pg_dump new version

Hello,

May I take a lull between PG releases to ask an upgrade Q? Documentation and people often recommend that when doing a major version upgrade, to dump data from the old server with the new version of pg_dump, since the new pg_dump may have bugfixes not available to the old.

I've never done this simply because it's not clear from the docs how to - perhaps it's platform dependant. The upgrade doc
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.4/interactive/install-upgrading.html
is a very clear step by step procedure to follow with the exception of

'To make the backup, you can use the pg_dumpall command from the version you are currently running. For best results, however, try to use the pg_dumpall command fromPostgreSQL 8.4.2, since this version contains bug fixes and improvements over older versions. While this advice might seem idiosyncratic since you haven't installed the new version yet, it is advisable to follow it if you plan to install the new version in parallel with the old version'.

So for someone using RPM packages to install Postgres, what's the recommended sequence to do this?

Regards
Oliver Kohll
www.agilebase.co.uk