Re: pg_dumpall forces plain text format

Andrew Kohlsmith wrote:
> > > Is there a particular reason why plain text is forced?
> > Because pg_dumpall is producing a script file.
> > This is obviously not optimal, but it's not very clear how to do better.
>
> Agreed. :-)
>
> I notice that pg_dumpall just uses a query to grab a list of databases and
> some information about them and then cycles through them and runs pg_dump for
> each one to dump it. I could easily do this myself but that would mean that
> both pg_dumpall and whatever method I come up with do not guarantee
> referential integrity across databases (I'm specifically thinking about
> foreign keys).
>
> Now IIRC, Postgres doesn't allow foreign keys across databases so this point
> is moot at this time. Is there a way to start a transaction at the start of
> the dump and hold it throughout successive connections, finally releasing it
> at the end? Or is that on the TODO for whenever foreign keys can be across
> databases?

That is far off our TODO radar, perhaps never. Sorry.

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