pg_dump

These days with multiple Postgres database environments a commonality, it’s not unheard of to copy data from one to another. Perhaps a production extract is necessary to properly vet data in a staging environment. Maybe the development environment needs to update its data to reflect an especially pernicious and intractable edge case someone observed. In any of these scenarios, we are likely to extract data from multiple tables to import it elsewhere.

Postgresql hates itself. I’m convinced of this, and have considered the idea frequently over the years. I roll it around in my mouth just to savor the taste, only to hope the flavor changes eventually. A couple things have advanced, though not quite what one might hope. Parallel Restore With the introduction of PostgreSQL 8.4, the core developers have finally succumbed to the availability of multiple-CPU systems, and added parallel restores.