Re: pg_dump why no indicator of completion

Ron,

Are you writing that pg_dump is unfit for purpose and that I should be
using a commercial backup solution instead?

rik.

On Mon, May 1, 2023 at 9:43 AM Ron <ronljohnsonjr(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:

>
>
> On 5/1/23 07:56, richard coleman wrote:
>
> Ron,
> So what you are saying is that I have to write a shell script around
> pg_dump to catch the exit code of pg_dump since the developers of pg_dump
> didn't have pg_dump simply write an exit message?
>
> Since multiple pg_dump commands are often run at the same command prompt,
> and they can take hours, if not days to run,
>
>
> Running a days-long pg_dump at any time except special occasions isn't
> very wise. Especially from a command prompt.
>
> Binary backup/restore programs are *much* faster (if for no other reason
> than they let you do incremental and differential backups).
>
> and there are a myriad of other commands the will be run in the interim,
> any exit code generated by pg_dump with be lost in the flotsam and jetsam
> of the multitude of exit codes created by every other command run between
> the calling of pg_dump and it's eventual termination. It could have
> completed successfully, crashed, been killed, etc.
>
> Or am I mistaken?
>
> thanks,
> rik.
>
> On Sun, Apr 30, 2023 at 11:28 PM Ron <ronljohnsonjr(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>
>> On 4/30/23 19:18, richard coleman wrote:
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I've been working with pg_dump and one thing that's always struck me as
>> strange is that there never seems to be an indication in the log that the
>> pg_dump process completed successfully.
>>
>> For example, I've been running a bunch of backups with pg_dump in
>> directory mode with multiple jobs. When I come back several hours later
>> there are no pg_dump processes running. The log is filled with:
>>
>> dumping contents of foo
>> finished item 123456 of TABLE DATA bar
>> etc.
>>
>>
>> Other than trying to restore the multi terabyte database somewhere else
>> is there any way to know that it actually finished successfully?
>>
>> Why doesn't pg_dump add a line in the output like:
>>
>> pg_backup finished
>>
>> when it's completed successfully?
>>
>> This seems like a terrible oversight.
>>
>> Am I missing something obvious?
>>
>>
>> "They" expect you to do the Unix Thing and check $?. Thus, that's what I
>> do; any non-zero value generates an email with a scary subject line, the
>> specifics of which are based on the exact code value. I'm not near my work
>> computer; otherwise I'd share them with you.
>>
>> --
>> Born in Arizona, moved to Babylonia.
>>
>
> --
> Born in Arizona, moved to Babylonia.
>