Feedback-ID: ia2694551:Fastmail
Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2025 13:11:05 +0200
From: =?utf-8?Q?=C3=81lvaro?= Herrera <alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org>
To: Mahendra Singh Thalor <mahi6run@gmail.com>
Cc: Noah Misch <noah@leadboat.com>, Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net>,
	jian he <jian.universality@gmail.com>, Srinath Reddy <srinath2133@gmail.com>,
	pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Non-text mode for pg_dumpall
Message-ID: <202507171111.uo3vvgt6jp6j@alvherre.pgsql>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
In-Reply-To: 
 <CAKYtNAqXTvfAw-y4FHvzprg72cFrC63cge9xMVDO_R4=NHc5rA@mail.gmail.com>
Archived-At: 
 <https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/202507171111.uo3vvgt6jp6j%40alvherre.pgsql>
Precedence: bulk

On 2025-Jul-17, Mahendra Singh Thalor wrote:

> To pg_restore, we are giving a dump of pg_dumpall which has a
> global.dat file and we have drop commands in the global.dat file so
> when we are using 'globals-only', we are dropping databases as we have
> DROP commands.
> As of now, we don't have any filter for global.dat file in restore. If
> a user wants to restore only globals(without droping db), then they
> should use 'globals-only' in pg_dumpall.
> Or if we don't want to DROP databases by global.dat file, then we
> should add a filter in pg_restore (hard to implement as we have SQL
> commands in global.dat file). 

I think dropping database is dangerous and makes no practical sense;
doing it renders pg_dumpall --clean completely unusable.  You're arguing
from the point of view of ease of implementation, but that doesn't help
users.  

> I think, for this case, we can do some
> more doc changes.
> Example: pg_restore --globals-only : this will restore the global.dat
> file(including all drop commands). It might drop databases if any drop
> commands.

I don't think doc changes are useful.

-- 
Álvaro Herrera               48°01'N 7°57'E  —  https://www.EnterpriseDB.com/
"I love the Postgres community. It's all about doing things _properly_. :-)"
(David Garamond)