CREATE
DATABASE(7) SQL Commands CREATE DATABASE(7)
NAME
CREATE DATABASE - create a new database
SYNOPSIS
CREATE DATABASE name
[ [ WITH ] [ OWNER [=] dbowner ]
[ TEMPLATE [=] template ]
[ ENCODING [=] encoding ]
[ LC_COLLATE [=] lc_collate ]
[ LC_CTYPE [=] lc_ctype ]
[ 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 [create_user(7)].
Normally, the creator becomes the owner of the new database. Superusers can create databases owned by other users, by 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 might 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 (namely, the encoding of the template database). The character sets supported by the PostgreSQL
server are described in in the documentation. See below for additional restrictions.
lc_collate
Collation order (LC_COLLATE) to use in the new database. This affects the sort order applied to strings, e.g. in queries with ORDER
BY, as well as the order used in indexes on text columns. The default is to use the collation order of the template database. See
below for additional restrictions.
lc_ctype
Character classification (LC_CTYPE) to use in the new database. This affects the categorization of characters, e.g. lower, upper and
digit. The default is to use the character classification of the template database. See below for additional restrictions.
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 [create_tablespace(7)]
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 direc-
tory, a full disk, or other file system problems.
Use DROP DATABASE [drop_database(7)] to remove a database.
The program createdb [createdb(1)] 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. The principal limitation is that no other sessions can be connected to the template database
while it is being copied. CREATE DATABASE will fail if any other connection exists when it starts; otherwise, new connections to the tem-
plate database are locked out until CREATE DATABASE completes. See in the documentation for more information.
The character set encoding specified for the new database must be compatible with the chosen locale settings (LC_COLLATE and LC_CTYPE). If
the locale is C (or equivalently POSIX), then all encodings are allowed, but for other locale settings there is only one encoding that will
work properly. (On Windows, however, UTF-8 encoding can be used with any locale.) CREATE DATABASE will allow superusers to specify
SQL_ASCII encoding regardless of the locale settings, but this choice is deprecated and may result in misbehavior of character-string func-
tions if data that is not encoding-compatible with the locale is stored in the database.
The encoding and locale settings must match those of the template database, except when template0 is used as template. This is because
other databases might contain data that does not match the specified encoding, or might contain indexes whose sort ordering is affected by
LC_COLLATE and LC_CTYPE. Copying such data would result in a database that is corrupt according to the new settings. template0, however,
is known to not contain any data or indexes that would be affected.
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' TEMPLATE template0;
In this example, the TEMPLATE template0 clause would only be required if template1's encoding is not ISO-8859-1. Note that changing encod-
ing might require selecting new LC_COLLATE and LC_CTYPE settings as well.
COMPATIBILITY
There is no CREATE DATABASE statement in the SQL standard. Databases are equivalent to catalogs, whose creation is implementation-defined.
SEE ALSO
ALTER DATABASE [alter_database(7)], DROP DATABASE [drop_database(7)]
SQL - Language Statements 2010-05-14 CREATE DATABASE(7)