pglite-tools ​

A selection of tools for working with PGlite databases, including pg_dump.

Install with:

bash
npm install @electric-sql/pglite-tools

pgDump ​

pg_dump is a tool for dumping a PGlite database to a SQL file, this is a WASM build of pg_dump that can be used in a browser or other JavaScript environments. You can read more about pg_dump in the Postgres docs.

Note: pg_dump will execute DEALLOCATE ALL; after each dump. Since this is running on the same (single) connection, any prepared statements that you have made before running pg_dump will be affected.

Options ​

  • pg: A PGlite instance.
  • args: An array of arguments to pass to pg_dump - see pg_dump docs for more details.
  • fileName: The name of the file to write the dump to, defaults to dump.sql.

There are a number of arguments that are automatically added to the end of the command, these are:

  • --inserts - use inserts format for the output, this ensures that the dump can be restored by simply passing the output to pg.exec().
  • -j 1 - concurrency level, set to 1 as multithreading isn't supported.
  • -f /tmp/out.sql - the output file is always written to /tmp/out.sql in the virtual file system.
  • -U postgres - use the postgres user is hard coded.

Returns ​

  • A File object containing the dump.

Caveats ​

  • After restoring a dump, you might want to set the same search path as the initial db.

Example ​

typescript
import { PGlite } from '@electric-sql/pglite'
import { pgDump } from '@electric-sql/pglite-tools/pg_dump'

const pg = await PGlite.create()

// Create a table and insert some data
await pg.exec(`
  CREATE TABLE test (
    id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
    name TEXT
  );
`)
await pg.exec(`
  INSERT INTO test (name) VALUES ('test');
`)

// store the current search path so it can be used in the restored db
const initialSearchPath = (
  await pg1.query<{ search_path: string }>('SHOW SEARCH_PATH;')
).rows[0].search_path

// Dump the database to a file
const dump = await pgDump({ pg })
// Get the dump text - used for restore
const dumpContent = await dump.text()

// Create a new database
const restoredPG = await PGlite.create()
// ... and restore it using the dump
await restoredPG.exec(dumpContent)

// optional - after importing, set search path back to the initial one
await restoredPG.exec(`SET search_path TO ${initialSearchPath};`)