Maybe this sounds stupid, but, where is the actual database file? I'm
sure there's a file that is the actual DB, but what/where?

--Bryan


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On Fri, 26 Dec 2003, Bryan Irvine wrote:

nope ... depending on what version of postgresql you are running, the
newer ones store it in ${PGDATA}/base/<OID>, under which, there are
indivicudal files for system tables, indices and tables themselves ...


----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy (AT) hub (DOT) org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664

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--On Friday, December 26, 2003 10:07:52 -0800 Bryan Irvine
<bryan.irvine (AT) kingcountyjournal (DOT) com> wrote:


LER



--
Larry Rosenman http://www.lerctr.org/~ler
Phone: +1 972-414-9812 E-Mail: ler (AT) lerctr (DOT) org
US Mail: 1905 Steamboat Springs Drive, Garland, TX 75044-6749

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Is there a Postgress documentation section somewhere that
would tell me the following:

1) the exact correspondence of the files and tables, indices etc.

2) what are the safe filesystem operations on those files
(individual file backup/recovery, moving of files
between different postgress computers/installations etc.?

TIA.
Roger



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Hello, fellow myrealbox user!

On Dec 31, 2003, at 4:09 PM, rhkelly wrote:

Not to be contrary, but why would you want to know this? The beauty of
using a DBMS is to take care of all of that. Unless you're doing some
kind of serious database recovery, I'd say you're better of leaving the
/data directory alone and let PostgreSQL handle that for you. My
admittedly inexperienced opinion is that I'm much more likely to do
serious damage to the system trying to back up individual files rather
than the database (or database cluster) as a whole. And for moving an
database between PostgreSQL installations or backup, I'd use the
pg_dump/pg_restore commands, which are used with a running postmaster.

That said, I have heard of people shutting down the postmaster and
using cp to copy the whole directory.

Sorry if this comes off a little strong. I don't mean to imply your
questions are stupid. It comes from having more trust in PostgreSQL
(and its developers) to handle these things than anyone other than a
very experienced PostgreSQL DBA to mess with anything in the /data
directory. And for what you've described, I think there are safer, more
reliable methods available.

Michael Glaesemann
grzm myrealbox com


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Michael Glaesemann wrote:

Thanks for your comments Michael; to answer your question:

So that I can put the system into some 'partial/previous'
state in a manner which Postgress itself does not support
and with a high degree of confidence that my actions had
the desired effect (and no catastrophic side-effects .
I felt it would be a misappropriation of the attention and
patience of the list to get into details; I only humbly
asked for help with the documentation in a thread that was
'on topic' i.e., something I thought *ought to be*
documented (and - at least as fas as item '1' above is
concerned - for puposes other than mine!), but was unable
to find. I'll keep looking.

Roger




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rhkelly <rhkelly (AT) myrealbox (DOT) com> writes:
You can't. The connections between data files, xlog, and clog
are sufficiently critical that you cannot hope to take some files
out of an installation and put them into another one (nor into
an earlier or later state of the same installation).

regards, tom lane

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Tom Lane wrote:

May I suggest we take two steps back...

I was simply inquiring about what I consider to be an indispensible
element of documentation for *any* application - i.e., the content
and format of the files in which the application stores the data.

I was unable to find it and asked for help.

Roger



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rhkelly <rhkelly (AT) myrealbox (DOT) com> writes:
[ Raises eyebrow... ] I'm not aware of any complex application in which
file format details are considered an indispensable part of the user-level
documentation. Do Word, Photoshop, Outlook, etc provide that info?

Where you want to be looking is at the developer docs, eg
http://developer.postgresql.org/docs/postgres/page.html
and at the source code --- probably
src/include/storage/bufpage.h
src/include/access/htup.h
are good starting points.

regards, tom lane

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Tom Lane wrote:

Which could explain why I don't use either Word or Outlook, and why
I store the images I operate on with Photoshop as .png's

But seriously - thank you: your poinetrs below are *much* appreciated.
kind regards, RK



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