Re: pg_dump new feature: exporting functions only. Bad or good idea ?

On Sat, Mar 27, 2021 at 6:23 AM Lætitia Avrot <laetitia(dot)avrot(at)gmail(dot)com>
wrote:

> Hello,
>
> You'll find enclosed the first version of my patch.
>

I tested a couple simple use cases. This is great, Thank you!

> I did not include the possibility of using a file to list tables to be
> exported as Tom suggested because I genuinely think it is a totally
> different matter. It does not mean I'm not open to the possibility, it just
> felt weird.
>
> The patch allows using a `--functions-only` flag in `pg_dump` to export
> only functions and stored procedures. My code was build and passed tests on
> the last master branch of the PostgreSQL project. I added regression tests.
> Documentation has been updated too and generation of the documentation
> (HTML, man page, pdf in A4 and letter US format) has been tested
> successfully.
>
> I did not add a warning in the documentation that the file provided might
> end up in a not restorable file or in a file restoring broken functions or
> procedures. Do you think I should?
>

The docs for both the --table and --schema options do warn about this. On
the other hand, --data-only has no such warning. I'd lean towards matching
--data-only for this.

>
> I don't know if this patch has any impact on performance. I guess that
> adding 4 if statements will slow down `pg_dump` a little bit.
>
> Have a nice day,
>
> Lætitia
>

Using --functions-only along with --table=<name> does not error out and
warn the user, instead it creates a dump containing only the SET commands.
An error similar to using --functions-only along with --data-only seems
like a good idea.

Cheers,

*Ryan Lambert*
RustProof Labs