--data-only

Dump only the data, not the schema (data definitions). Table data, large objects, and sequence values aredumped.This option is similar to, but for historical reasons not identical to, specifying --section=data.

--blobs

Include large objects in the dump. This is the default behavior except when --schema, --table, or

--no-blobs

Exclude large objects in the dump.When both -b and -B are given, the behavior is to output large objects, when data is being dumped, see the

--clean

Output commands to clean (drop) database objects prior to outputting the commands for creating them.(Unless --if-exists is also specified, restore might generate some harmless error messages, if any objectswere not present in the destination database.)This option is only meaningful for the plain-text format. For the archive formats, you can specify theoption when you call pg_restore.

--create

Begin the output with a command to create the database itself and reconnect to the created database. (Witha script of this form, it doesn't matter which database in the destination installation you connect tobefore running the script.) If --clean is also specified, the script drops and recreates the targetdatabase before reconnecting to it.This option is only meaningful for the plain-text format. For the archive formats, you can specify theoption when you call pg_restore.

--encoding

Create the dump in the specified character set encoding. By default, the dump is created in the databaseencoding. (Another way to get the same result is to set the PGCLIENTENCODING environment variable to thedesired dump encoding.)

--file

Send output to the specified file. This parameter can be omitted for file based output formats, in whichcase the standard output is used. It must be given for the directory output format however, where itspecifies the target directory instead of a file. In this case the directory is created by pg_dump andmust not exist before.

--format

Selects the format of the output. format can be one of the following:pplainOutput a plain-text SQL script file (the default).ccustomOutput a custom-format archive suitable for input into pg_restore. Together with the directory outputformat, this is the most flexible output format in that it allows manual selection and reordering ofarchived items during restore. This format is also compressed by default.ddirectoryOutput a directory-format archive suitable for input into pg_restore. This will create a directorywith one file for each table and blob being dumped, plus a so-called Table of Contents file describingthe dumped objects in a machine-readable format that pg_restore can read. A directory format archivecan be manipulated with standard Unix tools; for example, files in an uncompressed archive can becompressed with the gzip tool. This format is compressed by default and also supports parallel dumps.ttarOutput a tar-format archive suitable for input into pg_restore. The tar format is compatible with thedirectory format: extracting a tar-format archive produces a valid directory-format archive. However,the tar format does not support compression. Also, when using tar format the relative order of tabledata items cannot be changed during restore.

--jobs

Run the dump in parallel by dumping njobs tables simultaneously. This option reduces the time of the dumpbut it also increases the load on the database server. You can only use this option with the directoryoutput format because this is the only output format where multiple processes can write their data at thesame time.pg_dump will open njobs + 1 connections to the database, so make sure your max_connections setting is highenough to accommodate all connections.Requesting exclusive locks on database objects while running a parallel dump could cause the dump to fail.The reason is that the pg_dump master process requests shared locks on the objects that the workerprocesses are going to dump later in order to make sure that nobody deletes them and makes them go awaywhile the dump is running. If another client then requests an exclusive lock on a table, that lock willnot be granted but will be queued waiting for the shared lock of the master process to be released.Consequently any other access to the table will not be granted either and will queue after the exclusivelock request. This includes the worker process trying to dump the table. Without any precautions thiswould be a classic deadlock situation. To detect this conflict, the pg_dump worker process requestsanother shared lock using the NOWAIT option. If the worker process is not granted this shared lock,somebody else must have requested an exclusive lock in the meantime and there is no way to continue withthe dump, so pg_dump has no choice but to abort the dump.For a consistent backup, the database server needs to support synchronized snapshots, a feature that wasintroduced in PostgreSQL 9.2 for primary servers and 10 for standbys. With this feature, database clientscan ensure they see the same data set even though they use different connections. pg_dump -j usesmultiple database connections; it connects to the database once with the master process and once again foreach worker job. Without the synchronized snapshot feature, the different worker jobs wouldn't beguaranteed to see the same data in each connection, which could lead to an inconsistent backup.If you want to run a parallel dump of a pre-9.2 server, you need to make sure that the database contentdoesn't change from between the time the master connects to the database until the last worker job hasconnected to the database. The easiest way to do this is to halt any data modifying processes (DDL andDML) accessing the database before starting the backup. You also need to specify the

--no-synchronized-snapshots

parameter when running pg_dump -j against a pre-9.2 PostgreSQL server.

