Re: pg_dump additional options for performance

Stephen Frost <sfrost@snowman.net> writes:
> * daveg (daveg@sonic.net) wrote:
>> One observation, indexes should be built right after the table data
>> is loaded for each table, this way, the index build gets a hot cache
>> for the table data instead of having to re-read it later as we do now.

> That's not how pg_dump has traditionally worked, and the point of this
> patch is to add options to easily segregate the main pieces of the
> existing pg_dump output (main schema definition, data dump, key/index
> building).  You suggestion brings up an interesting point that should
> pg_dump's traditional output structure change the "--schema-post-load"
> set of objects wouldn't be as clear to newcomers since the load and the
> indexes would be interleaved in the regular output.

Yeah.  Also, that is pushing into an entirely different line of
development, which is to enable multithreaded pg_restore.  The patch
at hand is necessarily incompatible with that type of operation, and
wouldn't be used together with it.

As far as the documentation/definition aspect goes, I think it should
just say the parts are
    * stuff needed before you can load the data
    * the data
    * stuff needed after loading the data
and not try to be any more specific than that.  There are corner cases
that will turn any simple breakdown into a lie, and I doubt that it's
worth trying to explain them all.  (Take a close look at the dependency
loop breaking logic in pg_dump if you doubt this.)

I hadn't realized that Simon was using "pre-schema" and "post-schema"
to name the first and third parts.  I'd agree that this is confusing
nomenclature: it looks like it's trying to say that the data is the
schema, and the schema is not!  How about "pre-data and "post-data"?

            regards, tom lane