Re: COPY (query) TO file

Mark Woodward wrote:
...

>>> pg_dump -t mytable | psql -h target -c "COPY mytable FROM STDIN"
>>>
>>> With a more selective copy, you can use pretty much this mechanism to
>>> limit a copy to a sumset of the records in a table.
>> Ok, but why not just implement this into pg_dump or psql?
>> Why bother the backend with that functionality?
> 
> Because "COPY" runs on the back-end, not the front end, and the front end
> may not even be in the same city as the backend. When you issue a "COPY"
> the file it reads or writes local to the backend. True, the examples I
> gave may not show how that is important, but consider this:


We were talking about COPY to stdout :-) Copy to file is another
issue :-) Copy to (server fs) file has so many limitations I dont see
wide use for it. (Of course there are usecases)

> psql -h remote masterdb -c "COPY (select * from mytable where ID <
> xxlastxx) as mytable TO '/replicate_backup/mytable-060602.pgc'"
> 
> This runs completely in the background and can serve as a running backup.

And you are sure it would be much faster then a server local running
psql just dumping the result of a query?
(And you could more easy avoid raceconditions in contrast to several
remote clients trying to trigger your above backup )

But what do I know... I was just asking :-)

Regards
Tino