Re: dump from 8.x restore to 7.3.x

[Peter Eisentraut <peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net>]

Shane Ambler wrote:
> I don't see that as being the case - there will be exceptions where
> you have new features in an 8.x database that won't work in a 7.x db
> but otherwise it shouldn't matter, the dumps can be used to import
> into other databases than postgres as long as you use dump with
> inserts instead of copy and use common datatypes.

Restoring dumps from new versions into old versions doesn't work 
(without a lot of manual work).  Example cases:

8.2 dump won't install into 8.1 because it sets 
standard_conforming_stings, which can't be set in 8.1

8.1 dump won't install into 8.0 because it dumps users as roles, but 
roles don't exist in 8.0.

8.0 dump won't install into 7.4 because it dumps tablespaces, which 
don't exist in 7.4.

etc. etc.

Obviously you can see that getting pretty bad if you want to go from 8.1 
all the way to 7.3.

-- 
Peter Eisentraut
http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/