Re: Custom format for pg_dumpall

Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> writes:
> Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote:
>> Why is there no custom format dump option for pg_dumpall?

> I think it is because we have no mechanism to merge multiple custom
> format files from different databases into a single file.  Perhaps this
> is a TODO.

It would probably require changes in pg_dump to append custom-format
output to an existing file, but offhand I see no fundamental obstacle
now that pg_dumpall is a C program.  (I think it would've been real
painful to construct an archive from a shell script...)  I'm envisioning
some super-archive format in which there are individual entries
containing the pg_dump output for each database, plus an entry for the
"global" users-and-groups info.

This does seem like a nice solution to the perennial problem of dumping
blobs easily.
        regards, tom lane