--schema

Dump only schemas matching schema; this selects both the schema itself, and all its contained objects.When this option is not specified, all non-system schemas in the target database will be dumped. Multipleschemas can be selected by writing multiple -n switches. Also, the schema parameter is interpreted as apattern according to the same rules used by psql's \d commands (see Patterns), so multiple schemas canalso be selected by writing wildcard characters in the pattern. When using wildcards, be careful to quotethe pattern if needed to prevent the shell from expanding the wildcards; see EXAMPLES.NoteWhen -n is specified, pg_dump makes no attempt to dump any other database objects that the selectedschema(s) might depend upon. Therefore, there is no guarantee that the results of a specific-schemadump can be successfully restored by themselves into a clean database.NoteNon-schema objects such as blobs are not dumped when -n is specified. You can add blobs back to thedump with the --blobs switch.

--exclude-schema

Do not dump any schemas matching the schema pattern. The pattern is interpreted according to the samerules as for -n. -N can be given more than once to exclude schemas matching any of several patterns.When both -n and -N are given, the behavior is to dump just the schemas that match at least one -n switchbut no -N switches. If -N appears without -n, then schemas matching -N are excluded from what is otherwisea normal dump.

--oids

Dump object identifiers (OIDs) as part of the data for every table. Use this option if your applicationreferences the OID columns in some way (e.g., in a foreign key constraint). Otherwise, this option shouldnot be used.

--no-owner

Do not output commands to set ownership of objects to match the original database. By default, pg_dumpissues ALTER OWNER or SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION statements to set ownership of created database objects.These statements will fail when the script is run unless it is started by a superuser (or the same userthat owns all of the objects in the script). To make a script that can be restored by any user, but willgive that user ownership of all the objects, specify -O.This option is only meaningful for the plain-text format. For the archive formats, you can specify theoption when you call pg_restore.

--no-reconnect

This option is obsolete but still accepted for backwards compatibility.

--schema-only

Dump only the object definitions (schema), not data.This option is the inverse of --data-only. It is similar to, but for historical reasons not identical to,specifying --section=pre-data --section=post-data.(Do not confuse this with the --schema option, which uses the word “schema” in a different meaning.)To exclude table data for only a subset of tables in the database, see --exclude-table-data.

--superuser

Specify the superuser user name to use when disabling triggers. This is relevant only if

--table

Dump only tables with names matching table. For this purpose, “table” includes views, materialized views,sequences, and foreign tables. Multiple tables can be selected by writing multiple -t switches. Also, thetable parameter is interpreted as a pattern according to the same rules used by psql's \d commands (seePatterns), so multiple tables can also be selected by writing wildcard characters in the pattern. Whenusing wildcards, be careful to quote the pattern if needed to prevent the shell from expanding thewildcards; see EXAMPLES.The -n and -N switches have no effect when -t is used, because tables selected by -t will be dumpedregardless of those switches, and non-table objects will not be dumped.NoteWhen -t is specified, pg_dump makes no attempt to dump any other database objects that the selectedtable(s) might depend upon. Therefore, there is no guarantee that the results of a specific-table dumpcan be successfully restored by themselves into a clean database.NoteThe behavior of the -t switch is not entirely upward compatible with pre-8.2 PostgreSQL versions.Formerly, writing -t tab would dump all tables named tab, but now it just dumps whichever one isvisible in your default search path. To get the old behavior you can write -t '*.tab'. Also, you mustwrite something like -t sch.tab to select a table in a particular schema, rather than the old locutionof -n sch -t tab.

--exclude-table

Do not dump any tables matching the table pattern. The pattern is interpreted according to the same rulesas for -t. -T can be given more than once to exclude tables matching any of several patterns.When both -t and -T are given, the behavior is to dump just the tables that match at least one -t switchbut no -T switches. If -T appears without -t, then tables matching -T are excluded from what is otherwisea normal dump.

--verbose

Specifies verbose mode. This will cause pg_dump to output detailed object comments and start/stop times tothe dump file, and progress messages to standard error.

--version

Print the pg_dump version and exit.

--no-acl

Prevent dumping of access privileges (grant/revoke commands).

