small pg_dump RFE: new --no-prompt (password) option

[Marc Herbert <Marc(dot)Herbert(at)continuent(dot)com>]

Hi there,

 As discussed recently on the jdbc mailing-list in this "Backup in Java" thread

<http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.db.postgresql.jdbc/12441/focus=12441>

there is a significant interest in doing backups in an
non-interactive, programmatic way. Reminder: AFAIK pg_dump is
currently the very unique reliable way to perform a backup. There is no
documented API or protocol to do this. Any program in any language is
stuck with "scripting" pg_dump.

When we implemented this scripting in Java we faced one major issue:
pg_dump may prompt for a password in a unpredictable way (depending on
the user misconfiguration). Taking care of this is surprisingly
complex.  The suggested --no-prompt would make scripting pg_dump
infinitely easier.  In case a password is needed, this option would
simply fail and return immediatly with an appropriate error message.
Or even better, with a well-defined return status.

Thanks in advance for considering this new feature!

Sincerely,

Marc.