clusterdb

clusterdb — cluster a PostgreSQL database

Synopsis

clusterdb [connection-option...] [ --verbose | -v ] [ --table | -t table ] ... [dbname]

clusterdb [connection-option...] [ --verbose | -v ] --all | -a

Description

clusterdb is a utility for reclustering tables in a PostgreSQL database. It finds tables that have previously been clustered, and clusters them again on the same index that was last used. Tables that have never been clustered are not affected.

clusterdb is a wrapper around the SQL command CLUSTER. There is no effective difference between clustering databases via this utility and via other methods for accessing the server.

Options

clusterdb accepts the following command-line arguments:

-a--all: Cluster all databases.
[-d] dbname[--dbname=]dbname: Specifies the name of the database to be clustered. If this is not specified and -a (or --all) is not used, the database name is read from the environment variable PGDATABASE. If that is not set, the user name specified for the connection is used.
-e--echo: Echo the commands that clusterdb generates and sends to the server.
-q--quiet: Do not display progress messages.
-t table--table=table: Cluster table only. Multiple tables can be clustered by writing multiple -t switches.
-v--verbose: Print detailed information during processing.
-V--version: Print the clusterdb version and exit.
-?--help: Show help about clusterdb command line arguments, and exit.

clusterdb also accepts the following command-line arguments for connection parameters:

-h host--host=host

Specifies the host name of the machine on which the server is running. If the value begins with a slash, it is used as the directory for the Unix domain socket.

-p port--port=port

Specifies the TCP port or local Unix domain socket file extension on which the server is listening for connections.

-U username--username=username

User name to connect as.

-w--no-password

Never issue a password prompt. If the server requires password authentication and a password is not available by other means such as a .pgpass file, the connection attempt will fail. This option can be useful in batch jobs and scripts where no user is present to enter a password.

-W--password

Force clusterdb to prompt for a password before connecting to a database.

This option is never essential, since clusterdb will automatically prompt for a password if the server demands password authentication. However, clusterdb will waste a connection attempt finding out that the server wants a password. In some cases it is worth typing -W to avoid the extra connection attempt.

--maintenance-db=dbname

Specifies the name of the database to connect to discover what other databases should be clustered. If not specified, the postgres database will be used, and if that does not exist, template1 will be used.

Environment

PGDATABASEPGHOSTPGPORTPGUSER: Default connection parameters
PG_COLOR: Specifies whether to use color in diagnostics messages. Possible values are always, auto, never.

This utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, also uses the environment variables supported by libpq (see Section 33.14).

Diagnostics

In case of difficulty, see CLUSTER and psql for discussions of potential problems and error messages. The database server must be running at the targeted host. Also, any default connection settings and environment variables used by the libpq front-end library will apply.

Examples

To cluster the database test:

$ clusterdb test

To cluster a single table foo in a database named xyzzy:

$ clusterdb --table=foo xyzzy

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