<!--
doc/src/sgml/ref/pg_restore.sgml
PostgreSQL documentation
-->

<refentry id="app-pgrestore">
 <indexterm zone="app-pgrestore">
  <primary>pg_restore</primary>
 </indexterm>

 <refmeta>
  <refentrytitle><application>pg_restore</application></refentrytitle>
  <manvolnum>1</manvolnum>
  <refmiscinfo>Application</refmiscinfo>
 </refmeta>

 <refnamediv>
  <refname>pg_restore</refname>

  <refpurpose>
   restore a <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> database or cluster
   from an archive created by <application>pg_dump</application> or
   <application>pg_dumpall</application>
  </refpurpose>
 </refnamediv>

 <refsynopsisdiv>
  <cmdsynopsis>
   <command>pg_restore</command>
   <arg rep="repeat"><replaceable>connection-option</replaceable></arg>
   <arg rep="repeat"><replaceable>option</replaceable></arg>
   <arg choice="opt"><replaceable>filename</replaceable></arg>
  </cmdsynopsis>
 </refsynopsisdiv>


 <refsect1 id="app-pgrestore-description">
  <title>Description</title>

  <para>
   <application>pg_restore</application> is a utility for restoring a
   <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> database or cluster from an archive
   created by <xref linkend="app-pgdump"/> or
   <xref linkend="app-pg-dumpall"/> in one of the non-plain-text
   formats.  It will issue the commands necessary to reconstruct the
   database or cluster to the state it was in at the time it was saved. The
   archives also allow <application>pg_restore</application> to
   be selective about what is restored, or even to reorder the items
   prior to being restored. The archive formats are designed to be
   portable across architectures.
  </para>

  <para>
   <application>pg_restore</application> can operate in two modes.
   If a database name is specified, <application>pg_restore</application>
   connects to that database and restores archive contents directly into
   the database.
   When restoring from a dump made by <application>pg_dumpall</application>,
   each database will be created and then the restoration will be run in that
   database.

   Otherwise, when a database name is not specified, a script containing the SQL
   commands necessary to rebuild the database or cluster is created and written
   to a file or standard output.  This script output is equivalent to
   the plain text output format of <application>pg_dump</application> or
   <application>pg_dumpall</application>.

   Some of the options controlling the output are therefore analogous to
   <application>pg_dump</application> options.
  </para>

  <para>
   Obviously, <application>pg_restore</application> cannot restore information
   that is not present in the archive file.  For instance, if the
   archive was made using the <quote>dump data as
   <command>INSERT</command> commands</quote> option,
   <application>pg_restore</application> will not be able to load the data
   using <command>COPY</command> statements.
  </para>
 </refsect1>

 <refsect1 id="app-pgrestore-options">
  <title>Options</title>

   <para>
    <application>pg_restore</application> accepts the following command
    line arguments.

    <variablelist>
     <varlistentry>
      <term><replaceable class="parameter">filename</replaceable></term>
      <listitem>
       <para>
       Specifies the location of the archive file (or directory, for a
       directory-format archive) to be restored.
       If not specified, the standard input is used.
       </para>
      </listitem>
     </varlistentry>

     <varlistentry>
      <term><option>-a</option></term>
      <term><option>--data-only</option></term>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        Restore only the data, not the schema (data definitions) or statistics.
        Table data, large objects, and sequence values are restored,
        if present in the archive.
       </para>

       <para>
        This option is similar to, but for historical reasons not identical
        to, specifying <option>--section=data</option>.
       </para>
      </listitem>
     </varlistentry>