--compress

Specify the compression level to use. Zero means no compression. For the custom archive format, thisspecifies compression of individual table-data segments, and the default is to compress at a moderatelevel. For plain text output, setting a nonzero compression level causes the entire output file to becompressed, as though it had been fed through gzip; but the default is not to compress. The tar archiveformat currently does not support compression at all.

--binary-upgrade

This option is for use by in-place upgrade utilities. Its use for other purposes is not recommended orsupported. The behavior of the option may change in future releases without notice.

--attribute-inserts

Dump data as INSERT commands with explicit column names (INSERT INTO table (column, ...) VALUES ...). Thiswill make restoration very slow; it is mainly useful for making dumps that can be loaded intonon-PostgreSQL databases. However, since this option generates a separate command for each row, an errorin reloading a row causes only that row to be lost rather than the entire table contents.

--disable-dollar-quoting

This option disables the use of dollar quoting for function bodies, and forces them to be quoted using SQLstandard string syntax.

--disable-triggers

This option is relevant only when creating a data-only dump. It instructs pg_dump to include commands totemporarily disable triggers on the target tables while the data is reloaded. Use this if you havereferential integrity checks or other triggers on the tables that you do not want to invoke during datareload.Presently, the commands emitted for --disable-triggers must be done as superuser. So, you should alsospecify a superuser name with -S, or preferably be careful to start the resulting script as a superuser.This option is only meaningful for the plain-text format. For the archive formats, you can specify theoption when you call pg_restore.

--enable-row-security

This option is relevant only when dumping the contents of a table which has row security. By default,pg_dump will set row_security to off, to ensure that all data is dumped from the table. If the user doesnot have sufficient privileges to bypass row security, then an error is thrown. This parameter instructspg_dump to set row_security to on instead, allowing the user to dump the parts of the contents of thetable that they have access to.Note that if you use this option currently, you probably also want the dump be in INSERT format, as theCOPY FROM during restore does not support row security.

--exclude-table-data

Do not dump data for any tables matching the table pattern. The pattern is interpreted according to thesame rules as for -t. --exclude-table-data can be given more than once to exclude tables matching any ofseveral patterns. This option is useful when you need the definition of a particular table even though youdo not need the data in it.To exclude data for all tables in the database, see --schema-only.

--if-exists

Use conditional commands (i.e. add an IF EXISTS clause) when cleaning database objects. This option is notvalid unless --clean is also specified.

--inserts

Dump data as INSERT commands (rather than COPY). This will make restoration very slow; it is mainly usefulfor making dumps that can be loaded into non-PostgreSQL databases. However, since this option generates aseparate command for each row, an error in reloading a row causes only that row to be lost rather than theentire table contents. Note that the restore might fail altogether if you have rearranged column order.The --column-inserts option is safe against column order changes, though even slower.

--lock-wait-timeout

Do not wait forever to acquire shared table locks at the beginning of the dump. Instead fail if unable tolock a table within the specified timeout. The timeout may be specified in any of the formats accepted bySET statement_timeout. (Allowed formats vary depending on the server version you are dumping from, but aninteger number of milliseconds is accepted by all versions.)

--no-publications

Do not dump publications.

--no-security-labels

Do not dump security labels.

--no-subscriptions

Do not dump subscriptions.

--no-sync

By default, pg_dump will wait for all files to be written safely to disk. This option causes pg_dump toreturn without waiting, which is faster, but means that a subsequent operating system crash can leave thedump corrupt. Generally, this option is useful for testing but should not be used when dumping data fromproduction installation.

--no-tablespaces

Do not output commands to select tablespaces. With this option, all objects will be created in whichevertablespace is the default during restore.This option is only meaningful for the plain-text format. For the archive formats, you can specify theoption when you call pg_restore.

--no-unlogged-table-data

Do not dump the contents of unlogged tables. This option has no effect on whether or not the tabledefinitions (schema) are dumped; it only suppresses dumping the table data. Data in unlogged tables isalways excluded when dumping from a standby server.

--quote-all-identifiers

Force quoting of all identifiers. This option is recommended when dumping a database from a server whosePostgreSQL major version is different from pg_dump's, or when the output is intended to be loaded into aserver of a different major version. By default, pg_dump quotes only identifiers that are reserved wordsin its own major version. This sometimes results in compatibility issues when dealing with servers ofother versions that may have slightly different sets of reserved words. Using --quote-all-identifiersprevents such issues, at the price of a harder-to-read dump script.

