Postgresql restore command :: Which one to use?

custangro · 06-10-2008, 10:57 AM

Hello all,

I've been setting up my backup and restore scheme; and I cam across two ways of restoring from a pg_dumpall

What is the difference between this...

Code:

root@host# psql -U postgres < dumpfile.sql

And this...

Code:

root@host# psql -f dumpfile.sql -U postgres

What is the difference? And if there isn't any; what is the "best practice"?

Thoughts/Suggestions/Complaints?

Thanks,

-C

michaelk · 06-17-2008, 05:29 PM

From the psql man pages

Quote:

-f filename
--file filename
.
.
.
Using this option is subtly different from writing
psql < filename. In general, both will do what you
expect, but using -f enables some nice features
such as error messages with line numbers. There is
also a slight chance that using this option will
reduce the start-up overhead. On the other hand,
the variant using the shell's input redirection is
(in theory) guaranteed to yield exactly the same
output that you would have gotten had you entered
everything by hand.