Backup & Restore a database in PostgreSQL

Hi All,

I am also a newbie here! I need to backup a database and restore it into the target machine where the database may already present or might not. If it exists, I want the "restore" command to overwrite, otherwise, just create a new one.

I tried using the commands:
(1) BACKUP: pg_dump -h localhost -U username db > dump_file.out;
RESTORE: pg_dump -h localhost -U username db < dump_file.out;
(2) BACKUP:
pg_dump -h localhost -U username -Ft db > dump_file.tar;
RESTORE:
pg_restore -h localhost -U username -d db dump_file.tar;

"Backup" worked perfect in the above 2 scenarios whereas "restore" didn't yield the exact results. For testing it, I took the back-up and intentionally deleted few records in a table. I then restored the database in the same machine where the database exists. I expected the deleted records to come back as I was restoring the one which has the complete data. It didn't yield proper results. And I wonder why..

I believe I might be doing something marginally wrong. I would appreciate if any geek over here to guide me the "restore" command properly.

Thanks in advance,
Siva.

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