Re: [GENERAL] Restart after power outage: createdb

On Wed, Sep 27, 2006 at 04:52:51PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> "Jim C. Nasby" <jim@nasby.net> writes:
> > Then again, if we're doing that, we could probably just nuke 'em...
> 
> This has been considered and rejected before, on the grounds that
> removing files you don't know the source of is a good way to lose data.
> 
> Come to think of it, that argument bears on the immediate problem too.
> The way createdb() is coded, if it gets a failure (like "File exists")
> trying to create the database's directories, it will attempt to apply
> remove_dbtablespaces() to clean up after itself.  This would result in
> removing the pre-existing directory, which violates the principle of
> not removing unexpected files.  So now I'm starting to think we do need
> a check-for-conflicting-files step in createdb.

I think it would be really useful to tell the DBA that there's a bunch
of files in $PGDATA that are probably dead. If stuff had suddenly
disappeared out of the catalog I'd certainly like to know it.
-- 
Jim Nasby                                            jim@nasby.net
EnterpriseDB      http://enterprisedb.com      512.569.9461 (cell)