Provided by: postgresql-client-17_17.2-1_amd64 
NAME
pg_dump - extract a PostgreSQL database into a script file or other archive file
SYNOPSIS
pg_dump [connection-option...] [option...] [dbname]
DESCRIPTION
pg_dump is a utility for backing up a PostgreSQL database. It makes consistent backups
even if the database is being used concurrently. pg_dump does not block other users
accessing the database (readers or writers).
pg_dump only dumps a single database. To back up an entire cluster, or to back up global
objects that are common to all databases in a cluster (such as roles and tablespaces), use
pg_dumpall(1).
Dumps can be output in script or archive file formats. Script dumps are plain-text files
containing the SQL commands required to reconstruct the database to the state it was in at
the time it was saved. To restore from such a script, feed it to psql(1). Script files can
be used to reconstruct the database even on other machines and other architectures; with
some modifications, even on other SQL database products.
The alternative archive file formats must be used with pg_restore(1) to rebuild the
database. They allow pg_restore to be selective about what is restored, or even to reorder
the items prior to being restored. The archive file formats are designed to be portable
across architectures.
When used with one of the archive file formats and combined with pg_restore, pg_dump
provides a flexible archival and transfer mechanism. pg_dump can be used to backup an
entire database, then pg_restore can be used to examine the archive and/or select which
parts of the database are to be restored. The most flexible output file formats are the
“custom” format (-Fc) and the “directory” format (-Fd). They allow for selection and
reordering of all archived items, support parallel restoration, and are compressed by
default. The “directory” format is the only format that supports parallel dumps.
While running pg_dump, one should examine the output for any warnings (printed on standard
error), especially in light of the limitations listed below.
OPTIONS
The following command-line options control the content and format of the output.
dbname
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.
-a
--data-only
Dump only the data, not the schema (data definitions). Table data, large objects, and
sequence values are dumped.
This option is similar to, but for historical reasons not identical to, specifying
--section=data.
-b
--large-objects
--blobs (deprecated)
Include large objects in the dump. This is the default behavior except when --schema,
--table, or --schema-only is specified. The -b switch is therefore only useful to add
large objects to dumps where a specific schema or table has been requested. Note that
large objects are considered data and therefore will be included when --data-only is
used, but not when --schema-only is.
-B
--no-large-objects
--no-blobs (deprecated)
Exclude large objects in the dump.
When both -b and -B are given, the behavior is to output large objects, when data is
being dumped, see the -b documentation.
-c
--clean
Output commands to DROP all the dumped database objects prior to outputting the
commands for creating them. This option is useful when the restore is to overwrite an
existing database. If any of the objects do not exist in the destination database,
ignorable error messages will be reported during restore, unless --if-exists is also
specified.
This option is ignored when emitting an archive (non-text) output file. For the
archive formats, you can specify the option when you call pg_restore.
-C
--create
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 in the
destination installation you connect to before running the script.) If --clean is also
specified, the script drops and recreates the target database before reconnecting to
it.
With --create, the output also includes the database's comment if any, and any
configuration variable settings that are specific to this database, that is, any ALTER
DATABASE ... SET ... and ALTER ROLE ... IN DATABASE ... SET ... commands that
mention this database. Access privileges for the database itself are also dumped,
unless --no-acl is specified.
This option is ignored when emitting an archive (non-text) output file. For the
archive formats, you can specify the option when you call pg_restore.
-e pattern
--extension=pattern
Dump only extensions matching pattern. When this option is not specified, all
non-system extensions in the target database will be dumped. Multiple extensions can
be selected by writing multiple -e switches. The pattern parameter is interpreted as a
pattern according to the same rules used by psql's \d commands (see Patterns), so
multiple extensions can also be selected by writing wildcard characters in the
pattern. When using wildcards, be careful to quote the pattern if needed to prevent
the shell from expanding the wildcards.
Any configuration relation registered by pg_extension_config_dump is included in the
dump if its extension is specified by --extension.
Note
When -e is specified, pg_dump makes no attempt to dump any other database objects
that the selected extension(s) might depend upon. Therefore, there is no guarantee
that the results of a specific-extension dump can be successfully restored by
themselves into a clean database.
-E encoding
--encoding=encoding
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.) The supported
encodings are described in Section 23.3.1.
