Name

CREATE DIRECTORY -- create an alias for a file system directory path

Synopsis

CREATE DIRECTORY name AS ‘pathname’

Description

The CREATE DIRECTORY command creates an alias for a file system directory pathname. When the alias is specified as the appropriate parameter to the programs of the UTL_FILE package, the operating system files are created in, or accessed from the directory corresponding to the given alias. See Section 7.4 for information on the UTL_FILE package.

Parameters

name

pathname

Notes

The operating system user id, enterprisedb, must have the appropriate read and/or write privileges on the directory if the UTL_FILE package is to be used to create and/or read files using the directory.

A directory alias must be deleted directly from the pg_catalog.edb_dir system catalog table if it is desired to remove the directory alias. This operation must be performed by a superuser. Note that edb_dir is not an Oracle compatible table.

When a directory alias is deleted, the corresponding physical file system directory is not affected. The file system directory must be deleted using the appropriate operating system commands.

In a Linux system, the directory name separator is a forward slash (/).

In a Windows system, the directory name separator can be specified as a forward slash (/) or two consecutive backslashes (\\).

Examples

Create an alias named, empdir, for directory, /tmp/empdir, on Linux:

CREATE DIRECTORY empdir AS '/tmp/empdir';

Create an alias named, empdir, for directory, C:\TEMP\EMPDIR, on Windows:

CREATE DIRECTORY empdir AS 'C:/TEMP/EMPDIR';

View all of the directory aliases:

SELECT * FROM pg_catalog.edb_dir;

 dirname |    dirpath
---------+----------------
 empdir  | C:/TEMP/EMPDIR
(1 row)

Remove directory, empdir:

DELETE FROM pg_catalog.edb_dir WHERE dirname = 'empdir';