Re: pg_dump custom format without timestamp?

Fabien COELHO <coelho@cri.ensmp.fr> writes:
> I was looking into using hardlinks to reduce the storage of keeping and 
> syncing periodic database dumps when they are identical. This works fine 
> with the textual format, but not for the custom format because the file 
> header includes a timestamp set by function WriteHead in file 
> "src/bin/pg_dump/pg_backup_archiver.c".

I'm not sure about this goal ...

> In order to circumvent this issue, I would think of adding a 
> "--no-timestamp" option to pg_dump and put zeros everywhere in place of 
> the actual timestamp in such case, and possibly ignoring the said 
> timestamp in function ReadHead.

... and quite dislike this solution.  pg_dump has way too many bizarre
options already.  Perhaps you should consider making a bit of code that
knows how to compare two custom dumps ignoring the timestamp.
        regards, tom lane