Il Gio 4 Dic 2025, 16:50 Laurenz Albe <[email protected]> ha scritto:
> On Thu, 2025-12-04 at 13:12 +0100, Radoulov, Dimitre wrote: > > I would like to request a clarification in the pg_dumpall > > documentation regarding Large Objects (LOBs). The current > > documentation does not explicitly state whether pg_dumpall includes > > Large Objects in its output. > > > > This behavior is clear from the implementation, but not from the > > documentation. > > > > I propose adding an explicit note such as: > > > > "pg_dumpall does not include Large Objects (BLOBs). To back up > > Large Objects, use pg_dump -b per database." > > At the beginning of the "pg_dumpall" page we see: > > pg_dumpall is a utility for writing out (“dumping”) all PostgreSQL > databases > of a cluster into one script file. [...]. > It does this by calling pg_dump for each database in the cluster. > > And the pg_dump documentation says: > > -b > --large-objects > --blobs (deprecated) > > Include large objects in the dump. This is the default behavior except > when > --schema, --table, --schema-only, --statistics-only, or --no-data is > specified. > > Since pg_dumpall dumps the databases (and not parts of the databases), it > will > automatically dump large objects too. > > But I admit that you have to go by circumstantial evidence here. But > rather > than explicitly naming large objects, perhaps it would be useful to add > something > like > > pg_dumpall is primarily intended as a tool to upgrade database clusters. > As such, it by default exports all data of the entire cluster. > The only part of the state of a database cluster that is *not* included > in the output of pg_dumpall are the configuration files and database > parameters > changed with ALTER SYSTEM. > Thank you for the clarification. I believe the confusion comes from the historical behavior of pg_dump in older PostgreSQL versions. Since pg_dumpall delegates to pg_dump, and pg_dump’s default behavior has included LOBs since 7.1, the current behavior is consistent with your explanation. Thank you again for your time and for considering the suggestion. Best regards Dimitre >
