From: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>
Message-Id: <201111041632.pA4GWDH15361@momjian.us>
Subject: Re: PGDATA confusion
In-Reply-To: 
 <CAA-aLv6KYbPa3FgH6_shVXrxQto86+QDJHQgj1isbeQngiBBGw@mail.gmail.com>
To: Thom Brown <thom@linux.com>
Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2011 12:32:13 -0400 (EDT)
CC: pgsql-docs <pgsql-docs@postgresql.org>
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Thom Brown wrote:
> > So if one set PGDATA to somewhere which had no database files at all,
> > but just postgresql.conf, it could still work (assuming it, in turn,
> > set data_directory correctly), but not vice versa. ?It would make more
> > sense to call it PGCONFIG, although I'm not proposing that, especially
> > since PGDATA makes sense when it comes to initdb.
> >
> > There are probably plenty of other places in the docs which also don't
> > adequately describe PGDATA or -D.
> >
> > Any disagreements? ?If not, should I write a patch (since someone will
> > probably accuse me of volunteering anyway) or would someone like to
> > commit some adjustments?
> 
> No opinions on this?

Yes.  I had kept it to deal with later.  Please work on a doc patch to
try to clean this up.  pg_upgrade just went through this confusion and I
also was unhappy at how vague things are in this area.

Things got very confusing with pg_upgrade when PGDATA pointed to the
configuration directory and the data_directory GUC pointed to the data
directory.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        http://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB                             http://enterprisedb.com

  + It's impossible for everything to be true. +