Re: shrinking physical space used

Bopolissimus Platypus Jr <bopolissimus(dot)lists(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> the reason i can't do dump, initdb, restore is: I'm working with postgresql
> 7.1.x

This is your problem right here :-(. You should be making every effort
to get updated sooner, not later. Spending time on workarounds for 7.1
limitations is silly when you could be putting that effort into
migrating sooner.

Others already mentioned that you should try REINDEX or TRUNCATE so that
you can shrink the indexes as well as the table. I don't recall if
either of those were available in 7.1 though --- you might have to
resort to dropping and recreating the indexes.

> the database i'm working on has problems with pg_dump and restoring a
> dump because of recursive definitions (function selects from a table,
> table has a default or constraint referring to the function, neither can be
> created when the dump is restored because the other isn't defined yet).

This should work with the current pg_dump. Could we see a concrete
example where it doesn't work? (Note: "works" is defined as "loads
into 8.0".)

regards, tom lane