Re: pg_dump ORDER BY

> Hm, as both databases are of the same structure, this shouldn't be a
> problem. My problem is that updated rows in a table will appear at the
> bottom of the table if not ordered. That leads to falsealarms of diff
> :(

Perhaps either:

(1) sort the dumped output (assuming you have a sortable column
as the first dumped column). You could cut the file into pieces a do
this, or in emacs, narrow-to-region of the COPY and sort that (and
even do diff in emacs...)

or

(2) CLUSTER your tables to your primary key. This will force that
sort order back onto them, and, according to my test, will dump
them in the primary key order. (CLUSTER has some drawbacks, like
dropping ref integrity & such. A better solution is:

SELECT * INTO foo_temp FROM foo ORDER BY primarykeycolumn;

TRUNCATE foo;

INSERT INTO foo SELECT * FROM foo_temp;

This preserves triggers, ref.int., etc., and will put things physically
in the right order. (The TRUNCATE won't call any delete triggers you
have, but the INSERT will, so if you log/handle inserts in a special
way, this might fill up your log/take some time.) )

If you get better advice that's not cross posted to the list, please
do so. I'd be interested in hearing other solutions.
--
Joel Burton, Director of Information Systems -*- jburton(at)scw(dot)org
Support Center of Washington (www.scw.org)