Re: pg_dump --with-* options

On Thu, Jun 12, 2025 at 04:39:00PM -0400, Corey Huinker wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 12, 2025 at 4:22 PM Nathan Bossart <nathandbossart(at)gmail(dot)com>
> wrote:
>> I do think this is useful functionality, I only suggested removing it
>> because AFAICT it is redundant, i.e., you can accomplish the same thing
>> with --with-statistics --no-schema --no-data. It seems like we're trying
>> to avoid having multiple ways to do the same thing.
>
> By that same argument, we should remove --schema-only and --data-only as
> well. I think we shouldn't because those two options have proved very
> convenient for users and they convey clear intent to the person reading the
> script, and I believe that --statistics-only will prove the same over time.

Those predate v18, so while might be able to mark them deprecated, I doubt
we'd remove them anytime soon.

FWIW I don't have a tremendously strong opinion about --statistics-only.
I'd probably vote to remove it because 1) it's redundant, 2) once you add
an option, it's hard to remove it, and 3) pg_dump already has so many
options. But I won't cry too hard if we keep it around.

--
nathan