-f file
--file=file
Send output to the specified file. This parameter can be omitted for file based output
formats, in which case the standard output is used. It must be given for the directory
output format however, where it specifies the target directory instead of a file. In
this case the directory is created by pg_dump and must not exist before.
-F format
--format=format
Selects the format of the output. format can be one of the following:
p
plain
Output a plain-text SQL script file (the default).
c
custom
Output a custom-format archive suitable for input into pg_restore. Together with
the directory output format, this is the most flexible output format in that it
allows manual selection and reordering of archived items during restore. This
format is also compressed by default.
d
directory
Output a directory-format archive suitable for input into pg_restore. This will
create a directory with one file for each table and large object being dumped,
plus a so-called Table of Contents file describing the dumped objects in a
machine-readable format that pg_restore can read. A directory format archive can
be manipulated with standard Unix tools; for example, files in an uncompressed
archive can be compressed with the gzip, lz4, or zstd tools. This format is
compressed by default using gzip and also supports parallel dumps.
t
tar
Output a tar-format archive suitable for input into pg_restore. The tar format is
compatible with the directory format: extracting a tar-format archive produces a
valid directory-format archive. However, the tar format does not support
compression. Also, when using tar format the relative order of table data items
cannot be changed during restore.
-j njobs
--jobs=njobs
Run the dump in parallel by dumping njobs tables simultaneously. This option may
reduce the time needed to perform the dump but it also increases the load on the
database server. You can only use this option with the directory output format because
this is the only output format where multiple processes can write their data at the
same time.
pg_dump will open njobs + 1 connections to the database, so make sure your
max_connections setting is high enough to accommodate all connections.
Requesting exclusive locks on database objects while running a parallel dump could
cause the dump to fail. The reason is that the pg_dump leader process requests shared
locks (ACCESS SHARE) on the objects that the worker processes are going to dump later
in order to make sure that nobody deletes them and makes them go away while the dump
is running. If another client then requests an exclusive lock on a table, that lock
will not be granted but will be queued waiting for the shared lock of the leader
process to be released. Consequently any other access to the table will not be granted
either and will queue after the exclusive lock request. This includes the worker
process trying to dump the table. Without any precautions this would be a classic
deadlock situation. To detect this conflict, the pg_dump worker process requests
another shared lock using the NOWAIT option. If the worker process is not granted this
shared lock, somebody else must have requested an exclusive lock in the meantime and
there is no way to continue with the dump, so pg_dump has no choice but to abort the
dump.
To perform a parallel dump, the database server needs to support synchronized
snapshots, a feature that was introduced in PostgreSQL 9.2 for primary servers and 10
for standbys. With this feature, database clients can ensure they see the same data
set even though they use different connections. pg_dump -j uses multiple database
connections; it connects to the database once with the leader process and once again
for each worker job. Without the synchronized snapshot feature, the different worker
jobs wouldn't be guaranteed to see the same data in each connection, which could lead
to an inconsistent backup.
-n pattern
--schema=pattern
Dump only schemas matching pattern; this selects both the schema itself, and all its
contained objects. When this option is not specified, all non-system schemas in the
target database will be dumped. Multiple schemas can be selected by writing multiple
-n switches. The pattern parameter is interpreted as a pattern according to the same
rules used by psql's \d commands (see Patterns), so multiple schemas can also be
selected by writing wildcard characters in the pattern. When using wildcards, be
careful to quote the pattern if needed to prevent the shell from expanding the
wildcards; see Examples below.
Note
When -n is specified, pg_dump makes no attempt to dump any other database objects
that the selected schema(s) might depend upon. Therefore, there is no guarantee
that the results of a specific-schema dump can be successfully restored by
themselves into a clean database.
Note
Non-schema objects such as large objects are not dumped when -n is specified. You
can add large objects back to the dump with the --large-objects switch.
-N pattern
--exclude-schema=pattern
Do not dump any schemas matching pattern. The pattern is interpreted according to the
same rules as for -n. -N can be given more than once to exclude schemas matching any
of several patterns.
When both -n and -N are given, the behavior is to dump just the schemas that match at
least one -n switch but no -N switches. If -N appears without -n, then schemas
matching -N are excluded from what is otherwise a normal dump.
