CREATEDB(1) PostgreSQL Client Applications CREATEDB(1)NAMEcreatedb - Create a new Postgres database
SYNOPSIScreatedb [ options... ] [ dbname ] [ description ]
INPUTS
-h, --host host
Specifies the hostname of the machine on which the postmaster is
running. If host begins with a slash, it is used as the direc‐
tory for the Unix domain socket.
-p, --port port
Specifies the Internet TCP/IP port or the local Unix domain
socket file extension on which the postmaster is listening for
connections.
-U, --username username
Username to connect as.
-W, --password
Force password prompt.
-e, --echo
Echo the queries that createdb generates and sends to the back‐
end.
-q, --quiet
Do not display a response.
-D, --location datadir
Specifies the alternative location for the database. See also
initlocation(1).
-T, --template template
Specifies the template database from which to build this data‐
base.
-E, --encoding encoding
Specifies the character encoding scheme to be used in this data‐
base.
dbname Specifies the name of the database to be created. The name must
be unique among all Postgres databases in this installation.
The default is to create a database with the same name as the
current system user.
description
This optionally specifies a comment to be associated with the
newly created database.
The options -h, -p, -U, -W, and -e are passed on literally to psql(1).
The options -D, -T, and -E are converted into options for the underly‐
ing SQL command CREATE DATABASE [create_database(l)]; see there for
more information about them.
OUTPUTS
CREATE DATABASE
The database was successfully created.
createdb: Database creation failed.
(Says it all.)
createdb: Comment creation failed. (Database was created.)
The comment/description for the database could not be created.
The database itself will have been created already. You can use
the SQL command COMMENT ON DATABASE to create the comment later
on.
If there is an error condition, the backend error message will be dis‐
played. See create_database(l) and psql(1) for possibilities.
DESCRIPTIONcreatedb creates a new Postgres database. The user who executes this
command becomes the database owner.
createdb is a shell script wrapper around the SQL command CREATE DATA‐
BASE [create_database(l)] via the Postgres interactive terminal
psql(1). Thus, there is nothing special about creating databases via
this or other methods. This means that the psql program must be found
by the script and that a database server must be running at the tar‐
geted port. Also, any default settings and environment variables avail‐
able to psql and the libpq front-end library will apply.
USAGE
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 CRE‐
ATE DATABASE SQL command.
To create the database demo using the postmaster on host eden, port
5000, using the LATIN1 encoding scheme with a look at the underlying
query:
$ createdb-p 5000 -h eden -E LATIN1 -e demo
CREATE DATABASE "demo" WITH ENCODING = 'LATIN1'
CREATE DATABASE
Application 2000-11-11 CREATEDB(1)