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createlang

Name

createlang -- define a new PostgreSQL procedural language

Synopsis

createlang [connection-option...] langname [dbname]
createlang [connection-option...] --list | -l dbname

Description

createlang is a utility for adding a new programming language to a PostgreSQL database. createlang is just a wrapper around the CREATE LANGUAGE command.

Options

createlang accepts the following command-line arguments:

langname

Specifies the name of the procedural programming language to be defined.

[-d] dbname
[--dbname] dbname

Specifies to which database the language should be added. The default is to use the database with the same name as the current system user.

-e
--echo

Display SQL commands as they are executed.

-l
--list

Show a list of already installed languages in the target database.

createlang 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 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 createlang to prompt for a password before connecting to a database.

This option is never essential, since createlang will automatically prompt for a password if the server demands password authentication. However, createlang 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.

Environment

PGDATABASE
PGHOST
PGPORT
PGUSER

Default connection parameters

This utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, also uses the environment variables supported by libpq (see Section 30.13).

Diagnostics

Most error messages are self-explanatory. If not, run createlang with the --echo option and see under the respective SQL command for details. Also, any default connection settings and environment variables used by the libpq front-end library will apply.

Notes

Use droplang to remove a language.

Examples

To install the language pltcl into the database template1:

$ createlang pltcl template1

Note that installing the language into template1 will cause it to be automatically installed into subsequently-created databases as well.