Creating and Managing Databases

Prerequisites

Only the database system administrator or users granted with database creation permissions can create a database. For details about how to grant database creation permissions to a user, see Users and Permissions.

Context

• GaussDB has two default template databases template0 and template1 and a default user database postgres.
• CREATE DATABASE creates a database by copying a template database Only template0 can be copied. Do not use a client or other methods to connect to or operate the two template databases.
  

  • The template database does not contain any user table. You can view the attributes of the template database in the PG_DATABASE system catalog.
  • The template0 template does not allow user connections. Only the initial user of the database and the system administrator can connect to template1.
• A database system consists of multiple databases. A client can connect to only one database at a time. Currently, cross-database query or cross-database transaction is not supported.
• If multiple databases exist in the database cluster, you can use the -d parameter of the client tool to specify the target database for login. Alternatively, you can run the \c command to switch the database after the client program logs in to the database.

Precautions

Assume that the database encoding is SQL_ASCII. (You can run the show server_encoding command to query the encoding used for storing data in the current database.) If the database object name contains multi-byte characters (such as Chinese) or if the object name length exceeds the allowed maximum (63 bytes), the database truncates the last byte (not the last character) of the object name. In this case, half characters may appear.

To resolve this problem, you need to:

• Ensure that the name of the data object does not exceed the maximum length.
• Use a proper coded character set, such as UTF-8, as the default database storage code set (server_encoding).
• Exclude multi-byte characters from object names.
• If you fail to delete an object whose name is truncated mistakenly, specify its original name to delete it, or manually delete it from the corresponding system catalog on each node.

Procedure

1. Create a database named db_tpcds.

   1 2	gaussdb=# CREATE DATABASE db_tpcds; CREATE DATABASE

   

   • Database names must comply with the general naming convention rules of SQL identifiers. The current role automatically becomes the owner of this new database.
   • If a database system is used to support independent users and projects, store them in different databases.
   • If the projects or users are associated with each other and share resources, store them in one database. However, you can divide them into different schemas. A schema is a logical structure, and the access permission for a schema is controlled by the permission system module.
   • A database name contains a maximum of 63 bytes and the excessive bytes at the end of the name will be truncated by the server. You are advised to specify a database name no longer than 63 bytes when you create a database.
   • New databases are created in the pg_default tablespace by default. Specify another tablespace.

     1 2	gaussdb=# CREATE DATABASE db_tpcds WITH TABLESPACE = hr_local; CREATE DATABASE

     hr_local indicates the tablespace name. For details about how to create a tablespace, see Creating and Managing Tablespaces.

   • After creating the db_tpcds database, you can perform other operations in the default postgres database. Alternatively, you can perform the following operations to exit the postgres database, connect to the db_tpcds database as a new user, and perform operations such as creating tables.

     gaussdb=# \q
     gsql -d db_tpcds -p 8000 -U joe
     Password for user joe:
     gsql((GaussDB Kernel 503.0.XXX build f521c606) compiled at 2021-09-16 14:55:22 commit 2935 last mr 6385 release)
     Non-SSL connection (SSL connection is recommended when requiring high-security)
     Type "help" for help.
      
     db_tpcds=> 

2. View databases.
   • Run the \l meta-command to view the database list of the database system.

     1	gaussdb=# \l

   • Query the database list in the pg_database system catalog.

     1	gaussdb=# SELECT datname FROM pg_database;

3. Modify the database.

   You can modify database configuration such as the database owner, name, and default settings.

   • Rename the database.

     1 2	gaussdb=# ALTER DATABASE db_tpcds RENAME TO human_tpcds; ALTER DATABASE

   

   After setting the parameters, you need to manually run the CLEAN CONNECTION command to clear the old connections. Otherwise, the parameter values between nodes may be inconsistent.

4. Delete the database.

   You can run the DROP DATABASE command to delete a database. This command deletes the system directory in the database, as well as the database directory on the disk that stores data. Only the database owner or system administrator can delete a database. A database accessed by users cannot be deleted. You need to connect to another database before deleting this database.

   Delete the database.

   1 2	gaussdb=# DROP DATABASE human_tpcds; DROP DATABASE