Re: doc for pg_dump

Hi Peter -

sorry if this is the wrong place to ask - but I was looking for
some documentation of the pg_dump/pg_dumpall output format
AND/OR some pointers on how to recognize and correctly handle index
relations when grabbing all tables in a database.

Anyway - the error I get when using pg_dump (or pg_dumpall) is...

   SET TRANSACTION command failed.  Explanation from backend: \
   'ERROR:  parser: parse error at or near "transaction"'.

... which, from what I have found searching the postgresql site,
seems to indicate a mismatch in the version of pg_dump used -
OR funky values in one or more tables.

Either is certainly possible in my case, and I HAVE found some
funky values (even a col type of "_text") in the exercise of
writing a home-grown pg_dump.

I think I have been able to correct such bad cases in the output
I'm producing but I do not know the actual format of the pg_dump
(or pg_dumpall) output and I cannot find any documentation for that
format?

Perhaps none exists?  But I thought this was a good place to
ask??

What I do now is just output a bunch of \connect/CREATE
record pairs and then a bunch of "COPY ... from stdin"
sections.

I'm pretty much for sure that I need to include some handling of the
index relations that exist in the current databases (really really
don't want to think about having to redo all of those by hand 8-], but,
at the moment, I'm recognizing them based on exceptions and simply
skipping them because I'm not sure how to snarf them.

Any pointers to docs or how-to's would be greatly appreciated.

--
Wishing you an "OOBA OOBA" 21st Century!!
Horace                            ...once known as "Kicker" :-)
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Peter Eisentraut wrote:
>
> Horace A. Vallas, Jr. writes:
>
> > I'm writing to this address because the links for mail lists fail and
> > said to write here if looking for docs and such...
>
> This is the list for writing docs.
>
> > I have some problem that is keeping me from being able to use
> > pg_dump or pg_dumpall on a 6.4 version.  What I have found mentioned
> > about the error indicates either that my pg_xxxx applications are
> > the wrong versions for the database (very possible) or that there
> > is a problem with one or more table values (possibly but all databases
> > and tables on the machine fail to dump).
>
> It would be more helpful to say what the error was rather than saying what
> you think it meant.
>
> --
> Peter Eisentraut   peter_e@gmx.net   http://funkturm.homeip.net/~peter