-O
--no-owner
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 ignored when emitting an archive (non-text) output file. For the
archive formats, you can specify the option when you call pg_restore.
-R
--no-reconnect
This option is obsolete but still accepted for backwards compatibility.
-s
--schema-only
Dump only the object definitions (schema), not data.
This option is the inverse of --data-only. It is similar to, but for historical
reasons not identical to, specifying --section=pre-data --section=post-data.
(Do not confuse this with the --schema option, which uses the word “schema” in a
different meaning.)
To exclude table data for only a subset of tables in the database, see
--exclude-table-data.
-S username
--superuser=username
Specify the superuser user name to use when disabling triggers. This is relevant only
if --disable-triggers is used. (Usually, it's better to leave this out, and instead
start the resulting script as superuser.)
-t pattern
--table=pattern
Dump only tables with names matching pattern. Multiple tables can be selected by
writing multiple -t switches. The pattern parameter is interpreted as a pattern
according to the same rules used by psql's \d commands (see Patterns), so multiple
tables can also be selected by writing wildcard characters in the pattern. When using
wildcards, be careful to quote the pattern if needed to prevent the shell from
expanding the wildcards; see Examples below.
As well as tables, this option can be used to dump the definition of matching views,
materialized views, foreign tables, and sequences. It will not dump the contents of
views or materialized views, and the contents of foreign tables will only be dumped if
the corresponding foreign server is specified with --include-foreign-data.
The -n and -N switches have no effect when -t is used, because tables selected by -t
will be dumped regardless of those switches, and non-table objects will not be dumped.
Note
When -t is specified, pg_dump makes no attempt to dump any other database objects
that the selected table(s) might depend upon. Therefore, there is no guarantee
that the results of a specific-table dump can be successfully restored by
themselves into a clean database.
-T pattern
--exclude-table=pattern
Do not dump any tables matching pattern. The pattern is interpreted according to the
same rules as for -t. -T can be given more than once to exclude tables matching any
of several patterns.
When both -t and -T are given, the behavior is to dump just the tables that match at
least one -t switch but no -T switches. If -T appears without -t, then tables matching
-T are excluded from what is otherwise a normal dump.
-v
--verbose
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. Repeating
the option causes additional debug-level messages to appear on standard error.
-V
--version
Print the pg_dump version and exit.
-x
--no-privileges
--no-acl
Prevent dumping of access privileges (grant/revoke commands).
-Z level
-Z method[:detail]
--compress=level
--compress=method[:detail]
Specify the compression method and/or the compression level to use. The compression
method can be set to gzip, lz4, zstd, or none for no compression. A compression detail
string can optionally be specified. If the detail string is an integer, it specifies
the compression level. Otherwise, it should be a comma-separated list of items, each
of the form keyword or keyword=value. Currently, the supported keywords are level and
long.
If no compression level is specified, the default compression level will be used. If
only a level is specified without mentioning an algorithm, gzip compression will be
used if the level is greater than 0, and no compression will be used if the level is
0.
For the custom and directory archive formats, this specifies compression of individual
table-data segments, and the default is to compress using gzip at a moderate level.
For plain text output, setting a nonzero compression level causes the entire output
file to be compressed, as though it had been fed through gzip, lz4, or zstd; but the
default is not to compress. With zstd compression, long mode may improve the
compression ratio, at the cost of increased memory use.
The tar archive format currently does not support compression at all.
--binary-upgrade
This option is for use by in-place upgrade utilities. Its use for other purposes is
not recommended or supported. The behavior of the option may change in future releases
without notice.
--column-inserts
--attribute-inserts
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. Any error during restoring
will cause only rows that are part of the problematic INSERT to be lost, rather than
the entire table contents.
--disable-dollar-quoting
This option disables the use of dollar quoting for function bodies, and forces them to
be quoted using SQL standard string syntax.
--disable-triggers
This option is relevant only 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 restored. Use this if you have referential integrity checks or other triggers on
the tables that you do not want to invoke during data restore.
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 ignored when emitting an archive (non-text) output file. For the
archive formats, you can specify the option when you call pg_restore.
--enable-row-security
This option is relevant only when dumping the contents of a table which has row
security. By default, pg_dump will set row_security to off, to ensure that all data is
dumped from the table. If the user does not have sufficient privileges to bypass row
security, then an error is thrown. This parameter instructs pg_dump to set
row_security to on instead, allowing the user to dump the parts of the contents of the
table that they have access to.
