CREATEDB(1) PostgreSQL Client Applications CREATEDB(1)NAMEcreatedb - create a new PostgreSQL database
SYNOPSIScreatedb [ option... ] [ dbname ] [ description ]
DESCRIPTIONcreatedb 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 [cre‐
ate_database(7)]. There is no effective difference between creating
databases via this utility and via other methods for accessing the
server.
OPTIONScreatedb 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 cur‐
rent 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.
-l locale
--locale locale
Specifies the locale to be used in this database. This is equiv‐
alent to specifying both --lc-collate and --lc-ctype.
--lc-collate locale
Specifies the LC_COLLATE setting to be used in this database.
--lc-ctype locale
Specifies the LC_CTYPE setting to be used in this database.
-E encoding
--encoding encoding
Specifies the character encoding scheme to be used in this data‐
base. The character sets supported by the PostgreSQL server are
described in in the documentation.
-O owner
--owner owner
Specifies the database user who will own the new database.
-T template
--template template
Specifies the template database from which to build this data‐
base.
The options -D, -E, -l, -O, and -T correspond to options of the under‐
lying SQL command CREATE DATABASE [create_database(7)]; see there for
more information about them.
createdb also accepts the following command-line arguments for connec‐
tion 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
--no-password
Never issue a password prompt. If the server requires password
authentication and a password is not available by other means
such as a .pgpass file, the connection attempt will fail. This
option can be useful in batch jobs and scripts where no user is
present to enter a password.
-W
--password
Force createdb to prompt for a password before connecting to a
database.
This option is never essential, since createdb will automati‐
cally prompt for a password if the server demands password
authentication. However, createdb will waste a connection
attempt finding out that the server wants a password. In some
cases it is worth typing -W to avoid the extra connection
attempt.
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.
This utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, also uses the envi‐
ronment variables supported by libpq (see in the documentation).
DIAGNOSTICS
In case of difficulty, see CREATE DATABASE [create_database(7)] and
psql(1) 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
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 ENCODING 'LATIN1';
SEE ALSOdropdb(1), CREATE DATABASE [create_database(7)]
Application 2013-04-02 CREATEDB(1)
