Re: pg_dump bugs reported as pg_upgrade bugs

Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> writes:
> FYI, you might wonder why so many bugs reported on pg_upgrade eventually
> are bugs in pg_dump.  Well, of course, partly is it because pg_upgrade
> relies on pg_dump, but a bigger issue is that pg_upgrade will fail if
> pg_dump or its restoration generate _any_ errors.  My guess is that many
> people are using pg_dump and restore and just ignoring errors or fixing
> them later, while this is not possible when using pg_upgrade.

pg_dump scripts are *designed* to be tolerant of errors, mainly so
that you can restore into a situation that's not exactly like where
you dumped from, with the possible need to resolve errors or decide
that they're not problems.  So your depiction of what happens in
dump/restore is not showing a problem; it's about using those tools
as they were intended to be used.

Indeed, there's a bit of disconnect there with pg_upgrade, which would
like to present a zero-user-involvement, nothing-to-see-here facade.

            regards, tom lane