Note that if you use this option currently, you probably also want the dump be in
INSERT format, as the COPY FROM during restore does not support row security.
--exclude-extension=pattern
Do not dump any extensions matching pattern. The pattern is interpreted according to
the same rules as for -e. --exclude-extension can be given more than once to exclude
extensions matching any of several patterns.
When both -e and --exclude-extension are given, the behavior is to dump just the
extensions that match at least one -e switch but no --exclude-extension switches. If
--exclude-extension appears without -e, then extensions matching --exclude-extension
are excluded from what is otherwise a normal dump.
--exclude-table-and-children=pattern
This is the same as the -T/--exclude-table option, except that it also excludes any
partitions or inheritance child tables of the table(s) matching the pattern.
--exclude-table-data=pattern
Do not dump data for any tables matching pattern. The pattern is interpreted according
to the same rules as for -t. --exclude-table-data can be given more than once to
exclude tables matching any of several patterns. This option is useful when you need
the definition of a particular table even though you do not need the data in it.
To exclude data for all tables in the database, see --schema-only.
--exclude-table-data-and-children=pattern
This is the same as the --exclude-table-data option, except that it also excludes data
of any partitions or inheritance child tables of the table(s) matching the pattern.
--extra-float-digits=ndigits
Use the specified value of extra_float_digits when dumping floating-point data,
instead of the maximum available precision. Routine dumps made for backup purposes
should not use this option.
--filter=filename
Specify a filename from which to read patterns for objects to include or exclude from
the dump. The patterns are interpreted according to the same rules as the
corresponding options: -t/--table, --table-and-children, -T/--exclude-table, and
--exclude-table-and-children for tables, -n/--schema and -N/--exclude-schema for
schemas, --include-foreign-data for data on foreign servers, --exclude-table-data and
--exclude-table-data-and-children for table data, and -e/--extension and
--exclude-extension for extensions. To read from STDIN, use - as the filename. The
--filter option can be specified in conjunction with the above listed options for
including or excluding objects, and can also be specified more than once for multiple
filter files.
The file lists one object pattern per row, with the following format:
{ include | exclude } { extension | foreign_data | table | table_and_children | table_data | table_data_and_children | schema } PATTERN
The first keyword specifies whether the objects matched by the pattern are to be
included or excluded. The second keyword specifies the type of object to be filtered
using the pattern:
• extension: extensions. This works like the -e/--extension or --exclude-extension
option.
• foreign_data: data on foreign servers. This works like the --include-foreign-data
option. This keyword can only be used with the include keyword.
• table: tables. This works like the -t/--table or -T/--exclude-table option.
• table_and_children: tables including any partitions or inheritance child tables.
This works like the --table-and-children or --exclude-table-and-children option.
• table_data: table data of any tables matching pattern. This works like the
--exclude-table-data option. This keyword can only be used with the exclude
keyword.
• table_data_and_children: table data of any tables matching pattern as well as any
partitions or inheritance children of the table(s). This works like the
--exclude-table-data-and-children option. This keyword can only be used with the
exclude keyword.
• schema: schemas. This works like the -n/--schema or -N/--exclude-schema option.
Lines starting with # are considered comments and ignored. Comments can be placed
after an object pattern row as well. Blank lines are also ignored. See Patterns for
how to perform quoting in patterns.
Example files are listed below in the Examples section.
--if-exists
Use DROP ... IF EXISTS commands to drop objects in --clean mode. This suppresses “does
not exist” errors that might otherwise be reported. This option is not valid unless
--clean is also specified.
--include-foreign-data=foreignserver
Dump the data for any foreign table with a foreign server matching foreignserver
pattern. Multiple foreign servers can be selected by writing multiple
--include-foreign-data switches. Also, the foreignserver parameter is interpreted as a
pattern according to the same rules used by psql's \d commands (see Patterns), so
multiple foreign servers can also be selected by writing wildcard characters in the
pattern. When using wildcards, be careful to quote the pattern if needed to prevent
the shell from expanding the wildcards; see Examples below. The only exception is that
an empty pattern is disallowed.
