Re: Not clear sentence

On Jan 21, 2022, at 10:05 AM, David G. Johnston <david.g.johnston@gmail.com> wrote:

On Fri, Jan 21, 2022 at 5:37 AM Laurenz Albe <laurenz.albe@cybertec.at> wrote:

On Thu, 2022-01-20 at 19:46 +0000, PG Doc comments form wrote:
> Page: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/14/backup-dump.html
> Description:
> 
> Text: This is necessary to fully backup the cluster if running the pg_dump
> command on individual databases.
> 
> Please provide an explanation or re-write the same, thanks.

Hm, yes, that could be improved.  Perhaps:

  This is required for a full backup of the cluster that is performed
  by pg_dump on the individual databases.

I don't see a problem with the existing wording.  And as the OP hasn't really described what is confusing them it is difficult to contemplate a rewrite that would remove that confusion.

The sentence means that one must run pg_dumpall --globals-only (that is what "this" is referring to without doubt) and add the result to their backup (implied by the wording "necessary to fully backup"; this data is missing...) if their backup routine consists of backing up individual databases using the pg_dump command (exact wording).

If anything, whether one chooses to backup all databases in a cluster individually using pg_dump is immaterial.  Any single database backed up using pg_dump is incomplete if it is restored into an empty cluster.  One must also restore the globals into that cluster first to produce a valid restoration of that database.  The existing wording implies as much (and we rightly assume restoration into a freshly initialized cluster) so still no word-smithing seems needed here.

But hopefully the OP is less confused now.

David J.