createdb
Name
createdb -- create a new
PostgreSQL database
Synopsis
createdb [
option
...] [
dbname
] [
description
]
Description
createdb creates a new PostgreSQL database.
Normally, the database user who executes this command becomes the owner of the new database. However a different owner can be specified via the -O option, if the executing user has appropriate privileges.
createdb is a wrapper around the SQL command
CREATE DATABASE
. There is no effective difference between creating databases via this utility and via other methods for accessing the server.
Options
createdb accepts the following command-line arguments:
-
dbname
-
Specifies the name of the database to be created. The name must be unique among all PostgreSQL databases in this cluster. The default is to create a database with the same name as the current system user.
-
description
-
Specifies a comment to be associated with the newly created database.
-
-D
tablespace
--tablespace
tablespace
-
Specifies the default tablespace for the database.
-
-e
--echo
-
Echo the commands that createdb generates and sends to the server.
-
-E
encoding
--encoding
encoding
-
Specifies the character encoding scheme to be used in this database. The character sets supported by the PostgreSQL server are described in Section 21.2.1.
-
-O
owner
--owner
owner
-
Specifies the database user who will own the new database.
-
-q
--quiet
-
Do not display a response.
-
-T
template
--template
template
-
Specifies the template database from which to build this database.
The options -D, -E, -O, and -T correspond to options of the underlying SQL command
CREATE DATABASE
; see there for more information about them.
createdb also accepts the following command-line arguments for connection parameters:
-
-h
host
--host
host
-
Specifies the host name of the machine on which the server is running. If the value begins with a slash, it is used as the directory for the Unix domain socket.
-
-p
port
--port
port
-
Specifies the TCP port or the local Unix domain socket file extension on which the server is listening for connections.
-
-U
username
--username
username
-
User name to connect as
-
-W
--password
-
Force password prompt.
Environment
-
PGDATABASE
-
If set, the name of the database to create, unless overridden on the command line.
-
PGHOST
PGPORT
PGUSER
-
Default connection parameters. PGUSER also determines the name of the database to create, if it is not specified on the command line or by PGDATABASE.
Diagnostics
In case of difficulty, see
CREATE DATABASE
and
psql
for discussions of potential problems and error messages. The database server must be running at the targeted host. Also, any default connection settings and environment variables used by the libpq front-end library will apply.
Examples
To create the database demo using the default database server:
$
createdb demo
CREATE DATABASE
The response is the same as you would have gotten from running the CREATE DATABASE SQL command.
To create the database demo using the server on host eden, port 5000, using the LATIN1 encoding scheme with a look at the underlying command:
$
createdb -p 5000 -h eden -E LATIN1 -e demo
CREATE DATABASE "demo" WITH ENCODING = 'LATIN1'
CREATE DATABASE