--section

Only dump the named section. The section name can be pre-data, data, or post-data. This option can bespecified more than once to select multiple sections. The default is to dump all sections.The data section contains actual table data, large-object contents, and sequence values. Post-data itemsinclude definitions of indexes, triggers, rules, and constraints other than validated check constraints.Pre-data items include all other data definition items.

--serializable-deferrable

Use a serializable transaction for the dump, to ensure that the snapshot used is consistent with laterdatabase states; but do this by waiting for a point in the transaction stream at which no anomalies can bepresent, so that there isn't a risk of the dump failing or causing other transactions to roll back with aserialization_failure. See Chapter 13 for more information about transaction isolation and concurrencycontrol.This option is not beneficial for a dump which is intended only for disaster recovery. It could be usefulfor a dump used to load a copy of the database for reporting or other read-only load sharing while theoriginal database continues to be updated. Without it the dump may reflect a state which is not consistentwith any serial execution of the transactions eventually committed. For example, if batch processingtechniques are used, a batch may show as closed in the dump without all of the items which are in thebatch appearing.This option will make no difference if there are no read-write transactions active when pg_dump isstarted. If read-write transactions are active, the start of the dump may be delayed for an indeterminatelength of time. Once running, performance with or without the switch is the same.

--snapshot

Use the specified synchronized snapshot when making a dump of the database (see Table 9.82 for moredetails).This option is useful when needing to synchronize the dump with a logical replication slot (seeChapter 48) or with a concurrent session.In the case of a parallel dump, the snapshot name defined by this option is used rather than taking a newsnapshot.

--strict-names

Require that each schema (-n/--schema) and table (-t/--table) qualifier match at least one schema/table inthe database to be dumped. Note that if none of the schema/table qualifiers find matches, pg_dump willgenerate an error even without --strict-names.This option has no effect on -N/--exclude-schema, -T/--exclude-table, or --exclude-table-data. An excludepattern failing to match any objects is not considered an error.

--use-set-session-authorization

Output SQL-standard SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION commands instead of ALTER OWNER commands to determine objectownership. This makes the dump more standards-compatible, but depending on the history of the objects inthe dump, might not restore properly. Also, a dump using SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION will certainly requiresuperuser privileges to restore correctly, whereas ALTER OWNER requires lesser privileges.

--help

Show help about pg_dump command line arguments, and exit.The following command-line options control the database connection parameters.

--dbname

Specifies the name of the database to connect to. This is equivalent to specifying dbname as the firstnon-option argument on the command line.If this parameter contains an = sign or starts with a valid URI prefix (postgresql:// or postgres://), itis treated as a conninfo string. See Section 33.1 for more information.

--host

Specifies the host name of the machine on which the server is running. If the value begins with a slash,it is used as the directory for the Unix domain socket. The default is taken from the PGHOST environmentvariable, if set, else a Unix domain socket connection is attempted.

--port

Specifies the TCP port or local Unix domain socket file extension on which the server is listening forconnections. Defaults to the PGPORT environment variable, if set, or a compiled-in default.

--username

User name to connect as.

--no-password

Never issue a password prompt. If the server requires password authentication and a password is notavailable by other means such as a .pgpass file, the connection attempt will fail. This option can beuseful in batch jobs and scripts where no user is present to enter a password.

--password

Force pg_dump to prompt for a password before connecting to a database.This option is never essential, since pg_dump will automatically prompt for a password if the serverdemands password authentication. However, pg_dump will waste a connection attempt finding out that theserver wants a password. In some cases it is worth typing -W to avoid the extra connection attempt.

