Thread: pg_dump & blobs - editable dump?
I have been speaking to Pavel about pg_dump support of blobs, and he thinks
it is important to allow for some kind of human-readable version of the
dump to be created.
My guess is that this will involve a plain text schema dump, followed by
all BLOBs in separate files, and a script to load them. To implement this
I'll obviosly need to be passed a directory/file location for the script
since I can't pipe seperate files to stdout.
I'd be interested in knowing what features people think are important in
this kind of format; what do you need to do with the blob files, what do
peple want to edit, etc etc.
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Philip Warner wrote: > My guess is that this will involve a plain text schema dump, followed by > all BLOBs in separate files, and a script to load them. To implement this > I'll obviosly need to be passed a directory/file location for the script > since I can't pipe seperate files to stdout. uuencode the blobs, perhaps, using a shar-like format? -- Lamar Owen WGCR Internet Radio 1 Peter 4:11
At 10:13 12/07/00 -0400, Lamar Owen wrote:
>Philip Warner wrote:
>> My guess is that this will involve a plain text schema dump, followed by
>> all BLOBs in separate files, and a script to load them. To implement this
>> I'll obviosly need to be passed a directory/file location for the script
>> since I can't pipe seperate files to stdout.
>
>uuencode the blobs, perhaps, using a shar-like format?
For the human readable version, the request was to make it editable and
sendable to psql. As a result the BLOBs need to be in their binary format
OR psql needs to support BLOB import from stdin. As a first pass I was
hoping for the simple 'dump them into files' solution.
What I am confused by is what people actually want to do with a load of
BLOBs sitting in a directory; if there are specific needs, then I'd also
like to cater for them in the custom file formats.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Philip Warner | __---_____
Albatross Consulting Pty. Ltd. |----/ - \
(A.C.N. 008 659 498) | /(@) ______---_
Tel: (+61) 0500 83 82 81 | _________ \
Fax: (+61) 0500 83 82 82 | ___________ |
Http://www.rhyme.com.au | / \|
| --________--
PGP key available upon request, | /
and from pgp5.ai.mit.edu:11371 |/
Philip Warner wrote: > At 10:13 12/07/00 -0400, Lamar Owen wrote: > >Philip Warner wrote: > >> I'll obviosly need to be passed a directory/file location for the script > >> since I can't pipe seperate files to stdout. > > > >uuencode the blobs, perhaps, using a shar-like format? > For the human readable version, the request was to make it editable and > sendable to psql. As a result the BLOBs need to be in their binary format > OR psql needs to support BLOB import from stdin. As a first pass I was > hoping for the simple 'dump them into files' solution. If in a shell archive format, shouldn't it be easy enough for pg_restore to be made to do the stdin-to-blob thing (through whatever mechanisms you're already using to get the blob back in in the first place, combined with some steering/deshar-ing/uudecoding logic)? The backup could even be made 'self-extracting' as shars usually are... :-) Of course, you then have to be on the watch for the usual shar trojans... If we simply know that the backup cannot be sent to psql, but a deshar-ed version can have the schema sent to psql, would that ameliorate most concerns? -- Lamar Owen WGCR Internet Radio 1 Peter 4:11
At 10:38 12/07/00 -0400, Lamar Owen wrote:
>
>If we simply know that the backup cannot be sent to psql, but a
>deshar-ed version can have the schema sent to psql, would that
>ameliorate most concerns?
>
In the current version
pg_restore --schema
will send the schema to stdout
Is that sufficient? Or are you strictly interested in the text output side
of things?
----------------------------------------------------------------
Philip Warner | __---_____
Albatross Consulting Pty. Ltd. |----/ - \
(A.C.N. 008 659 498) | /(@) ______---_
Tel: (+61) 0500 83 82 81 | _________ \
Fax: (+61) 0500 83 82 82 | ___________ |
Http://www.rhyme.com.au | / \|
| --________--
PGP key available upon request, | /
and from pgp5.ai.mit.edu:11371 |/
Philip Warner wrote: > will send the schema to stdout > Is that sufficient? Or are you strictly interested in the text output side > of things? Strictly interested in the text output side of things, for various not-necessarily-good reasons (:-)). -- Lamar Owen WGCR Internet Radio 1 Peter 4:11