Re: proposal: possibility to read dumped table's name from file

On Mon, Jun 08, 2020 at 07:18:49PM +0200, Pavel Stehule wrote:
> pá 29. 5. 2020 v 20:25 odesílatel Justin Pryzby <pryzby@telsasoft.com> napsal:
> 
> > On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 04:21:00PM +0200, Pavel Stehule wrote:
> > > one my customer has to specify dumped tables name by name. After years and
> > > increasing database size and table numbers he has problem with too short
> > > command line. He need to read the list of tables from file (or from stdin).
> >
> > +1 - we would use this.
> >
> > We put a regex (actually a pg_dump pattern) of tables to skip (timeseries
> > partitions which are older than a few days and which are also dumped once not
> > expected to change, and typically not redumped).  We're nowhere near the
> > execve() limit, but it'd be nice if the command was primarily a list of options
> > and not a long regex.
> >
> > Please also support reading from file for --exclude-table=pattern.
> >
> > I'm drawing a parallel between this and rsync --include/--exclude and
> > --filter.
> >
> > We'd be implementing a new --filter, which might have similar syntax to rsync
> > (which I always forget).
> 
> I implemented support for all "repeated" pg_dump options.
> 
> I invite any help with doc. There is just very raw text
> 
> +        Do not dump data of tables spefified in file.

*specified

I still wonder if a better syntax would use a unified --filter option, whose
argument would allow including/excluding any type of object:

+[tn] include (t)table/(n)namespace/...
-[tn] exclude (t)table/(n)namespace/...

In the past, I looked for a way to exclude extended stats objects, and ended up
using a separate schema.  An "extensible" syntax might be better (although
reading a file of just patterns has the advantage that the function can just be
called once for each option for each type of object).

-- 
Justin