COPY command postgres syntax error

Question

I am trying to export from a large postgres 8.1 table a couple of rows using

copy (select * from tablename limit 100) to 'absolute path to file';

but I get

ERROR:  syntax error at or near "(" at character 6.

Any ideas what might be going wrong ? By the way I am not super user in the database but I believe that would have produced a different kind of error. If you have any other idea to dump a couple of rows from SQL (in a format to insert them easily, without coding) other than using copy I open to suggestions.

Answer 1

To overcome the shortcoming of version 8.1 you can create a TEMPORARY TABLE and use it in COPY TO:

CREATE TEMP TABLE t_tmp AS
SELECT * FROM tablename LIMIT 100;

COPY t_tmp TO '/absolute/path/to/file';

Temp. tables are dropped at the end of a session automatically. If you want to keep the connection open you could drop the table explicitly or wrap it in a transaction which you roll back (what's already written to the file is never rolled back.)

BEGIN;
CREATE ...;
COPY ...;
ROLLBACK;

Or you upgrade to a more recent version, which would be a very good idea in general.
PostgreSQL 8.1 has reached end of life in Nov. 2010.