Brad Littlejohn <blittlejohn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Okay.. then let's ask this. If I take a file-based backup of the > source database now, the previous WAL logs should be irrelevant, > right? The reason I ask, is that one of my developers made a > change to 2 tables last night, didn't wrap his changes around a > begin/commit/rollback statement, and dropped a column he needs > back. The WAL logs are now the only place the column and the data > for that column exist. If I took a file-based backup of the > current database (read: today), could I apply the WAL logs (from > up to when they made that change) to that file-based backup to get > the data back that he needs? How much of the data was in that column when the pg_dump was run? You could certainly recover any of that. Data entered after that would be in the WAL file stream somewhere, but picking it out would be a very tedious and time-consuming process. I'm not aware of any tools which would make that easy, but capturing a file-based copy of your database as soon as possible, as well as keeping that old pg_dump output, would be important if you have any hope of sifting that out. I'd start by doing those, "just in case" -- but your best bet would be to try to find some other source to re-enter the data, if at all possible. Then be sure to follow backup directions from the documentation more closely, and *never* believe that any backup technique is working until you've tested a restore. On any product. I don't like to trust that any particular *backup* is good until I've restored it, even if the process hasn't changed. -Kevin -- Sent via pgsql-admin mailing list (pgsql-admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-admin
