#top pg_dump¶

Specifies the name of the database to be dumped. If this is not specified, the environment variable PGDATABASE is used. If that is not set, the user name specified for the connection is used.

Dump only the data, not the schema (data definitions).

This option is only meaningful for the plain-text format. For the archive formats, you may specify the option when you call pg_restore.

Output commands to clean (drop) database objects prior to (the commands for) creating them.

This option is only meaningful for the plain-text format. For the archive formats, you may specify the option when you call pg_restore.

Begin the output with a command to create the database itself and reconnect to the created database. (With a script of this form, it doesn't matter which database you connect to before running the script.)

This option is only meaningful for the plain-text format. For the archive formats, you may specify the option when you call pg_restore.

Dump data as INSERT commands (rather than COPY). This will make restoration very slow; it is mainly useful for making dumps that can be loaded into non-PostgreSQL databases. Note that the restore may fail altogether if you have rearranged column order. The -D option is safer, though even slower. Also, while this option generates errors for invalid data, it allows other INSERTs to continue loading data into the table.

Dump data as INSERT commands with explicit column names (INSERT INTO table (column, ...) VALUES ...). This will make restoration very slow; it is mainly useful for making dumps that can be loaded into non-PostgreSQL databases. Also, while this option generates errors for invalid data, it allows other INSERTs to continue loading data into the table.

Create the dump in the specified character set encoding. By default, the dump is created in the database encoding. (Another way to get the same result is to set the PGCLIENTENCODING environment variable to the desired dump encoding.)

Send output to the specified file. If this is omitted, the standard output is used.

Selects the format of the output. format can be one of the following:

p Output a plain-text SQL script file (default)

t Output a tar archive suitable for input into pg_restore. Using this archive format allows reordering and/or exclusion of database objects at the time the database is restored. It is also possible to limit which data is reloaded at restore time.

c Output a custom archive suitable for input into pg_restore. This is the most flexible format in that it allows reordering of loading data as well as object definitions. This format is also compressed by default.

Ignore version mismatch between pg_dump and the database server.

pg_dump can handle databases from previous releases of PostgreSQL, but very old versions are not supported anymore (currently prior to 7.0). Use this option if you need to override the version check (and if pg_dump then fails, don't say you weren't warned).

Dump the contents of schema only. If this option is not specified, all non-system schemas in the target database will be dumped.

Note: In this mode, pg_dump makes no attempt to dump any other database objects that objects in the selected schema may depend upon. Therefore, there is no guarantee that the results of a single-schema dump can be successfully restored by themselves into a clean database.

Dump object identifiers (OIDs) as part of the data for every table. Use this option if your application references the OID columns in some way (e.g., in a foreign key constraint). Otherwise, this option should not be used.

Do not output commands to set ownership of objects to match the original database. By default, pg_dump issues ALTER OWNER or SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION statements to set ownership of created database objects. These statements will fail when the script is run unless it is started by a superuser (or the same user that owns all of the objects in the script). To make a script that can be restored by any user, but will give that user ownership of all the objects, specify -O.

This option is only meaningful for the plain-text format. For the archive formats, you may specify the option when you call pg_restore.

This option is obsolete but still accepted for backwards compatibility.

Dump only the object definitions (schema), not data.

Specify the superuser user name to use when disabling triggers. This is only relevant if --disable-triggers is used. (Usually, it's better to leave this out, and instead start the resulting script as superuser.)

Dump data for table only. It is possible for there to be multiple tables with the same name in different schemas; if that is the case, all matching tables will be dumped. Specify both --schema and --table to select just one table.

Note: In this mode, pg_dump makes no attempt to dump any other database objects that the selected table may depend upon. Therefore, there is no guarantee that the results of a single-table dump can be successfully restored by themselves into a clean database.

Specifies verbose mode. This will cause pg_dump to output detailed object comments and start/stop times to the dump file, and progress messages to standard error.

Prevent dumping of access privileges (grant/revoke commands).

This option disables the use of dollar quoting for function bodies, and forces them to be quoted using SQL standard string syntax.

This option is only relevant when creating a data-only dump. It instructs pg_dump to include commands to temporarily disable triggers on the target tables while the data is reloaded. Use this if you have referential integrity checks or other triggers on the tables that you do not want to invoke during data reload.

Presently, the commands emitted for --disable-triggers must be done as superuser. So, you should also specify a superuser name with -S, or preferably be careful to start the resulting script as a superuser.

This option is only meaningful for the plain-text format. For the archive formats, you may specify the option when you call pg_restore.

Output SQL-standard SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION commands instead of ALTER OWNER commands to determine object ownership. This makes the dump more standards compatible, but depending on the history of the objects in the dump, may not restore properly. Also, a dump using SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION will certainly require superuser privileges to restore correctly, whereas ALTER OWNER requires lesser privileges.

Specify the compression level to use in archive formats that support compression. (Currently only the custom archive format supports compression.)

The following command-line options control the database connection parameters.

Specifies the host name of the machine on which the server is running. If the value begins with a slash, it is used as the directory for the Unix domain socket. The default is taken from the PGHOST environment variable, if set, else a Unix domain socket connection is attempted.

Specifies the TCP port or local Unix domain socket file extension on which the server is listening for connections. Defaults to the PGPORT environment variable, if set, or a compiled-in default.

Connect as the given user

Force a password prompt. This should happen automatically if the server requires password authentication.