diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/backup.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/backup.sgml
index 9a80062..36bf000 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/backup.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/backup.sgml
@@ -49,8 +49,9 @@ pg_dump dbname >
@@ -106,22 +107,28 @@ pg_dump dbname >
- This type of dump can be used to restore a database in full. However,
- there is a more sophisticated form of PostgreSQL backup
- that allows for far greater control when working with backups. A syntax looks like this:
+ The above example creates a plain text file. This type of dump can be used
+ to restore a database in full. However there are more sophisticated
+ PostgreSQL backup formats which allow for far greater
+ control when working with backups. One of these is
+ the custom format, which the following more elaborate
+ example creates:
+
pg_dump -U username --format=c --file=mydatabase.sqlcdbname
The options in detail are:
-U, --username=NAME connect as specified database user
- -F, --format=c|t|p output file format (custom, tar, plain text)
+ -F, --format=c|d|t|p output file format (custom, directory, tar, plain text)
-f, --file=FILENAME output file name
- The most important of which is --format.
- By default pg_dump uses the plaintext format. In
- some cases you may be better off using a custom format backup, though.
- The custom format allows for a wealth of customizability.
+
+ The most interesting of these
+ is --format. By
+ default pg_dump creates a plaintext backup. You may be
+ better off creating a custom format backup, since the custom format is much
+ more flexible.
@@ -131,11 +138,11 @@ pg_dump -U username --format=c --fi
pg_restore -U username --dbname=dbname --index=indexname
- If you wanted to restore only a single function:
+ To restore only a single function:
pg_restore -U username --dbname=dbname --function=functionname(args)
- If you wanted to restore only a single table:
+ To restore only a single table:
pg_restore -U username --dbname=dbname --table=tablename
@@ -151,8 +158,8 @@ pg_restore -U username --dbname=
psql dbname < infile
- where infile is the
- file output by the pg_dump command. The database infile is a plaintext
+ backup output by the pg_dump command. The database dbname will not be created by this
command, so you must create it yourself from template0
before executing psql (e.g., with
@@ -215,9 +222,11 @@ pg_dump -h host1 dbname | psql -h h
- When it comes to restoring a dump with a custom format the command
- used to restore a backup file is pg_restore. It has
- similar options to pg_dump. A simple restore:
+ The psql command is a way, as shown above, to restore
+ plaintext backups. To restore a custom format backup
+ the pg_restore command must be used. It has options
+ similar to those of pg_dump. A simple use
+ of pg_restore is:
pg_restore -U username --dbname=databasenamefilename
@@ -228,21 +237,13 @@ pg_restore -U username --dbname=
Do not confuse
- If what you have is a plaintext backup pg_restore can
- not be used as a restoration mechanism. You can use psql to restore it:
-
-psql dbname < backupfile
-
-
-
-
After restoring a backup, it is wise to run on each
database so the query optimizer has useful statistics;
@@ -298,11 +299,11 @@ psql -f infile postgres
look like this:
pg_dumpall -g -Uusername --file=globals.sql;
-psql -AtU postgres -c "SELECT datname FROM pg_database \
- WHERE NOT datistemplate"| \
-while read f;
- do pg_dump -Upostgres --format=c --file=$f.sqlc $f;
-done;
+psql -AtU postgres
+ -c "SELECT datname FROM pg_database WHERE NOT datistemplate" \
+ | while read f;
+ do pg_dump -Upostgres --format=c --file=$f.sqlc $f;
+ done;
@@ -322,9 +323,9 @@ done;
Use compressed dumps.
You can use your favorite compression program, for example
- gzip or pigz which
- is a parallel implementation of gzip for modern
- multi-processor, multi-core machines:
+ gzip or pigz
+ (a parallel implementation of gzip for modern
+ multi-processor, multi-core machines):
pg_dump dbname | gzip > filename.gz