Re: Bad pg_dump error message

Jeff Janes <jeff(dot)janes(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 at 5:27 PM, Mike Christensen <mike(at)kitchenpc(dot)com> wrote:
>> Is there something that can be done smarter with this error message?
>>
>> pg_dump: dumping contents of table pages
>> pg_dump: [tar archiver] archive member too large for tar format
>> pg_dump: *** aborted because of error

> There is no efficient way for it to know for certain in advance how
> much space the data will take, until it has seen the data. Perhaps it
> could make an estimate, but that could suffer from both false
> positives and false negatives.

Maybe the docs should warn people away from tar format more vigorously.
Unless you actually have a reason to disassemble the archive with tar,
that format has no redeeming social value that I can see, and it
definitely has gotchas. (This isn't the only one, IIRC.)

regards, tom lane