--role

Specifies a role name to be used to create the dump. This option causes pg_dump to issue a SET ROLErolename command after connecting to the database. It is useful when the authenticated user (specified by

-U)

installations have a policy against logging in directly as a superuser, and use of this option allowsdumps to be made without violating the policy.ENVIRONMENTPGDATABASEPGHOSTPGOPTIONSPGPORTPGUSERDefault connection parameters.This utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, also uses the environment variables supported by libpq(see Section 33.14).DIAGNOSTICSpg_dump internally executes SELECT statements. If you have problems running pg_dump, make sure you are able toselect information from the database using, for example, psql(1). Also, any default connection settings andenvironment variables used by the libpq front-end library will apply.The database activity of pg_dump is normally collected by the statistics collector. If this is undesirable,you can set parameter track_counts to false via PGOPTIONS or the ALTER USER command.NOTESIf your database cluster has any local additions to the template1 database, be careful to restore the outputof pg_dump into a truly empty database; otherwise you are likely to get errors due to duplicate definitions ofthe added objects. To make an empty database without any local additions, copy from template0 not template1,for example:CREATE DATABASE foo WITH TEMPLATE template0;When a data-only dump is chosen and the option --disable-triggers is used, pg_dump emits commands to disabletriggers on user tables before inserting the data, and then commands to re-enable them after the data has beeninserted. If the restore is stopped in the middle, the system catalogs might be left in the wrong state.The dump file produced by pg_dump does not contain the statistics used by the optimizer to make query planningdecisions. Therefore, it is wise to run ANALYZE after restoring from a dump file to ensure optimalperformance; see Section 24.1.3 and Section 24.1.6 for more information. The dump file also does not containany ALTER DATABASE ... SET commands; these settings are dumped by pg_dumpall(1), along with database users andother installation-wide settings.Because pg_dump is used to transfer data to newer versions of PostgreSQL, the output of pg_dump can beexpected to load into PostgreSQL server versions newer than pg_dump's version. pg_dump can also dump fromPostgreSQL servers older than its own version. (Currently, servers back to version 8.0 are supported.)However, pg_dump cannot dump from PostgreSQL servers newer than its own major version; it will refuse to eventry, rather than risk making an invalid dump. Also, it is not guaranteed that pg_dump's output can be loadedinto a server of an older major version — not even if the dump was taken from a server of that version.Loading a dump file into an older server may require manual editing of the dump file to remove syntax notunderstood by the older server. Use of the --quote-all-identifiers option is recommended in cross-versioncases, as it can prevent problems arising from varying reserved-word lists in different PostgreSQL versions.When dumping logical replication subscriptions, pg_dump will generate CREATE SUBSCRIPTION commands that usethe connect = false option, so that restoring the subscription does not make remote connections for creating areplication slot or for initial table copy. That way, the dump can be restored without requiring networkaccess to the remote servers. It is then up to the user to reactivate the subscriptions in a suitable way. Ifthe involved hosts have changed, the connection information might have to be changed. It might also beappropriate to truncate the target tables before initiating a new full table copy.EXAMPLESTo dump a database called mydb into a SQL-script file:$ pg_dump mydb > db.sqlTo reload such a script into a (freshly created) database named newdb:$ psql -d newdb -f db.sqlTo dump a database into a custom-format archive file:$ pg_dump -Fc mydb > db.dumpTo dump a database into a directory-format archive:$ pg_dump -Fd mydb -f dumpdirTo dump a database into a directory-format archive in parallel with 5 worker jobs:$ pg_dump -Fd mydb -j 5 -f dumpdirTo reload an archive file into a (freshly created) database named newdb:$ pg_restore -d newdb db.dumpTo dump a single table named mytab:$ pg_dump -t mytab mydb > db.sqlTo dump all tables whose names start with emp in the detroit schema, except for the table named employee_log:$ pg_dump -t 'detroit.emp*' -T detroit.employee_log mydb > db.sqlTo dump all schemas whose names start with east or west and end in gsm, excluding any schemas whose namescontain the word test:$ pg_dump -n 'east*gsm' -n 'west*gsm' -N '*test*' mydb > db.sqlThe same, using regular expression notation to consolidate the switches:$ pg_dump -n '(east|west)*gsm' -N '*test*' mydb > db.sqlTo dump all database objects except for tables whose names begin with ts_:$ pg_dump -T 'ts_*' mydb > db.sqlTo specify an upper-case or mixed-case name in -t and related switches, you need to double-quote the name;else it will be folded to lower case (see Patterns). But double quotes are special to the shell, so in turnthey must be quoted. Thus, to dump a single table with a mixed-case name, you need something like$ pg_dump -t "\"MixedCaseName\"" mydb > mytab.sql