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MIME-Version: 1.0
Date: Wed, 4 May 2011 18:05:39 +0200
Message-ID: <BANLkTik=8Mi4L9n=8=P0ez4Xen4YuGX8vw@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: createuser/dropuser username
From: Grzegorz Szpetkowski <gszpetkowski@gmail.com>
To: pgsql-docs@postgresql.org
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Hi,

I think that createuser/drouser reference documentation could be
enhanced for username param. There is:

"createuser is a wrapper around the SQL command CREATE ROLE. There is
no effective difference between creating users via this utility and
via other methods for accessing the server."

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/app-createuser.html
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/app-dropuser.html

But createuser and dropuser wrappers in some cases are doing implicit
quoting (when CREATE ROLE is not), which I think is not fully known
and is undocumented here. For example:

createuser -SDRe user -- reserved in PostgreSQL
CREATE ROLE "user" NOSUPERUSER NOCREATEDB NOCREATEROLE INHERIT LOGIN;

createuser -SDRe myuser
CREATE ROLE myuser NOSUPERUSER NOCREATEDB NOCREATEROLE INHERIT LOGIN;

createuser -SDRe MYuser
CREATE ROLE "MYuser" NOSUPERUSER NOCREATEDB NOCREATEROLE INHERIT LOGIN;

psql postgres
ALTER ROLE MYuser CREATEDB; -- fatal mistake, it works for myuser
delimited identifier
ALTER ROLE

ALTER ROLE "MYuser" CREATEDB; -- ok, quoted identifier
ALTER ROLE

ALTER ROLE user CREATEDB;
ERROR:  syntax error at or near "user"
LINE 1: ALTER ROLE user CREATEDB;
                   ^
postgres=# ALTER ROLE "user" CREATEDB;
ALTER ROLE

Regards,
Grzegorz Szpetkowski