Re: Using many pg_dump in pgAdmin (aka Re : Re : pg_dump: ALTER SEQUENCE ... OWNED in 8.1)

Laurent ROCHE a écrit :
> Just to clarify what I mean.
> I am quite happy (or should I say: not too unhappy) to juggle with different version of pg_dump in my scripts.
> If that's the way it has to be, that's the way it has to be.
> See point A, below.
>
> But to me pgAdmin is a tool that must be easy to use.
> Hence, as it seems the rule of pg_dump usage is "if I connect to 8.1 server, I must use pg_dump 8.1; if I connect to a 8.2 server, I must use a 8.2 server; ...". There should be an option for doing that automatically: I should not need to switch from a pg_dump to another when I switch servers.
>

That's not strictly right.

If you want a backup, you also want to restore it. And this is the real
question. On which release do you want to restore it ? you can dump a
7.4 database with a 8.0 pg_dump and you will probably be able to restore
it on a 8.2 database. But there's good chance you won't be able to
restore it on a 7.4 database.

Why ? Just because each new release adds new syntax specifics that older
releases don't understand.

So, it's better to have the same release on the restored database and
the pg_dump. You can use an older release, there's a good chance it will
work. You can (try to) restore it on an older release, but you'll need
luck to restore it succesfully.

> So what I have in mind is:
> - default installation: use pgAdmin pg_dump
> - activate multi-pg_dump mode: give a directory where there's a tree with a directory for each server version used. And each directory contains the matching (to the directory name) pg_dump version.
>

This is not so easy. You don't choose pg_dump on the release of the
saved database, but on the restored one.

> This way, the standard install is the same.
> But if I need to connect to different servers with different versions, I don't need to keep switching from one pg_dump to another all the time: pgAdmin will do it for me.
> I understand that's quite a lot of work to be done, but on a user perspective, that's the painless of doing it ... well, at least on my humble opinion, but I assume other users might have other views on the subject.
>

I agree pgAdmin should let the users choose the pg_dump binary they
want, but unfortunately, pgAdmin can't say which release will be the
good one.

I'm sorry, I'm sure my english is really bad this time. Perhaps Dave can
explain a bit better than I did.

Regards.

--
Guillaume.
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