Re: Upgrading 8.2 to 8.4: pg_restore: did not find magic string in file header\n

Adrian Klaver <adrian(dot)klaver(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> On Friday 19 November 2010 8:29:38 am Tom Lane wrote:
>> It sounds like you're trying to use pg_restore on a plain-text (SQL
>> script) dump file. Run it through psql, instead.

> Out of curiosity what would trigger this? When I have tried to run a
> plain text file through pg_restore I get:

> aklaver(at)tucker:~$ pg_restore -d test -U postgres test.sql
> pg_restore: [archiver] input file does not appear to be a valid archive

Yeah, that's what you get if you let pg_restore try to determine the
file type. If you tell it you know that the file is an archive (-Fc)
then it believes you, and you get the lower-level failure.

I'm not real sure why we honor -Fc and -Ft in pg_restore anyway;
skipping the file type check couldn't possibly save enough to be
worth the trouble ...

regards, tom lane