Note
Using wildcards in --include-foreign-data may result in access to unexpected
foreign servers. Also, to use this option securely, make sure that the named
server must have a trusted owner.
Note
When --include-foreign-data is specified, pg_dump does not check that the foreign
table is writable. Therefore, there is no guarantee that the results of a foreign
table dump can be successfully restored.
--inserts
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.
Any error during restoring will cause only rows that are part of the problematic
INSERT to be lost, rather than the entire table contents. Note that the restore might
fail altogether if you have rearranged column order. The --column-inserts option is
safe against column order changes, though even slower.
--load-via-partition-root
When dumping data for a table partition, make the COPY or INSERT statements target the
root of the partitioning hierarchy that contains it, rather than the partition itself.
This causes the appropriate partition to be re-determined for each row when the data
is loaded. This may be useful when restoring data on a server where rows do not always
fall into the same partitions as they did on the original server. That could happen,
for example, if the partitioning column is of type text and the two systems have
different definitions of the collation used to sort the partitioning column.
--lock-wait-timeout=timeout
Do not wait forever to acquire shared table locks at the beginning of the dump.
Instead fail if unable to lock a table within the specified timeout. The timeout may
be specified in any of the formats accepted by SET statement_timeout. (Allowed formats
vary depending on the server version you are dumping from, but an integer number of
milliseconds is accepted by all versions.)
--no-comments
Do not dump comments.
--no-publications
Do not dump publications.
--no-security-labels
Do not dump security labels.
--no-subscriptions
Do not dump subscriptions.
--no-sync
By default, pg_dump will wait for all files to be written safely to disk. This option
causes pg_dump to return without waiting, which is faster, but means that a subsequent
operating system crash can leave the dump corrupt. Generally, this option is useful
for testing but should not be used when dumping data from production installation.
--no-table-access-method
Do not output commands to select table access methods. With this option, all objects
will be created with whichever table access method is the default during restore.
This option is ignored when emitting an archive (non-text) output file. For the
archive formats, you can specify the option when you call pg_restore.
--no-tablespaces
Do not output commands to select tablespaces. With this option, all objects will be
created in whichever tablespace is the default during restore.
This option is ignored when emitting an archive (non-text) output file. For the
archive formats, you can specify the option when you call pg_restore.
--no-toast-compression
Do not output commands to set TOAST compression methods. With this option, all columns
will be restored with the default compression setting.
--no-unlogged-table-data
Do not dump the contents of unlogged tables and sequences. This option has no effect
on whether or not the table and sequence definitions (schema) are dumped; it only
suppresses dumping the table and sequence data. Data in unlogged tables and sequences
is always excluded when dumping from a standby server.
--on-conflict-do-nothing
Add ON CONFLICT DO NOTHING to INSERT commands. This option is not valid unless
--inserts, --column-inserts or --rows-per-insert is also specified.
--quote-all-identifiers
Force quoting of all identifiers. This option is recommended when dumping a database
from a server whose PostgreSQL major version is different from pg_dump's, or when the
output is intended to be loaded into a server of a different major version. By
default, pg_dump quotes only identifiers that are reserved words in its own major
version. This sometimes results in compatibility issues when dealing with servers of
other versions that may have slightly different sets of reserved words. Using
--quote-all-identifiers prevents such issues, at the price of a harder-to-read dump
script.
--rows-per-insert=nrows
Dump data as INSERT commands (rather than COPY). Controls the maximum number of rows
per INSERT command. The value specified must be a number greater than zero. Any error
during restoring will cause only rows that are part of the problematic INSERT to be
lost, rather than the entire table contents.
--section=sectionname
Only dump the named section. The section name can be pre-data, data, or post-data.
This option can be specified more than once to select multiple sections. The default
is to dump all sections.
The data section contains actual table data, large-object contents, and sequence
values. Post-data items include definitions of indexes, triggers, rules, and
constraints other than validated check constraints. Pre-data items include all other
data definition items.
--serializable-deferrable
Use a serializable transaction for the dump, to ensure that the snapshot used is
consistent with later database states; but do this by waiting for a point in the
transaction stream at which no anomalies can be present, so that there isn't a risk of
the dump failing or causing other transactions to roll back with a
serialization_failure. See Chapter 13 for more information about transaction isolation
and concurrency control.
