Fix PID file location?

Hey, folks,

I've noticed a problem with alternate PGDATA locations. Here's how to
reproduce:

On 8.0.2 on RHAS4:

1) Initdb a directory (on my system, /pgdata/pgdata)
2) Move the .conf files to an alternate location ( /etc/pgsql/)
3) Set $PGDATA to the alternate location ( /etc/pgsql )
4) Edit postgresql.conf to support this file arrangement
data_directory = '/pgdata/pgdata'
5) pg_ctl start PostgreSQL
6) pg_ctl stop PostgreSQL
7) Get an error: "No PID file found".

The problem seems to be that pg_ctl expects the PID file to be in $PGDATA, but
the file actually gets written by the postmaster to the actual data
directory. You can work around this by setting "external_pid_file", but this
then prevents you from using external_pid_file for another purpose.

Seems like it should be a relatively easy fix, although I'm not sure whether
the postmaster should write the PID to $PGDATA, or whether pg_ctl should be
made to look in the right place. Probably the latter.

--
--Josh

Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco