syntax error at or near "(" COPY FROM WITH ( FORMAT csv, DELIMITER E'\t', QUOTE '*', HEADER false, ENCODING 'UTF8')

Question

I'm Importing data from a txt file This is the table

CREATE TABLE test.geonames_load(geonameid INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,
  name VARCHAR(200),
  asciiname VARCHAR(200),
  alternatenames VARCHAR,
  latitude FLOAT8,
  longitude FLOAT8,
  feature_class char(1),
  feature_code VARCHAR(10),
  country_code VARCHAR(2), 
  cc2 VARCHAR(60),
  admin1 VARCHAR(20),
  admin2 VARCHAR(80),
  admin3 VARCHAR(20),
  admin4 VARCHAR(20),
  population INTEGER,
  elevation INTEGER,
  dem INTEGER,
  timezone VARCHAR(40),
  modification VARCHAR(18)
);

After I tried to copy from a txt file

COPY test.geonames_load FROM 'C:Program Files/PostgreSQL/8.4/data/US/US.txt' WITH (
  FORMAT csv,
  DELIMITER E'\t',
  QUOTE '*',
  HEADER false,
  ENCODING 'UTF8'
);

But it shows me an Error

ERROR: syntax error at or near "("
LINE 1: ... FROM 'C:Program Files/PostgreSQL/8.4/data/US/US.txt' WITH (
                                                                      ^
********** Error **********

ERROR: syntax error at or near "("
SQL State: 42601
Character: 83

Answer 1

The syntax of COPY has changed quite a bit in version 9.0 compared to 8.4

Assuming you're using version 8.4, based on this .../PostgreSQL/8.4/... path, the syntax that applies is documented here:

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.4/static/sql-copy.html

And it does not allow any parenthesis after the WITH keyword that appeared in 9.0, nor the ENCODING option that appeared in 9.1

It looks like you need to adapt the statement to your exact version of PostgreSQL.