pgslim 0.1.0

A simple tool to reduce PostgreSQL dump size by nullifying large bytea/text columns.

pgslim 🐘

A simple Python CLI tool to reduce the size of a PostgreSQL dump by nullifying large bytea or text columns.

This is particularly useful when you've accidentally stored large files (like images, PDFs, or JSON responses) in your database and want to create a smaller dump for local development or staging.

Installation

You can install pgslim directly from PyPI (once uploaded):

pip install pgslim

Or from source:

git clone https://github.com/nguyenhuy158/pgslim
cd pgslim
pip install .

Usage

Provide the input SQL file, the output SQL file, the table name, and the column you want to nullify.

pgslim -i dump_old.sql -o dump_new.sql -t farmlink_disbursement_bank_transaction -c attachment

Arguments

Flag	Long Flag	Description
-i	--input	Input SQL dump file (plain text format)
-o	--output	Output SQL dump file
-t	--table	Name of the table (e.g., users)
-c	--column	Name of the column to nullify (e.g., attachment)

How it works

The tool parses the COPY blocks in a PostgreSQL plain-text dump. It identifies the target table and the index of the specified column. For every row in that COPY block, it replaces the column value with \N (PostgreSQL's representation of NULL).

License

MIT