Re: BUG #5488: pg_dump does not quote column names -> pg_restore may fail when upgrading

Robert Haas wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 9:35 AM, Stefan Kaltenbrunner
> <stefan(at)kaltenbrunner(dot)cc> wrote:
>>> I do agree that the human readability of pg_dump is an asset in many
>>> situations - I have often dumped out the DDL for particular objects
>>> just to look at it, for example. However, I emphatically do NOT agree
>>> that leaving someone with a 500MB dump file (or, for some people on
>>> this list, a whole heck of a lot larger than that) that has to be
>>> manually edited to reload is a useful behavior. It's a huge pain in
>>> the neck.
>> well that's why we recommend to use the new version of pg_dump to dump the
>> old cluster if the intention is an upgrade not sure that is any more pain
>> than manually hacking the dump...
>
> Maybe so, but I don't give either method high marks for convenience.
> Suppose I have a server running 8.2 and I'm going to wipe it and
> install the latest version of $DISTRIBUTION which bundles 8.4. What
> our current policy essentially means is that I have to get 8.4 running
> on the old server before I wipe it (presumably compiling by hand,
> since the old version of the distro doesn't ship it), or else manually
> frobnicate the dump after I wipe it, or else find another server
> someplace to install 8.4 on and run the dump there prior to the OS
> upgrade. This really sucks. It's a huge pain in the tail, especially
> for people who aren't used to compiling PG from source at the drop of
> a hat.

that's actually a limitation of the distribution packaging. Debian (and
ubuntu) have solved that issue already and I believe Devrim is working
on fixing that for the rpms as well.

>
> I'm sure someone will tell me my system administration practices suck,
> but people do these kinds of things, in real life, all the time.
> Maybe if we all had an IQ of 170 and an infinite hardware budget we
> wouldn't, but my IQ is only 169. :-)
>

ESXi is free, so is xen, kvm, virtualbox and whatnot :)

Stefan