Django 的“dumpdata”还是 Postgres 的“pg_dump”？

Question

I'm unsure as to whether this question should be posted in the Database Administrators ' section or here, so please advise if I got it wrong.

I have a Django-based website which doesn't change much. I use python manage.py dumpdata --all --indent=2 > backup.json and reload the data with loaddata if I need to redeploy or the db gets corrupted. (I'm aware about integrity errors that have occurred when not excluding auth and content_types )

Since I'm using PostgreSQL on the backend, is it "best practise" or "wiser" for me to use pg_dump instead, and then pg_restore if something goes wrong or if I need to redeploy?

So dumpdata dumps all data associated with the selected apps (and/or models), and pg_dump performs a full dump of the db. Is this the same thing or is there a fundamental difference that I've missed (mind you I have 0 experience with DBA)?

Which option do I go for and why?

Answer 1

It is both best practice and wiser for you to use pg_dump instead of dumpdata .

There are many reasons for this.

• pg_dump is faster and the output is more compact (particularly with the -Fc option) than with dumpdata.

• Importing the data back into the db with pg_restore will also be faster than django's loaddata .

• pg_restore is available on any postgresql installation but django and it's dependencies you will have to install.

• Last but not least the integrity errors that you spoke of will not happen with pg_dump/pg_restore.

Generally pg_dump is used to dump the entire database however the -t option allows you to dump one or few tables at a time