PostgreSQL Backup – How to Dump All Tables to CSV for a Schema

I am not aware of any tools to do exactly what you are asking right now. I want to suggest a few options you might have overlooked however that may meet your needs.

Database Cloning

If your database is not being used 24/7 you can clone it for test cases. This would be done using during times when the db is not in use:

createdb -U postgres new_dbname -T old_dbname

This does a file-level copy of the database, and so it preserves all data and is much faster than a dump and reload.

I very frequently use this technique for cases where I want to run test cases on one db where I can't guarantee that everything will roll back.

Base Backup and Restore

A second thing you can do if you want to bring all data onto another server is to set it up for replication as a master with at least one wal_sender, and use pg_base_backup to clone your db cluster over the network. Note this is a file-based clone, and so it will be a very network-intensive process (more than a dump) but restore will be a lot faster.

Writing your own Tool

One of the big difficulties in having a generally available tool is that cross-schema dependencies could be quite complex and handling all possible complexity is a bit of a daunting task. However for specific purposes this isn't too hard. I would recommend three steps, using pg_dump to get you most of the way there, and then having a script written in one language or another to add what we can hope are modest missing pieces. I think you could even do it with an sql script run through psql.

1. Dump schemas only of tables you need. Create new file. Something like: pg_dump -t mytable1 -t mytable2 -t mytable3 > my_partial_dump.sql

2. Export selected data to csv, and wrap using COPY statements. This could be done using psql along with echo and COPY TO STDOUT. This is appended to the partial dump.

3. Dump the schema as you are, and append this to the partial dump.

The advantage of a purpose-built tool if this is what you need is that you can manually manage the complex part of it and thus have a smaller, simpler tool than you might otherwise require.

This will list all tables the current user has access to, not only those that are owned by the current user:

select *
from information_schema.tables
where table_schema not in ('pg_catalog', 'information_schema')
and table_schema not like 'pg_toast%'

(I'm not entirely sure the not like 'pg_toast%' is actually needed though.)

I you really need the owner information, you probably need to use pg_class and related tables.

Edit: this is the query that includes the owner information:

select nsp.nspname as object_schema,
       cls.relname as object_name, 
       rol.rolname as owner, 
       case cls.relkind
         when 'r' then 'TABLE'
         when 'm' then 'MATERIALIZED_VIEW'
         when 'i' then 'INDEX'
         when 'S' then 'SEQUENCE'
         when 'v' then 'VIEW'
         when 'c' then 'TYPE'
         else cls.relkind::text
       end as object_type
from pg_class cls
  join pg_roles rol on rol.oid = cls.relowner
  join pg_namespace nsp on nsp.oid = cls.relnamespace
where nsp.nspname not in ('information_schema', 'pg_catalog')
  and nsp.nspname not like 'pg_toast%'
  and rol.rolname = current_user  --- remove this if you want to see all objects
order by nsp.nspname, cls.relname;