This option is not beneficial for a dump which is intended only for disaster recovery.
It could be useful for a dump used to load a copy of the database for reporting or
other read-only load sharing while the original database continues to be updated.
Without it the dump may reflect a state which is not consistent with any serial
execution of the transactions eventually committed. For example, if batch processing
techniques are used, a batch may show as closed in the dump without all of the items
which are in the batch appearing.
This option will make no difference if there are no read-write transactions active
when pg_dump is started. If read-write transactions are active, the start of the dump
may be delayed for an indeterminate length of time. Once running, performance with or
without the switch is the same.
--snapshot=snapshotname
Use the specified synchronized snapshot when making a dump of the database (see
Table 9.98 for more details).
This option is useful when needing to synchronize the dump with a logical replication
slot (see Chapter 47) or with a concurrent session.
In the case of a parallel dump, the snapshot name defined by this option is used
rather than taking a new snapshot.
--strict-names
Require that each extension (-e/--extension), schema (-n/--schema) and table
(-t/--table) pattern match at least one extension/schema/table in the database to be
dumped. This also applies to filters used with --filter. Note that if none of the
extension/schema/table patterns find matches, pg_dump will generate an error even
without --strict-names.
This option has no effect on --exclude-extension, -N/--exclude-schema,
-T/--exclude-table, or --exclude-table-data. An exclude pattern failing to match any
objects is not considered an error.
--sync-method=method
When set to fsync, which is the default, pg_dump --format=directory will recursively
open and synchronize all files in the archive directory.
On Linux, syncfs may be used instead to ask the operating system to synchronize the
whole file system that contains the archive directory. See recovery_init_sync_method
for information about the caveats to be aware of when using syncfs.
This option has no effect when --no-sync is used or --format is not set to directory.
--table-and-children=pattern
This is the same as the -t/--table option, except that it also includes any partitions
or inheritance child tables of the table(s) matching the pattern.
--use-set-session-authorization
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, might not restore properly. Also,
a dump using SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION will certainly require superuser privileges to
restore correctly, whereas ALTER OWNER requires lesser privileges.
-?
--help
Show help about pg_dump command line arguments, and exit.
The following command-line options control the database connection parameters.
-d dbname
--dbname=dbname
Specifies the name of the database to connect to. This is equivalent to specifying
dbname as the first non-option argument on the command line. The dbname can be a
connection string. If so, connection string parameters will override any conflicting
command line options.
-h host
--host=host
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.
-p port
--port=port
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.
-U username
--username=username
User name to connect as.
-w
--no-password
Never issue a password prompt. If the server requires password authentication and a
password is not available by other means such as a .pgpass file, the connection
attempt will fail. This option can be useful in batch jobs and scripts where no user
is present to enter a password.
-W
--password
Force pg_dump to prompt for a password before connecting to a database.
This option is never essential, since pg_dump will automatically prompt for a password
if the server demands password authentication. However, pg_dump will waste a
connection attempt finding out that the server wants a password. In some cases it is
worth typing -W to avoid the extra connection attempt.
--role=rolename
Specifies a role name to be used to create the dump. This option causes pg_dump to
issue a SET ROLE rolename command after connecting to the database. It is useful when
the authenticated user (specified by -U) lacks privileges needed by pg_dump, but can
switch to a role with the required rights. Some installations have a policy against
logging in directly as a superuser, and use of this option allows dumps to be made
without violating the policy.
ENVIRONMENT
PGDATABASE
PGHOST
PGOPTIONS
PGPORT
PGUSER
Default connection parameters.
PG_COLOR
Specifies whether to use color in diagnostic messages. Possible values are always,
auto and never.
This utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, also uses the environment variables
supported by libpq (see Section 32.15).
DIAGNOSTICS
pg_dump internally executes SELECT statements. If you have problems running pg_dump, make
sure you are able to select information from the database using, for example, psql(1).
Also, any default connection settings and environment variables used by the libpq
front-end library will apply.
The database activity of pg_dump is normally collected by the cumulative statistics
system. If this is undesirable, you can set parameter track_counts to false via PGOPTIONS
or the ALTER USER command.
