Jeff Janes wrote > On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 11:12 PM, David Johnston < > polobo@ > > wrote: > >> Having recently had a pg_dump error out due to not having enough disk it >> occurs to me that it would be nice for pg_dump to remove the partial dump >> file it was creating (if possible/known) instead of having it sit around >> taking up that last bit of available space and itself being unusable for >> restore purposes anyway. Given these tend to be large the benefit to >> cleanup seems quite strong and fairly direct to accomplish since we just >> created the file only a short while previous. Call it a beginner or >> part-time-dba usability feature. >> > > I don't think I like this. If I unexpectedly filled up a partition with a > dump file, I think the first thing I would want to do is 'head' or 'more' > the partial dump to see what is making it so big--e.g. that I am dumping > the wrong cluster/database/schema. I wouldn't want the software to hide > the evidence. So yeah, my situation was I had too many "archive dumps" maintained so that while each dump was just fine in totality they took up too much space and the last one aborted but left that space occupied. I'll admit my situation is novice-level admin work but I wouldn't put it past others to encounter this situation. Leaving the target drive full just seems hostile. Forensics should be do-able from knowing the command that was used. And maybe upon such an abort STDERR could be used to output relevant diagnostic information (e.g., host, port, user, the result of a version() call, etc...) instead of leaving gigabytes of a partial database dump around which might not even have enough detail. This would be a useful addition in its own right since what pg_dump sees does not always directly match the command that was issued. David J. -- View this message in context: http://postgresql.1045698.n5.nabble.com/Suggestion-pg-dump-self-cleanup-if-out-of-disk-tp5778842p5779030.html Sent from the PostgreSQL - general mailing list archive at Nabble.com. -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general