly import mysqldump -T data, and is
known to be used in production environments where a PostgreSQL database is used for reporting against
data from several servers running different RDBMS softwares.
BUGS
Please report bugs to Dimitri Fontaine <dim@tapoueh.org[2]>, and see current list of known bugs in the
BUGS.txt distributed file (debian package includes it at /usr/share/doc/pgloader/BUGS.txt or online at
following url: http://pgloader.projects.postgresql.org/dev/BUGS.html.
AUTHORS
pgloader is written by Dimitri Fontaine <dim@tapoueh.org[2]>.
NOTES
1. pgfoundry
http://pgfoundry.org
2. dim@tapoueh.org
mailto:dim@tapoueh.org
05/01/2012 PGLOADER(1)