ALTER DATABASE

ALTER DATABASE — change a database

ALTER DATABASE name [ [ WITH ] option [ ... ] ]

where option can be:

    ALLOW_CONNECTIONS allowconn
    CONNECTION LIMIT connlimit
    IS_TEMPLATE istemplate

ALTER DATABASE name RENAME TO new_name

ALTER DATABASE name OWNER TO { new_owner | CURRENT_USER | SESSION_USER }

ALTER DATABASE name SET configuration_parameter { TO | = } { value | DEFAULT }
ALTER DATABASE name SET configuration_parameter FROM CURRENT
ALTER DATABASE name RESET configuration_parameter
ALTER DATABASE name RESET ALL

ALTER DATABASE changes the attributes of a database.

The first form changes certain per-database settings. (See below for details.) Only a superuser can change these settings.

The second form changes the name of the database. Only a superuser can rename a database; non-superuser owners must also have the CREATEDB privilege. The current database cannot be renamed. (Connect to a different database if you need to do that.)

The third form changes the owner of the current database. To alter the owner, you must own the current database and also be a direct or indirect member of the new owning role, and you must have the CREATEDB privilege. (Note that superusers have all these privileges automatically.)

The remaining forms change the session default for a run-time configuration variable for a PostgreSQL database. Whenever a new session is subsequently started in that database, the specified value becomes the session default value. The database-specific default overrides whatever setting is present in postgresql.conf or has been received from the postgres command line. Only a superuser can change the session defaults for a database. Certain variables cannot be set this way.

• name

  The name of the database whose attributes are to be altered.

• allowconn

  If false then no one can connect to this database.

• connlimit

  How many concurrent connections can be made to this database. -1 means no limit.

• istemplate

  If true, then this database can be cloned by any user with CREATEDB privileges; if false, then only superusers can clone it.

• new_name

  The new name of the database.

• new_owner

  The new owner of the database.

• configuration_parameter

  value

  Set this database’s session default for the specified configuration parameter to the given value. If value is DEFAULT or, equivalently, RESET is used, the database-specific setting is removed, so the system-wide default setting will be inherited in new sessions. Use RESET ALL to clear all database-specific settings. SET FROM CURRENT saves the session’s current value of the parameter as the database-specific value.

  See SET and Chapter 19 for more information about allowed parameter names and values.

ALTER DATABASE cannot be executed inside a transaction block.

It is also possible to tie a session default to a specific role rather than to a database; see ALTER ROLE. Role-specific settings override database-specific ones if there is a conflict.

To disable index scans by default in the database test:

ALTER DATABASE test SET enable_indexscan TO off;

The ALTER DATABASE statement is a PostgreSQL extension.