Fork your Postgres DB

While developing, there is often need to clone the current local database to try new features. I wrote a small bash script that helps you "fork" the database.

function fork_db() {
  local src_db=$1
  local dest_db=$2
  local username=$3
  local dumpname="temp_dump"

  # Create a dump of the source database
  echo "Creating dump of $src_db..."
  pg_dump -Fc -h localhost -U $username -d $src_db >$dumpname.dump

  # Create the destination database
  echo "Creating new database $dest_db..."
  psql -h localhost -U $username -d $src_db -c "CREATE DATABASE $dest_db;"

  # Restore the dump into the new database
  echo "Restoring dump into $dest_db..."
  pg_restore --verbose --clean --no-acl --no-owner -h localhost -U $username -d $dest_db $dumpname.dump

  # Remove the temporary dump file
  echo "Cleaning up..."
  rm $dumpname.dump

  echo "Done."
}

#Usage

If using MacOS or Linux, put the above function in your .bashrc or .zshrc.

Then you can use it the following way:

fork_db {db_to_fork} {forked_db_name} {postgres_username}

An example of how I may use it:

fork_db coinvise coinvise_feat_campaign mihirgupta

Ps, if you have any suggestions on improving the above script, please reach out!