Question

I’m using RPostgreSQL to read and write data. Reading from any schema works perfectly, but I’m not able to write to non-public schemas. For example, the following code places a table in the public schema, with the name myschema.tablex

# write dataframe to postgres 
drv <- dbDriver("PostgreSQL")
con <- dbConnect(drv, host="localhost", user="postgres", password="zzzz", dbname="mydatabase", port="5436")
if(dbExistsTable(con,"myschema.tablex")) {
  dbRemoveTable(con,"myschema.vkt_tablex")}
dbWriteTable(con,"myschema.tablex", dataframe, row.names=F)

What I want to do, is to place the table tablex in the schema myschema. I’ve also tried to name the schema in the connection: dbname="mydatabase.myschema" and trying the argument schemaname which I saw referred to in an earlier bug.

None of these approaches work, so I’m wondering if there is another method that I can use.

Answer 1

The default schema where objects are created is defined by the search_path. One way would be to set it accordingly. For instance:

SET search_path = myschema, public;

I quote the manual:

When objects are created without specifying a particular target
schema, they will be placed in the first schema listed in the search
path. An error is reported if the search path is empty.

You can also make this the default for a role, so it is set automatically for every connection made by this role. More:

• How does the search_path influence identifier resolution and the "current schema"