Re: There should be a way to use the force flag when restoring databases

On Thu, Jul 20, 2023 at 2:10 AM Daniel Gustafsson <daniel@yesql.se> wrote:
>
> > On 19 Jul 2023, at 19:28, Gurjeet Singh <gurjeet@singh.im> wrote:
> >
> > The docs for 'pg_restore --create` say "Create the database before
> > restoring into it. If --clean is also specified, drop and recreate the
> > target database before connecting to it."
> >
> > If we provided a force option, it may then additionally say: "If the
> > --clean and --force options are specified, DROP DATABASE ... WITH
> > FORCE command will be used to drop the database."
>
> pg_restore --clean refers to dropping any pre-existing database objects and not
> just databases, but --force would only apply to databases.
>
> I wonder if it's worth complicating pg_restore with that when running dropdb
> --force before pg_restore is an option for those wanting to use WITH FORCE.

Fair point. But the same argument could've been applied to --clean
option, as well; why overload the meaning of --clean and make it drop
database, when a dropdb before pg_restore was an option.

IMHO, if pg_restore offers to drop database, providing an option to
the user to do it forcibly is not that much of a stretch, and within
reason for the user to expect it to be there, like Joan did.

Best regards,
Gurjeet
http://Gurje.et