Ron Johnson <ronljohnsonjr(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> On Thu, Jun 4, 2026 at 4:02 PM Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
>> Typically you would say "pg_ctl -D /usr/local/etc/postgres" to point
>> it at the config file. Then you would need the config file to include
>> data_directory and perhaps other settings pointing to wherever the
>> actual data files are.
> Is it standard to point PGDATA to an etc directory instead of to the "data"
> directory?
It is if you want the server's configuration files to be separate from
the data.
regards, tom lane