Re: -f <output file> option for pg_dumpall

Neil Conway wrote:
> On Thu, 2007-01-11 at 14:36 -0500, Neil Conway wrote:
>   
>> I don't think they need to be integrated any time soon, but if we were
>> to design pg_dump and pg_dumpall from scratch, it seems more logical to
>> use a single program
>>     
>
> On thinking about this some more, it might be useful to factor much of
> pg_dump's logic for reconstructing the state of a database into a shared
> library. This would make it relatively easy for developers to plug new
> archive formats into the library (in addition to the present 3 archive
> formats), or to make use of this functionality in other applications
> that want to reconstruct the logical state of a database from the
> content of the system catalogs. We could then provide a client app
> implemented on top of the library that would provide similar
> functionality to pg_dump.
>
> Moving pg_dump's functionality into the backend has been suggested in
> the past (and rejected for good reason), but I think this might be a
> more practical method for making the pg_dump logic more easily reusable.
>
>
>   

I like this idea. For example, we might usefully map some of this to 
psql \ commands, without having to replicate the underlying logic.

cheers

andrew