Re: Changing pg_dump default file format

On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 7:08 PM, Joshua D. Drake <jd@commandprompt.com> wrote:
>
> On 11/07/2013 10:00 AM, Josh Berkus wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 11/07/2013 08:26 AM, Tom Lane wrote:
>>>
>>> Magnus Hagander <magnus@hagander.net> writes:
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 5:02 PM, Joshua D. Drake <jd@commandprompt.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> I humbly request on behalf of those who manage production postgresql
>>>>> instances that we change the default backup file format from -Fp to
>>>>> -Fc.
>>>
>>>
>>>> I'm a bit worried about it breaking peoples scripts as well, if they
>>>> pipe the output.
>>>
>>>
>>> Whether they pipe the output or not, this will break people's scripts.
>>> I agree it's a legacy behavior that we wouldn't choose again, but you
>>> could say that about an awful lot of things including much of the SQL
>>> standard.  I think it's too late to consider this now.
>>
>>
>> I don't agree that it's too late, personally.  However, I do agree that
>> it would be problematic to change the default format since the default
>> is to send to STDOUT.  If we wanted to change the default format, we
>> would need to make "filename" a required parameter.
>>
>> If we wanted to change the defaults, I think it would be easier to
>> create a separate bin name (e.g. pg_backup) than to change the existing
>> parameters for pg_dump.
>
>
> I am not opposed to that. Allow pg_dump to be what it is, and create a
> pg_backup?

If we want to go down that route, please let's pick a different name.
pg_backup is going to cause a *lot* of confusion in relation to
pg_basebackup for people.


-- Magnus HaganderMe: http://www.hagander.net/Work: http://www.redpill-linpro.com/