Re: Non-text mode for pg_dumpall

On Mon, Jun 10, 2024 at 4:14 PM Nathan Bossart <nathandbossart(at)gmail(dot)com>
wrote:

> On Mon, Jun 10, 2024 at 08:58:49AM -0400, Andrew Dunstan wrote:
> > Tom and Nathan opined recently that providing for non-text mode for
> > pg_dumpall would be a Good Thing (TM). Not having it has been a
> > long-standing complaint, so I've decided to give it a go.
>
> Thank you!
>

Indeed, this has been quite annoying!

> I think we would need to restrict it to directory mode, at least to begin
> > with. I would have a toc.dat with a different magic block (say "PGGLO"
> > instead of "PGDMP") containing the global entries (roles, tablespaces,
> > databases). Then for each database there would be a subdirectory (named
> for
> > its toc entry) with a standard directory mode dump for that database.
> These
> > could be generated in parallel (possibly by pg_dumpall calling pg_dump
> for
> > each database). pg_restore on detecting a global type toc.data would
> restore
> > the globals and then each of the databases (again possibly in parallel).
>
> I'm curious why we couldn't also support the "custom" format.
>

Or maybe even a combo - a directory of custom format files? Plus that one
special file being globals? I'd say that's what most use cases I've seen
would prefer.

--
Magnus Hagander
Me: https://www.hagander.net/ <http://www.hagander.net/>
Work: https://www.redpill-linpro.com/ <http://www.redpill-linpro.com/>