"David Parker" <dparker(at)tazznetworks(dot)com> writes:
> Did initdb previously just assume the -D path existed, and now it is
> trying to create the whole path, if necessary?
Pre-8.0 it was using mkdir(1), which might possibly contain some weird
workaround for this case on Solaris.
I suppose that manually creating the data directory before running
initdb would also avoid this issue, since the mkdir(2) loop is only
entered if we don't find the directory in existence.
regards, tom lane