[ADMIN] pg_dump from 8.4 to 8.3

[Kieren Scott]

Hi,

I need to migrate some data (a few GB's) from an 8.4 database to an 8.3 database using pg_dump. What is the best way to acheive this?

E.g. Run pg_dump from the 8.3 host pointing it at the 8.4 host and include the version mismatch parameter?
Or, run pg_dump on the 8.4 host, then zip the 8.4 dump file, transfer it to the 8.3 host and run pg_restore from the 8.3 host - will I encounter version problems doing this?
Or any other methods that would be better suited?

TIA

[Kevin Grittner]

Post by Kieren Scott
I need to migrate some data (a few GB's) from an 8.4 database to
an 8.3 database using pg_dump. What is the best way to acheive
this?

This is always a little tricky because you may have objects in your
later-release database which can't be represented in the older
release. My inclination would be to dump with the later release and
hand-modify the file for each error you run into, until you get a
clean restore. Be sure you have an editor which doesn't need to
load the whole file into RAM at one time, if the database is large.

Of course, an even easier route is generally to avoid moving
backward.

-Kevin