On Mon, Jun 10, 2024 at 04:52:06PM +0200, Magnus Hagander wrote: > On Mon, Jun 10, 2024 at 4:14 PM Nathan Bossart <nathandbossart@gmail.com> > wrote: >> I'm curious why we couldn't also support the "custom" format. > > Or maybe even a combo - a directory of custom format files? Plus that one > special file being globals? I'd say that's what most use cases I've seen > would prefer.
Is there a particular advantage to that approach as opposed to just using "directory" mode for everything? I know pg_upgrade uses "custom" mode for each of the databases, so a combo approach would be a closer match to the existing behavior, but that doesn't strike me as an especially strong reason to keep doing it that way.
A gazillion files to deal with? Much easier to work with individual custom files if you're moving databases around and things like that. Much easier to monitor eg sizes/dates if you're using it for backups.
It's not things that are make-it-or-break-it or anything, but there are some smaller things that definitely can be useful.