Tom,
> Even if we had a semaphore of the sort you suggest, I doubt people would
> want DROP DATABASE to wait indefinitely. The real question here is how
> long is it reasonable for DROP DATABASE to wait before failing ...
10 to 15 seconds, I'd say. Is that going to be long enough for backends to
release, assuming the DB isn't under extreme load?
--
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL @ Sun
San Francisco