Re: BUG #1349: Gap in documentation - pg_dump

On Thu, Dec 16, 2004 at 08:16:56 +0000,
  PostgreSQL Bugs List <pgsql-bugs@postgresql.org> wrote:
>
> I'm sorry, but I didn't found a better place to report that:
>
> There is no information how to specify user's password in pg_dump
> documentation. I have spent half of day searching for that (pg_hba.conf was
> not working for me) and the answer is very simple:
>
> You can use SET variables for that:
>
> PGUSER=web-user
> PGPASSWORD=secret
>
> Please include that in pg_dump documentation.

You don't want to do that; on many systems the contents of environment
variables are visible to other processes. You can keep a password in
~/.pgpass and that will work for more than just pg_dump. If the batch
scripts are running on the same machine as the server, consider using
ident authentication.