Received: from malur.postgresql.org ([217.196.149.56]) by arkaria.postgresql.org with esmtps (TLS1.3) tls TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 (Exim 4.96) (envelope-from ) id 1wQT7S-001Zz1-2j for pgsql-admin@arkaria.postgresql.org; Fri, 22 May 2026 16:53:06 +0000 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=malur.postgresql.org) by malur.postgresql.org with esmtp (Exim 4.96) (envelope-from ) id 1wQT7Q-00Dkf5-2r for pgsql-admin@arkaria.postgresql.org; Fri, 22 May 2026 16:53:05 +0000 Received: from magus.postgresql.org ([2a02:c0:301:0:ffff::29]) by malur.postgresql.org with esmtps (TLS1.3) tls TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 (Exim 4.96) (envelope-from ) id 1wQT7Q-00Dkex-1k for pgsql-admin@lists.postgresql.org; Fri, 22 May 2026 16:53:05 +0000 Received: from sss.pgh.pa.us ([68.162.161.243]) by magus.postgresql.org with esmtps (TLS1.3) tls TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 (Exim 4.98.2) (envelope-from ) id 1wQT7P-00000000v3r-22Ca for pgsql-admin@lists.postgresql.org; Fri, 22 May 2026 16:53:05 +0000 Received: from pro.sss.pgh.pa.us (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sss.pgh.pa.us (8.18.1/8.18.1) with ESMTP id 64MGqxFT2115883; Fri, 22 May 2026 12:53:00 -0400 From: Tom Lane To: Ron Johnson cc: Pgsql-admin Subject: Re: Request For Feature: pg_dump In-reply-to: References: Comments: In-reply-to Ron Johnson message dated "Fri, 22 May 2026 09:32:44 -0400" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-ID: <26492.1779468779.1@sss.pgh.pa.us> Date: Fri, 22 May 2026 09:52:59 -0700 Message-ID: <26493.1779468779@sss.pgh.pa.us> List-Id: List-Help: List-Subscribe: List-Post: List-Owner: List-Archive: Archived-At: Precedence: bulk Ron Johnson writes: > In --format=directory mode, remove .dat files with zero data records, and > mark that table's toc.dat entry that it's an empty table. > Justification: *lots* of empty tables means *lots* of teeny-tiny files in > the DB's dump directory. That unnecessarily bloats the fs, and makes "du > -c" really really slow. Evidence please? Most file systems that I've looked at optimize zero-size files pretty well. regards, tom lane