Re: pg_dump and pg_restore and foreign keys

Tore Halvorsen <tore(dot)halvorsen(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> I'm trying to restore a database where adding foreign key constraints takes
> most of the time. Does there exist a simple way to make either pg_dump or
> pg_restore handle them as "not valid", and defer the validation.

No. It's kind of a neat idea perhaps, but it's not there. You could

* use parallel pg_restore to alleviate the pain, or

* use pg_restore's -l and -L switches to strip out the FKs altogether,
and then re-add them manually afterwards.

Or there's always

* hack the pg_dump source code to include NOT VALID. While a real
feature patch that made this optional would be a bit complicated,
doing it unconditionally should be a one-line change.

regards, tom lane