Re: PostgreSQL file system based restore from Linux to Windows

On 3 Jan 2015 12:54 am, Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Jan  2, 2015 at 06:56:47PM +0800, Craig Ringer wrote:
> > On 12/31/2014 02:28 PM, Tom Lane wrote:
> > > It might happen to work, if you're talking the same Intel-ish CPU type
> > > on both ends ... but if it fails, don't call us.
> >
> > It might for 32-bit, but I'm pretty sure it's not going to for 64-bit
> > because Windows is LLP64 and Linux is LP64, so sizeof(long) differs. See
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64-bit_computing .
> >
> > (Yet another area where Windows is annoyingly and pointlessly different,
> > like use of UTF16 instead of UTF-8, though at least there they have the
> > excuse of doing it first.)
> >
> > Just use a Linux box or a virtual machine to start a copy of the
> > database, then pg_dump -Fc it and pg_restore to a new instance on the
> > Windows box.
>
> I would also worry about collation differences between Linux and
> Windows.  We have seen index problems with OS upgrades causing
> mismatches, so I assume Windows and Linux might have even larger
> mismatches.   We have discussed a way to test for mismatches but have
> no solution yet.

Good point. In fact, the encoding names on Windows are different, as is the set of available encodings. That'd probably scuttle any attempt to use a *nix DB on Windows at least if it wasn't utf-8.