I am new to Postgresql. I'm trying to load tables from SQLServer bcp export, comma delimited. I'm loading datetime datatype into timestamp. I've loaded one table successfully and failed on others with the same error:
Bad timestamp external representation ''.

The table that loaded successfully had datetime data in the exact same format as
this one. I have taken this file apart and successfully loaded it one or two fields at a time, including the datetime fields (into timestamp) but it will not load as is. I've changed the delimiter to \t and tried \. at the end. I've changed the field types from timestamp to char(25) and it loaded fine. I tried to create another table and cast to timestamp from char. That's not allowed.

Any help will be appreciated.

Here is the version, the table description, the COPY stmt with error, and the input file(it's only one row).

ems=# select version();
PostgreSQL 7.3.4 on i686-pc-linux-gnu, compiled by GCC gcc (GCC) 3.3.1 (SuSE Linux)

ems=# \d edadvisor_char;
Table "public.edadvisor_char"

advisor1 | character varying(60)
whenent1 | timestamp without time zone
advisor2 | character varying(60)
whenent2 | timestamp without time zone
advisor3 | character varying(60)
whenent3 | timestamp without time zone
advkey | character(1)
whenchange | timestamp without time zone
bhhwhenchange | timestamp without time zone
bmhwhenchange | timestamp without time zone
kmcwhenchange | timestamp without time zone
merwhenchange | timestamp without time zone
sjhwhenchange | timestamp without time zone


ems=# copy edadvisor_char from '/home/xxxxxx/test_data.txt' using delimiters ',';
ERROR: copy: line 1, Bad timestamp external representation ''
ems=#

****** test_data.txt ********
Off E.D. Rotation,2004-09-01 00:00:01.000,testing,2004-09-01 00:00:06.000,,,1,2004-09-02 12:56:43.000,2004-08-05 15:13:10.000,2004-08-05 14:29:01.000,2004-08-05 14:57:32.000,2004-08-05 13:49:46.000,2004-08-06 14:05:07.000

On Wed, 10 Nov 2004, Sharon Schooley wrote:

Breaking it up:
advisor1
whenent3 is getting an empty string for its date and that's not allowed.
If you want empty strings in the file to be treated as null, you can use
NULL AS ''.

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