CREATE DATABASE
Name
CREATE DATABASE -- create a new database
Synopsis
CREATE DATABASE
name
[ [ WITH ] [ OWNER [=]
dbowner
]
[ TEMPLATE [=]
template
]
[ ENCODING [=]
encoding
]
[ TABLESPACE [=]
tablespace
]
[ CONNECTION LIMIT [=]
connlimit
] ]
Description
CREATE DATABASE creates a new PostgreSQL database.
To create a database, you must be a superuser or have the special CREATEDB privilege. See
CREATE USER
.
Normally, the creator becomes the owner of the new database. Superusers can create databases owned by other users using the OWNER clause. They can even create databases owned by users with no special privileges. Non-superusers with CREATEDB privilege can only create databases owned by themselves.
By default, the new database will be created by cloning the standard system database template1. A different template can be specified by writing TEMPLATE
name
. In particular, by writing TEMPLATE template0, you can create a virgin database containing only the standard objects predefined by your version of PostgreSQL. This is useful if you wish to avoid copying any installation-local objects that may have been added to template1.
Parameters
-
name
-
The name of a database to create.
-
dbowner
-
The name of the database user who will own the new database, or DEFAULT to use the default (namely, the user executing the command).
-
template
-
The name of the template from which to create the new database, or DEFAULT to use the default template (template1).
-
encoding
-
Character set encoding to use in the new database. Specify a string constant (e.g., 'SQL_ASCII'), or an integer encoding number, or DEFAULT to use the default encoding. The character sets supported by the PostgreSQL server are described in Section 21.2.1.
-
tablespace
-
The name of the tablespace that will be associated with the new database, or DEFAULT to use the template database's tablespace. This tablespace will be the default tablespace used for objects created in this database. See
CREATE TABLESPACE
for more information.
-
connlimit
-
How many concurrent connections can be made to this database. -1 (the default) means no limit.
Optional parameters can be written in any order, not only the order illustrated above.
Notes
CREATE DATABASE cannot be executed inside a transaction block.
Errors along the line of "could not initialize database directory" are most likely related to insufficient permissions on the data directory, a full disk, or other file system problems.
Use
DROP DATABASE
to remove a database.
The program
createdb
is a wrapper program around this command, provided for convenience.
Although it is possible to copy a database other than template1 by specifying its name as the template, this is not (yet) intended as a general-purpose "COPY DATABASE" facility. We recommend that databases used as templates be treated as read-only. See Section 19.3 for more information.
The CONNECTION LIMIT option is only enforced approximately; if two new sessions start at about the same time when just one connection "slot" remains for the database, it is possible that both will fail. Also, the limit is not enforced against superusers.
Examples
To create a new database:
CREATE DATABASE lusiadas;
To create a database sales owned by user salesapp with a default tablespace of salesspace:
CREATE DATABASE sales OWNER salesapp TABLESPACE salesspace;
To create a database music which supports the ISO-8859-1 character set:
CREATE DATABASE music ENCODING 'LATIN1';
Compatibility
There is no CREATE DATABASE statement in the SQL standard. Databases are equivalent to catalogs, whose creation is implementation-defined.
