We are switching hosts and the old one provided a SQL dump of the PostgreSQL database of our site.
Now, I'm trying to set this up on a local WAMP server to test this.
The only problem is that I don't have an idea how to import this database in the PostgreSQL 9 that I have set up.
I tried pgAdmin III but I can't seem to find an 'import' function. So I just opened the SQL editor and pasted the contents of the dump there and executed it, it creates the tables but it keeps giving me errors when it tries to put the data in it.
ERROR: syntax error at or near "t"
LINE 474: t 2011-05-24 16:45:01.768633 2011-05-24 16:45:01.768633 view...
The lines:
COPY tb_abilities (active, creation, modtime, id, lang, title, description) FROM stdin;
t 2011-05-24 16:45:01.768633 2011-05-24 16:45:01.768633 view nl ...
I've also tried to do this with the command prompt but I can't find the command that I need.
If I do
psql mydatabase < C:/database/db-backup.sql;
I get the error
ERROR: syntax error at or near "psql"
LINE 1: psql mydatabase < C:/database/db-backu...
^
What's the best way to import the database?
16 Answers
psql databasename < data_base_dump
That's the command you are looking for.
Beware: databasename must be created before importing.
Have a look at the PostgreSQL Docs Chapter 23. Backup and Restore.
Here is the command you are looking for.
psql -h hostname -d databasename -U username -f file.sql
I believe that you want to run in psql:
\i C:/database/db-backup.sql
That worked for me:
sudo -u postgres psql db_name < 'file_path'
I'm not sure if this works for the OP's situation, but I found that running the following command in the interactive console was the most flexible solution for me:
\i 'path/to/file.sql'
Just make sure you're already connected to the correct database. This command executes all of the SQL commands in the specified file.
Works pretty well, in command line, all arguments are required, -W is for password
psql -h localhost -U user -W -d database_name -f path/to/file.sql
Just for funsies, if your dump is compressed you can do something like
gunzip -c filename.gz | psql dbname
As Jacob mentioned, the PostgreSQL docs describe all this quite well.
I tried many different solutions for restoring my postgres backup. I ran into permission denied problems on MacOS, no solutions seemed to work.
Here's how I got it to work:
Postgres comes with Pgadmin4. If you use macOS you can press CMD+SPACE and type pgadmin4 to run it. This will open up a browser tab in chrome.
If you run into errors getting pgadmin4 to work, try
killall pgAdmin4in your terminal, then try again.
Steps to getting pgadmin4 + backup/restore
1. Create the backup
Do this by rightclicking the database -> "backup"
