Thread: Creating a database with pg_restore

Hi All,

I have a database dump that is created with the following command:
pg_dump IPADB -Ft -s -v -U postgres | gzip -9 > ${IPA_TMP_DIR}/IPADB.$(date +"%
Y%m%d.%H%M%S").tar.gz

I want to create a test database but I am having difficulty understanding how
to use pg_restore.

# pg_restore --create --dbname=IPA_TEST --schema-only --verbose -U postgres
TEST.tar
pg_restore: connecting to database for restore
pg_restore: [archiver (db)] connection to database "IPA_TEST" failed: FATAL:
Database "IPA_TEST" does not exist in the system catalog.
pg_restore: *** aborted because of error

The documentation indicates that the dumpfile is meant to be used by psql and
that I have to create the database manually prior to the restore.  So what is
the purpose of pg_restore and it's --create option?

Any hints appreciated.

Kind Regards,
Keith

______________________________________________
99main Internet Services http://www.99main.com

"Keith Worthington" <keithw@narrowpathinc.com> writes:
> I want to create a test database but I am having difficulty understanding how
> to use pg_restore.

> # pg_restore --create --dbname=IPA_TEST --schema-only --verbose -U postgres
> TEST.tar
> pg_restore: connecting to database for restore
> pg_restore: [archiver (db)] connection to database "IPA_TEST" failed: FATAL:
> Database "IPA_TEST" does not exist in the system catalog.
> pg_restore: *** aborted because of error

--dbname specifies the already-existing database to connect to
initially.  When you use --create, the only thing that connection is
used for is to issue the CREATE DATABASE command for the target DB,
and then pg_restore reconnects to the new target DB.  So the usual
locution is
    pg_restore --create --dbname=template1 ...etc...

Plan B is to create the target DB by hand before running pg_restore,
in which case you don't use --create and do specify the real target
DB in --dbname.  You have to do it this way if you wish to restore into
a DB with a different name than you dumped from, because --create will
always create the original DB name shown in the dump.

            regards, tom lane