Re: backup postgres database

Hi Martin!

Ah, stupid me, you are right. Even if one has ALL create statements
within the dump, including the "create database", one must connect to a
database to be able to run the commands within the dump.

If in doubt, which database to use, one should always be able to
connect to database "template1" without great possibilities to damage
something (except one connects as user postgres) and run the dumped
commands, because "template1" is always there in a postgres
installation. But please be sure not to insert your tables into
template1, because everything what is in this database is used as
template for every new database! Just use it as a "connection database"
and run some commands similiar to

Create Database "my_db";
\connect my_db my_username

as the first commands of the dump (this is what "pg_dump -C <my_db>"
gives you)!

Another reason to carefully study the manpages... ;-)

Greetings, Frank.

On 13-Mar-02 Martín Marqués sat down, thought for a long time and then
wrote:
> On Mié 13 Mar 2002 15:51, you wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> pg_dump and psql are your friends.
>>
>> Dump the database with pg_dump, take the file and insert it into
>> psql
>> on the other machine. Details are covered in the manpages of these
>> programs.
>>
>> Crude (without options): pg_dump your_db > your_db.dump
>> psql < your_db.dump
>
> This will almost always give an error (even though lots of docs have
> this
> sintaxis). That's because you didn't tell psql which database to
> connect to,
> so he'll try to connect to a database with the name of the user (in
> my case,
> that would be martin, or postgres in the case of administration
> duties).
>
> My 2 cents
>
> --
> Porqué usar una base de datos relacional cualquiera,
> si podés usar PostgreSQL?
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> Martín Marqués | mmarques(at)unl(dot)edu(dot)ar
> Programador, Administrador, DBA | Centro de Telematica
> Universidad Nacional
> del Litoral
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>
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--
Frank Finner

And now there is no turning back at all.
(M. Moorcock, "Elric Of Melnibone")"