Re: Why pg_dump overwrites dump file?

On Tue, Oct 14, 2025 at 10:44:37AM +0200, Daniel Gustafsson wrote:
> Another inconsistency is that the documentation states this:
>
> "In this case the directory is created by pg_dump and must not exist
> before."
>
> ..which isn't true, since it will happily reuse an existing directory as long as
> it's empty, the comment in the code makes the intention clear:
>
> /*
> * create_or_open_dir
> *
> * This will create a new directory with the given dirname. If there is
> * already an empty directory with that name, then use it.
> */
>
> So regardless it seems we should something like the attached at least.
>
> --
> Daniel Gustafsson
>

> diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/ref/pg_dump.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/ref/pg_dump.sgml
> index fd4ecf01a0a..5ac3f3e8510 100644
> --- a/doc/src/sgml/ref/pg_dump.sgml
> +++ b/doc/src/sgml/ref/pg_dump.sgml
> @@ -297,8 +297,8 @@ PostgreSQL documentation
> file based output formats, in which case the standard output is used.
> It must be given for the directory output format however, where it
> specifies the target directory instead of a file. In this case the
> - directory is created by <command>pg_dump</command> and must not exist
> - before.
> + directory is created by <command>pg_dump</command> unless the directory
> + exist and is empty.
> </para>
> </listitem>
> </varlistentry>

Uh, Daniel, are you going to make this change?

--
Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> https://momjian.us
EDB https://enterprisedb.com

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