If both FORMAT_NAME and TYPE are specified in a COPY command, what is the likely outcome?

• A. No effect
• B. Might result in unexpected behavior
• C. Guaranteed error
• D. It will ignore TYPE

Answer: (B)

Mixing a named file format with inline format options creates conflicting instructions for how to parse the input files. The system isn’t guaranteed to pick one source of truth over the other, so the behavior can vary in unpredictable ways. As a result, you might see differences in delimiter handling, header treatment, or other parsing details across runs or across files, depending on which setting takes effect. This is not typically a guaranteed error, nor is it a no-op or a guaranteed ignore of one option. The safer approach is to choose one method (either rely on the named format or specify inline options consistently) to avoid ambiguous behavior.