Re: Rename a database that has connections

On 22/11/11 16:38, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> Mark Kirkwood wrote:
>> I've been helping out several customers recently who all seem to be
>> wrestling with the same issue: wanting to update/refresh non-production
>> databases from the latest corresponding prod version. Typically they
>> have (fairly complex) scripts that at some point attempt to restore a
>> dump into new database and then rename the to-be-retired db out of the
>> way and rename the newly restored one to take over.
>>
>> In many cases such scripts would be simplified if a database could be
>> renamed without requiring its connections terminated. I've been asked
>> several times if this could be added... so I've caved in a done a patch
>> that allows this.
>>
>> The default behavior is unchanged - it is required to specify an
>> additional trailing FORCE keyword to elicit the more brutal behavior.
>> Note that existing connections to the renamed database are unaffected,
>> but obviously SELECT current_database() returns the new name (in the
>> next transaction).
> Uh, it isn't save to copy a database when someone else is connected.
> How does this address that issue?
>

Copying a database is quite a different matter (compare with copying an 
open unix file vs mv'ing it... the latter is quite safe as the inode 
does not change).

regards

Mark