MS SQL 7.0 to PostgreSQL 7.1

[Ryan C. Bonham]

Hi,

I am looking at PostgreSQL as an alternative to Microsoft SQL. I have a
database I would like to move to PostgreSQL to test how long it will take to
move files, how to best change our software to access Postgre, etc.. I have
PostgreSQL setup on a Test machine running Redhat 7.1. I have Postgre
successfully installed and I also have phpPgadmin installed and configured.
I have created a database, and a table, just trying to get use to Postgre.
My question is what is the best way to import my data from MS SQL. I
installed the ODBC Drivers and tried exporting using the MS import/export
tool.. It successfully creates the tables, but fails to import any data,
with a error stating that the relationship doesn't exist. So there goes the
easy route and MS POS tool.. What's the correct way of doing this?? Thanks
in advance

Ryan C. Bonham

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[Brent R. Matzelle]

--- "Ryan C. Bonham" <Ry...@srfarms.com> wrote:
> My question is what is the best way to import my data from MS
> SQL. I
> installed the ODBC Drivers and tried exporting using the MS
> import/export
> tool.. It successfully creates the tables, but fails to import
> any data,
> with a error stating that the relationship doesn't exist. So
> there goes the
> easy route and MS POS tool.. What's the correct way of doing
> this?? Thanks
> in advance

First, verify that all of the data types of the old SQL Server
tables were correctly converted to Postgres. Then to transfer
the rest of the data over use the MS bulk copy (bcp) tool or the
export tool (MSSQL 7 or higher I believe) to create
tab-delimited dump files for each table. Then you must add
this to the beginning of each dump file: { COPY "table_name"
FROM stdin; } And add a { \. } at the end of the dump file.
Then you can use { psql -f table_name.dump } to import the data
from the dump files.

Brent

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[Jeff Eckermann]

Also:
* Watch out for embedded tabs and carriage returns in your data: these
will cause problems during or after your COPY into PostgreSQL.
* Check the value used in the exported file to represent NULL values
(could be an empty string, or "NULL", or something else), and use that in
your COPY statement: "COPY table from stdin with null as 'whatever';"

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[Gordon Runkle]

In article <08CD1781F85AD4118E0800A0C9B8580B094A74@NEZU>, "Jeff Eckermann"
<jecke...@verio.net> wrote:

> Also:
> * Watch out for embedded tabs and carriage returns in your data: these
> will cause problems during or after your COPY into PostgreSQL. * Check
> the value used in the exported file to represent NULL values (could be
> an empty string, or "NULL", or something else), and use that in your
> COPY statement: "COPY table from stdin with null as 'whatever';"

My experience is that MSSQL7 will export (bcp) NULLs
as an ASCII zero character. Not pretty. You'll want
to put together a little PERL script to fix that.

Gordon.
--
It doesn't get any easier, you just go faster.
-- Greg LeMond