Handling Cast Conversion Load Errors
Jim_Knicely
- Select Field - Administrator
The nifty cast ::! returns all cast failures as NULL instead of generating an error if a the data type cannot be coerced. This cast feature, combined with the FILLER option of the COPY command, is very useful for loading data when data types aren’t playing nice.
Example:
dbadmin=> CREATE TABLE test (c INT);
CREATE TABLE
dbadmin=> \d test
List of Fields by Tables
Schema | Table | Column | Type | Size | Default | Not Null | Primary Key | Foreign Key
--------+-------+--------+------+------+---------+----------+-------------+-------------
public | test | c | int | 8 | | f | f |
(1 row)
dbadmin=> \! cat /home/dbadmin/test.txt
""
"1"
dbadmin=> COPY test
dbadmin-> FROM '/home/dbadmin/test.txt'
dbadmin-> ENCLOSED BY '"'
dbadmin-> REJECTED DATA TABLE test_bad;
Rows Loaded
-------------
1
(1 row)
dbadmin=> SELECT c
dbadmin-> FROM test;
c
---
1
(1 row)
dbadmin=> SELECT rejected_data, rejected_reason
dbadmin-> FROM test_bad;
rejected_data | rejected_reason
---------------+--------------------------------------------
"" | Invalid integer format '' for column 1 (c)
(1 row)
Vertica cannot implicitly cast the NULL value to an integer . But we can explicitly using the cast ::!.
dbadmin=> DROP TABLE test_bad;
DROP TABLE
dbadmin=> TRUNCATE TABLE test;
TRUNCATE TABLE
dbadmin=> COPY test (c_filler FILLER VARCHAR(1), c AS c_filler::!INT)
dbadmin-> FROM '/home/dbadmin/test.txt'
dbadmin-> ENCLOSED BY '"'
dbadmin-> REJECTED DATA TABLE test_bad;
Rows Loaded
-------------
2
(1 row)
dbadmin=> SELECT c
dbadmin-> FROM test;
c
---
1
(2 rows)
dbadmin=> SELECT rejected_data, rejected_reason
dbadmin-> FROM test_bad;
rejected_data | rejected_reason
---------------+--------------------------------------------
(0 rows)
Helpful Links:
https://www.vertica.com/docs/9.1.x/HTML/index.htm#Authoring/SQLReferenceManual/LanguageElements/Operators/CastFails.htm
https://www.vertica.com/docs/9.1.x/HTML/index.htm#Authoring/AdministratorsGuide/BulkLoadCOPY/IgnoringColumnsAndFieldsInTheLoadFile.htm
Have fun!
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