Re: pg_dump why no indicator of completion

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.