From 077908aed726b0e1605ed27156d7ebcf93a64d5d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>
Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2012 22:59:37 -0400
Subject: [PATCH] Document that PGDATA has to point to the configuration files,
rather than the actual data storage directory.
Per suggestion from Thom Brown
---
doc/src/sgml/ref/pg_ctl-ref.sgml | 2 +-
doc/src/sgml/ref/postgres-ref.sgml | 4 ++--
doc/src/sgml/storage.sgml | 5 +++--
3 files changed, 6 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/ref/pg_ctl-ref.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/ref/pg_ctl-ref.sgml
index 90725d9326f..7a4c2bec3b6 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/ref/pg_ctl-ref.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/ref/pg_ctl-ref.sgml
@@ -261,7 +261,7 @@ PostgreSQL documentation
<term><option>--pgdata <replaceable class="parameter">datadir</replaceable></option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
- Specifies the file system location of the database files. If
+ Specifies the file system location of the database configuration files. If
this is omitted, the environment variable
<envar>PGDATA</envar> is used.
</para>
diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/ref/postgres-ref.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/ref/postgres-ref.sgml
index a1f36e1836c..41745fb34dc 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/ref/postgres-ref.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/ref/postgres-ref.sgml
@@ -179,8 +179,8 @@ PostgreSQL documentation
<term><option>-D <replaceable class="parameter">datadir</replaceable></option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
- Specifies the file system location of the data directory or
- configuration file(s). See
+ Specifies the file system location of the database
+ configuration files. See
<xref linkend="runtime-config-file-locations"> for details.
</para>
</listitem>
diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/storage.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/storage.sgml
index bd2dca39fcb..e0a93c1b5eb 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/storage.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/storage.sgml
@@ -19,7 +19,8 @@ directories.
</para>
<para>
-All the data needed for a database cluster is stored within the cluster's data
+Traditionally, the configuration and data files used by a database
+cluster are stored together within the cluster's data
directory, commonly referred to as <varname>PGDATA</> (after the name of the
environment variable that can be used to define it). A common location for
<varname>PGDATA</> is <filename>/var/lib/pgsql/data</>. Multiple clusters,
@@ -33,7 +34,7 @@ these required items, the cluster configuration files
<filename>postgresql.conf</filename>, <filename>pg_hba.conf</filename>, and
<filename>pg_ident.conf</filename> are traditionally stored in
<varname>PGDATA</> (although in <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> 8.0 and
-later, it is possible to keep them elsewhere).
+later, it is possible to place them elsewhere).
</para>
<table tocentry="1" id="pgdata-contents-table">
--
GitLab