Cascading deletes in PostgreSQL

Question

I have a database with a few dozen tables interlinked with foreign keys. Under normal circumstances, I want the default ON DELETE RESTRICT behavior for those co

Answer 1

I don't think you'd need to process the dump file like that. Do a streaming dump/restore, and process that. Something like:

createdb -h scratchserver scratchdb
createdb -h scratchserver sanitizeddb

pg_dump -h liveserver livedb --schema-only | psql -h scratchserver sanitizeddb
pg_dump -h scratchserver sanitizeddb | sed -e "s/RESTRICT/CASCADE/" | psql -h scratchserver scratchdb

pg_dump -h liveserver livedb --data-only | psql -h scratchserver scratchdb
psql -h scrachserver scratchdb -f delete-sensitive.sql

pg_dump -h scratchserver scratchdb --data-only | psql -h scratchserver sanitizeddb
pg_dump -Fc -Z9 -h scratchserver sanitizedb > sanitizeddb.pgdump

where you store all your DELETE sqls in delete-sensitive.sql. The sanitizeddb database/steps can be removed if you don't mind the consultant getting a db with CASCADE foreign keys instead of RESTRICT foreign keys.

There might also be better ways depending on how often you need to do this, how big the database is, and what percentage of data is sensitive, but I can't think of a simpler way to do it once or twice for a reasonably sized database. You'd need a different database after all, so unless you already have a slony cluster, can't avoid the dump/restore cycle, which might be time consuming.