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  1. doc: Avoid too prominent use of "backup" on pg_dump man page

  1. Avoid too prominent use of "backup" on pg_dump man page

    Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org> — 2024-05-29T23:11:34Z

    In Karen Jex's presentation today at pgconf.dev [0] one of the examples 
given was that users inadvertently rely on pg_dump as their primary 
backup tool, when better solutions exist.  The pg_dump man page is 
arguably misleading in that it starts with

"pg_dump is a utility for backing up a PostgreSQL database."

I suggest toning this down a little bit.  In the attached patch, I have 
replaced most uses of "backup" with "export" and added a short note that 
pg_dump is not a general-purpose backup tool.

Suggestions for word-smithing welcome.


[0]: 
https://www.pgevents.ca/events/pgconfdev2024/schedule/session/126-how-postgres-is-misused-and-abused-in-the-wild/

  2. Re: Avoid too prominent use of "backup" on pg_dump man page

    Daniel Gustafsson <daniel@yesql.se> — 2024-05-30T06:21:16Z

    > On 30 May 2024, at 01:11, Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org> wrote:

> Suggestions for word-smithing welcome.

No objections to using export over backup, but it does make the use of
"restore" feel awkward as that's generally an operation on a backup and not an
export.

-        least one schema/table in the backup file.
+        least one schema/table in the file to be restored.

Would it make sense to use "import" in some cases instead?

--
Daniel Gustafsson

  3. Re: Avoid too prominent use of "backup" on pg_dump man page

    Laurenz Albe <laurenz.albe@cybertec.at> — 2024-05-31T08:24:36Z

    On Thu, 2024-05-30 at 08:21 +0200, Daniel Gustafsson wrote:
> No objections to using export over backup, but it does make the use of
> "restore" feel awkward as that's generally an operation on a backup and not an
> export.
> 
> -        least one schema/table in the backup file.
> +        least one schema/table in the file to be restored.
> 
> Would it make sense to use "import" in some cases instead?

What about calling it "dump file" instead of "file to be restored"?

Yours,
Laurenz Albe

  4. Re: Avoid too prominent use of "backup" on pg_dump man page

    Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org> — 2024-07-31T06:14:28Z

    On 31.05.24 10:24, Laurenz Albe wrote:
> On Thu, 2024-05-30 at 08:21 +0200, Daniel Gustafsson wrote:
>> No objections to using export over backup, but it does make the use of
>> "restore" feel awkward as that's generally an operation on a backup and not an
>> export.
>>
>> -        least one schema/table in the backup file.
>> +        least one schema/table in the file to be restored.
>>
>> Would it make sense to use "import" in some cases instead?
> 
> What about calling it "dump file" instead of "file to be restored"?

I forgot about this one for a bit.  I committed it now as I had proposed 
it.  The pg_restore man page consistently talks about "restoring" a 
file, so this change makes that more consistent.  Introducing another 
verb would require more changes to properly introduce and explain it, 
which seems out of scope for this particular patch.