NOTES
If your database cluster has any local additions to the template1 database, be careful to
restore the output of pg_dump into a truly empty database; otherwise you are likely to get
errors due to duplicate definitions of the added objects. To make an empty database
without any local additions, copy from template0 not template1, for example:
CREATE DATABASE foo WITH TEMPLATE template0;
When a data-only dump is chosen and the option --disable-triggers is used, pg_dump emits
commands to disable triggers on user tables before inserting the data, and then commands
to re-enable them after the data has been inserted. If the restore is stopped in the
middle, the system catalogs might be left in the wrong state.
The dump file produced by pg_dump does not contain the statistics used by the optimizer to
make query planning decisions. Therefore, it is wise to run ANALYZE after restoring from a
dump file to ensure optimal performance; see Section 24.1.3 and Section 24.1.6 for more
information.
Because pg_dump is used to transfer data to newer versions of PostgreSQL, the output of
pg_dump can be expected to load into PostgreSQL server versions newer than pg_dump's
version. pg_dump can also dump from PostgreSQL servers older than its own version.
(Currently, servers back to version 9.2 are supported.) However, pg_dump cannot dump from
PostgreSQL servers newer than its own major version; it will refuse to even try, rather
than risk making an invalid dump. Also, it is not guaranteed that pg_dump's output can be
loaded into a server of an older major version — not even if the dump was taken from a
server of that version. Loading a dump file into an older server may require manual
editing of the dump file to remove syntax not understood by the older server. Use of the
--quote-all-identifiers option is recommended in cross-version cases, as it can prevent
problems arising from varying reserved-word lists in different PostgreSQL versions.
When dumping logical replication subscriptions, pg_dump will generate CREATE SUBSCRIPTION
commands that use the connect = false option, so that restoring the subscription does not
make remote connections for creating a replication slot or for initial table copy. That
way, the dump can be restored without requiring network access to the remote servers. It
is then up to the user to reactivate the subscriptions in a suitable way. If the involved
hosts have changed, the connection information might have to be changed. It might also be
appropriate to truncate the target tables before initiating a new full table copy. If
users intend to copy initial data during refresh they must create the slot with two_phase
= false. After the initial sync, the two_phase option will be automatically enabled by the
subscriber if the subscription had been originally created with two_phase = true option.
EXAMPLES
To dump a database called mydb into an SQL-script file:
$ pg_dump mydb > db.sql
To reload such a script into a (freshly created) database named newdb:
$ psql -d newdb -f db.sql
To dump a database into a custom-format archive file:
$ pg_dump -Fc mydb > db.dump
To dump a database into a directory-format archive:
$ pg_dump -Fd mydb -f dumpdir
To dump a database into a directory-format archive in parallel with 5 worker jobs:
$ pg_dump -Fd mydb -j 5 -f dumpdir
To reload an archive file into a (freshly created) database named newdb:
$ pg_restore -d newdb db.dump
To reload an archive file into the same database it was dumped from, discarding the
current contents of that database:
$ pg_restore -d postgres --clean --create db.dump
To dump a single table named mytab:
$ pg_dump -t mytab mydb > db.sql
To dump all tables whose names start with emp in the detroit schema, except for the table
named employee_log:
$ pg_dump -t 'detroit.emp*' -T detroit.employee_log mydb > db.sql
To dump all schemas whose names start with east or west and end in gsm, excluding any
schemas whose names contain the word test:
$ pg_dump -n 'east*gsm' -n 'west*gsm' -N '*test*' mydb > db.sql
The same, using regular expression notation to consolidate the switches:
$ pg_dump -n '(east|west)*gsm' -N '*test*' mydb > db.sql
To dump all database objects except for tables whose names begin with ts_:
$ pg_dump -T 'ts_*' mydb > db.sql
To specify an upper-case or mixed-case name in -t and related switches, you need to
double-quote the name; else it will be folded to lower case (see Patterns). But double
quotes are special to the shell, so in turn they must be quoted. Thus, to dump a single
table with a mixed-case name, you need something like
$ pg_dump -t "\"MixedCaseName\"" mydb > mytab.sql
To dump all tables whose names start with mytable, except for table mytable2, specify a
filter file filter.txt like:
include table mytable*
exclude table mytable2
$ pg_dump --filter=filter.txt mydb > db.sql
SEE ALSO
pg_dumpall(1), pg_restore(1), psql(1)