pg_restore ignores PGDATABASE

Started by Erik Rijkersalmost 14 years ago6 messages
#1Erik Rijkers
er@xs4all.nl

pg_restore ignores environment variable PGDATABASE.

Is this intentional? (perhaps because of the risk of restoring into the wrong db?)

I would prefer if it would honor the PGDATABASE variable, but if it does ignore it intentionally,
the following (from 9.2devel docs) is obviously incorrect:

"This utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, also uses the environment variables supported
by libpq (see Section 31.13)."

I could look into fixing one (binary) or the other (docs), but what /is/ the preferred behavior?

thanks,

Erik Rijkers

#2Robert Haas
robertmhaas@gmail.com
In reply to: Erik Rijkers (#1)
Re: pg_restore ignores PGDATABASE

On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 11:58 AM, Erik Rijkers <er@xs4all.nl> wrote:

pg_restore ignores environment variable PGDATABASE.

What exactly do you mean by "ignores"? pg_restore prints results to
standard output unless a database name is specified. AFAIK, there's
no syntax to say "I want a direct-to-database restore to whatever you
think the default database is".

--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

#3Erik Rijkers
er@xs4all.nl
In reply to: Robert Haas (#2)
Re: pg_restore ignores PGDATABASE

On Sun, February 19, 2012 06:27, Robert Haas wrote:

On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 11:58 AM, Erik Rijkers <er@xs4all.nl> wrote:

pg_restore ignores environment variable PGDATABASE.

What exactly do you mean by "ignores"? pg_restore prints results to
standard output unless a database name is specified. AFAIK, there's
no syntax to say "I want a direct-to-database restore to whatever you
think the default database is".

That's right, and that seems contradictory with:

"This utility [pg_restore], like most other PostgreSQL utilities, also uses the environment
variables supported by libpq (see Section 31.13)."

as pg_restore does 'ignore' (for want of a better word) PGDATABASE.

But I think I can conclude from your reply that that behaviour is indeed intentional.

thanks,

Erik Rijkers

#4Robert Haas
robertmhaas@gmail.com
In reply to: Erik Rijkers (#3)
Re: pg_restore ignores PGDATABASE

On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 1:18 AM, Erik Rijkers <er@xs4all.nl> wrote:

On Sun, February 19, 2012 06:27, Robert Haas wrote:

On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 11:58 AM, Erik Rijkers <er@xs4all.nl> wrote:

pg_restore ignores environment variable PGDATABASE.

What exactly do you mean by "ignores"?  pg_restore prints results to
standard output unless a database name is specified.  AFAIK, there's
no syntax to say "I want a direct-to-database restore to whatever you
think the default database is".

That's right, and that seems contradictory with:

"This utility [pg_restore], like most other PostgreSQL utilities, also uses the environment
variables supported by libpq (see Section 31.13)."

as pg_restore does 'ignore' (for want of a better word) PGDATABASE.

But I think I can conclude from your reply that that behaviour is indeed intentional.

It is, because we want there to be a way of converting a custom or tar
format archive back to text. I think that probably works out for the
best anyway, since pg_restore is a sufficiently dangerous operation
that you want to be darn sure you're not doing it on the wrong
database. dropdb also requires a database name, while createdb does
not, for similar reasons...

--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

#5Andrew Dunstan
andrew@dunslane.net
In reply to: Robert Haas (#4)
Re: pg_restore ignores PGDATABASE

On 02/19/2012 08:02 AM, Robert Haas wrote:

On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 1:18 AM, Erik Rijkers<er@xs4all.nl> wrote:

On Sun, February 19, 2012 06:27, Robert Haas wrote:

On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 11:58 AM, Erik Rijkers<er@xs4all.nl> wrote:

pg_restore ignores environment variable PGDATABASE.

What exactly do you mean by "ignores"? pg_restore prints results to
standard output unless a database name is specified. AFAIK, there's
no syntax to say "I want a direct-to-database restore to whatever you
think the default database is".

That's right, and that seems contradictory with:

"This utility [pg_restore], like most other PostgreSQL utilities, also uses the environment
variables supported by libpq (see Section 31.13)."

as pg_restore does 'ignore' (for want of a better word) PGDATABASE.

But I think I can conclude from your reply that that behaviour is indeed intentional.

It is, because we want there to be a way of converting a custom or tar
format archive back to text. I think that probably works out for the
best anyway, since pg_restore is a sufficiently dangerous operation
that you want to be darn sure you're not doing it on the wrong
database. dropdb also requires a database name, while createdb does
not, for similar reasons...

Right, I think we probably need to adjust the docs slightly to match
this reality.

cheers

andrew

#6Bruce Momjian
bruce@momjian.us
In reply to: Andrew Dunstan (#5)
1 attachment(s)
Re: pg_restore ignores PGDATABASE

On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 10:25:55AM -0500, Andrew Dunstan wrote:

On 02/19/2012 08:02 AM, Robert Haas wrote:

On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 1:18 AM, Erik Rijkers<er@xs4all.nl> wrote:

On Sun, February 19, 2012 06:27, Robert Haas wrote:

On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 11:58 AM, Erik Rijkers<er@xs4all.nl> wrote:

pg_restore ignores environment variable PGDATABASE.

What exactly do you mean by "ignores"? pg_restore prints results to
standard output unless a database name is specified. AFAIK, there's
no syntax to say "I want a direct-to-database restore to whatever you
think the default database is".

That's right, and that seems contradictory with:

"This utility [pg_restore], like most other PostgreSQL utilities, also uses the environment
variables supported by libpq (see Section 31.13)."

as pg_restore does 'ignore' (for want of a better word) PGDATABASE.

But I think I can conclude from your reply that that behaviour is indeed intentional.

It is, because we want there to be a way of converting a custom or tar
format archive back to text. I think that probably works out for the
best anyway, since pg_restore is a sufficiently dangerous operation
that you want to be darn sure you're not doing it on the wrong
database. dropdb also requires a database name, while createdb does
not, for similar reasons...

Right, I think we probably need to adjust the docs slightly to match
this reality.

Done, with the attached patch.

--
Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com

+ It's impossible for everything to be true. +

Attachments:

env.difftext/x-diff; charset=us-asciiDownload
diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/ref/pg_restore.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/ref/pg_restore.sgml
new file mode 100644
index bc3d2b7..b276da6
*** a/doc/src/sgml/ref/pg_restore.sgml
--- b/doc/src/sgml/ref/pg_restore.sgml
***************
*** 686,692 ****
    <para>
     This utility, like most other <productname>PostgreSQL</> utilities,
     also uses the environment variables supported by <application>libpq</>
!    (see <xref linkend="libpq-envars">).
    </para>
  
   </refsect1>
--- 686,693 ----
    <para>
     This utility, like most other <productname>PostgreSQL</> utilities,
     also uses the environment variables supported by <application>libpq</>
!    (see <xref linkend="libpq-envars">).  However, it does not read
!    <envar>PGDATABASE</envar> when a database name is not supplied.
    </para>
  
   </refsect1>