Re: pg_restore WAS Re: [BUGS] BUG #13702: pg_dump interprets “=” in a db name incorrectly

On 23 Oct 2015 1:33 PM, David G. Johnston wrote:

On Fri, Oct 23, 2015 at 2:20 PM, Felipe Gasper <felipe@felipegasper.com
<mailto:felipe@felipegasper.com>>wrote:

Again, the "--dbname" argument can either be an actual database name or
a "connection info" object.

But the documentation doesn’t say that; it only says that it’s the name of the database. Should the documentation be updated, then?

 In the later case the "=" has a special
meaning.  If your database has an "=" in its name then it seems like you
have to use the "connection info" definition form.  Note I haven't dug
into this with respect to pg_restore but that is the findings from the
brief psql test I performed.

Is “connection info” an option with pg_restore, though, which mandates a --dbname argument?

Here is the execve from strace:

------------
[pid 21172] execve("/usr/local/pgsql/bin/pg_restore", ["/usr/local/pgsql/bin/pg_restore", "--username=postgres", "--host=/tmp/TMP.work.mVasksDJkt0CEJJh/socket", "--no-privileges", "--no-owner", "-d", "weird  alpha_0123~-_=+[{]}\\\\;:,<.>?", "--single-transaction", "--role", "weird alpha_0123~-_=+[{]}\\\\;:,<.>?"], [/* 8 vars */]) = 0
------------

It spits out the following on STDERR:

-------------
[archiver (db)] connection to database "" failed: missing "=" after "weird" in connection info string
-------------

It makes sense that the “=” would be interpreted as a special character in pg_dump when there is no --dbname parameter. But the docs say that --dbname is for a database name; there is no mention of any kind of parsing otherwise. Should it not work that way? What purpose is served by passing configuration parameters in the database name?

This does work with 9.4 when I use the “postgres:///…” syntax; however, as we’re stuck supporting older PgSQLs for the time being (*sigh* even back to 8.1), and as PGDATABASE doesn’t work with pg_restore, are we left with having to prohibit “=” in database names?