On 2009-09-29, Alan Hodgson <ahodgson@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Tuesday 29 September 2009, Sam Mason <sam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> ?? I'm not sure what you're implying about the semantics here, but it >> doesn't seem right. COPY doesn't somehow break out of ACID semantics, >> it's only an *optimization* that allows you to get large quantities of >> data into the database faster. The main reason it's faster is because >> parsing CSV data is easier than parsing SQL. >> >> At least I think that's the only difference; anybody know better? > > I think a big reason is also that the client can stream the data without > waiting for a network round trip ack on every statement. a single insert statement can insert many rows. the win with copy is more that the data part can be parsed one record at a time. whereas for the insert the whole must be parsed, also the quoting rules are simpler for CSV or pg's tab-delimted format. -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
