You must have select access on any table whose values are read by COPY , and either insert or update access to a table into which values are being inserted by COPY . The backend also needs appropriate Unix permissions for any file read or written by COPY . If multiple characters are specified in the delimiter string, only the first character is used. COPY neither invokes rules nor acts on column defaults. It does invoke triggers, however.
COPY stops operation at the first error.
This should not lead to problems in the event of a COPY FROM , but the target relation will, of course, be partially modified in a COPY TO . In general, the full pathname as it would appear to the backend server machine should be used when specifying files to be copied. Files used as arguments to COPY must reside on or be accessible to the database server machine by being either on local disks or on a networked file system. The attribute values themselves are strings generated by the output function associated with each attribute type. The oid is placed on the beginning of the line if WITH OIDS is specified.