Re: Purpose of pg_dump tar archive format?

Adrian Klaver <adrian(dot)klaver(at)aklaver(dot)com> writes:
> If you don't need the tar format then don't use it.

Indeed. FTR, I think the original motivation for tar format was to
have a "standard" structured output format that could be manipulated
with tools other than pg_restore. Years later, we added the directory
format which could be argued to serve the same purpose. But nobody
particularly wanted to remove the tar functionality, especially since
the two were made to be compatible:

commit 7f508f1c6b515df66d27f860b2faa7b5761fa55d
Author: Heikki Linnakangas <heikki(dot)linnakangas(at)iki(dot)fi>
Date: Sun Jan 23 23:10:15 2011 +0200

Add 'directory' format to pg_dump. The new directory format is compatible
with the 'tar' format, in that untarring a tar format archive produces a
valid directory format archive.

regards, tom lane