createdb 1 Application createdb create a new PostgreSQL database createdb createdb connection-option option dbname description createdb 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 . There is no effective difference between creating databases via this utility and via other methods for accessing the server. createdb 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 current 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 equivalent 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 database. The character sets supported by the PostgreSQL server are described in . -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 database. -V --version Print the createdb version and exit. -? --help Show help about createdb command line arguments, and exit. The options -D, -l, -E, -O, and -T correspond to options of the underlying SQL command ; see there for more information about them. createdb also accepts the following command-line arguments for connection 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 automatically 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. 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 environment variables supported by libpq (see ). In case of difficulty, see and 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. 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';