input file appears to be a text format dump. Please use psql

Question

I take backup using

pg_dump db_production > postgres_db.dump

and then I copy it to localhost using scp.

Now when I import on my local db it gives an error

pg_restore: [archiver] input file appears to be a text format dump. Please use psql.

by using commad line

pg_restore -d db_development postgres_db.dump

Answer 1

Before you downvote

This is just a part of documentation!

From the pg_dump documentation:

Examples

To dump a database called mydb into a SQL-script file:

$ pg_dump mydb > db.sql

To reload such a script into a (freshly created) database named newdb:

$ psql -d newdb -f db.sql

To dump a database into a custom-format archive file:

$ pg_dump -Fc mydb > db.dump

To dump a database into a directory-format archive:

$ pg_dump -Fd mydb -f dumpdir

To reload an archive file into a (freshly created) database named newdb:

$ pg_restore -d newdb db.dump

From the pg_restore documentation:

Examples

Assume we have dumped a database called mydb into a custom-format dump file:

$ pg_dump -Fc mydb > db.dump

To drop the database and recreate it from the dump:

$ dropdb mydb
$ pg_restore -C -d postgres db.dump

Answer 2

The answer above didn't work for me, this worked:

psql db_development < postgres_db.dump

Answer 3

if you use pg_dump with -Fp to backup in plain text format, use following command:

cat db.txt | psql dbname

to copy all data to your database with name dbname