CREATE DATABASE()

NAME
CREATE DATABASE - create a new database

SYNOPSIS

CREATE DATABASE name
    [ [ WITH ] [ OWNER [=] dbowner ]
           [ TEMPLATE [=] template ]
           [ ENCODING [=] encoding ]
           [ TABLESPACE [=] tablespace ] ]

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 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 the documentation.

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.

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 [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. We recommend that databases used as templates be treated as read-only. See the documentation for more information.

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.