Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 12:13:48 -0700
From: David Fetter <david@fetter.org>
To: Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net>
Cc: Andreas Pflug <pgadmin@pse-consulting.de>,
	Chris Browne <cbbrowne@acm.org>, pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Possible TODO item: copy to/from pipe
Message-ID: <20060531191348.GK27220@fetter.org>
References: 
 <E7F85A1B5FF8D44C8A1AF6885BC9A0E4013885E9@ratbert.vale-housing.co.uk>
	<447DC5B4.4080407@pse-consulting.de>
	<60ac8yt74e.fsf@dba2.int.libertyrms.com>
	<447DDCC3.7040304@pse-consulting.de>
	<447DE485.6040402@dunslane.net>
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On Wed, May 31, 2006 at 02:46:29PM -0400, Andrew Dunstan wrote:

> I wish somebody would explain to me the compelling use case for
> this.

As with "in-place upgrades,"[1] the compelling use case is being short
on disk space.  For somebody with a multi-TB (or whatever figure
sounds big this week) PostgreSQL database, it may be impossible to get
space for twice or more that.  Giving people the option to stream
COPYs through a pipe would alleviate a lot of pain.

Cheers,
D

[1]  A feature people seem to think we don't need, although convincing
cases have been made for it.
-- 
David Fetter <david@fetter.org> http://fetter.org/
phone: +1 415 235 3778        AIM: dfetter666
                              Skype: davidfetter

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