I followed your advice (Andrew Hammond), but I was confronted with another problem: I got no
prompt …
Here follows the output:

[PowerBook06:/usr/local/pgsql] philippev% /opt/local/bin/initdb --locale=C -D /usr/local/
pgsql/data
The files belonging to this database system will be owned by user "philippev".
This user must also own the server process.

The database cluster will be initialized with locale C.

creating directory /usr/local/pgsql/data... mkdir: /usr/local/pgsql/data: Permission denied

initdb: failed
[PowerBook06:/usr/local/pgsql] philippev% su postgres
Password:
[PowerBook06:/usr/local/pgsql] postgres% /opt/local/bin/initdb --locale=C-D /usr/local/
pgsql/data
The files belonging to this database system will be owned by user "postgres".
This user must also own the server process.

The database cluster will be initialized with locale C.

creating directory /usr/local/pgsql/data... ok
creating directory /usr/local/pgsql/data/base... ok
creating directory /usr/local/pgsql/data/global... ok
creating directory /usr/local/pgsql/data/pg_xlog... ok
creating directory /usr/local/pgsql/data/pg_clog... ok
selecting default max_connections... 50
selecting default shared_buffers... 300
creating configuration files... ok
creating template1 database in /usr/local/pgsql/data/base/1... ok
initializing pg_shadow... ok
enabling unlimited row size for system tables... ok
initializing pg_depend... ok
creating system views... ok
loading pg_description... ok
creating conversions... ok
setting privileges on built-in objects... ok
creating information schema... ok
vacuuming database template1... ok
copying template1 to template0... ok

Success. You can now start the database server using:

/opt/local/bin/postmaster -D /usr/local/pgsql/data
or
/opt/local/bin/pg_ctl -D /usr/local/pgsql/data -l logfile start

[PowerBook06:/usr/local/pgsql] postgres% /opt/local/bin/postmaster -D /usr/local/pgsql/data
LOG: database system was shut down at 2004-05-18 08:45:19 CEST
LOG: checkpoint record is at 0/9B2E88
LOG: redo record is at 0/9B2E88; undo record is at 0/0; shutdown TRUE
LOG: next transaction ID: 536; next OID: 17142
LOG: database system is ready
createdb test
psql test

Thanks for helping me further.
Philippe


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TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ?

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faqs/FAQ.html

"Philippe Verschooten" <ph.verschooten (AT) pi (DOT) be> writes:
That's because you left the postmaster running in the foreground. You
would only do that if you want to watch its log messages in a terminal
window for some reason. See the administrator's guide section on
starting the postmaster for the usual ways to do it.

regards, tom lane

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TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend

Philippe VERSCHOOTEN <ph.verschooten (AT) rmnet (DOT) be> writes:
We've seen reports like that before; it seems that OS X has rather flaky
(incomplete) support for locales. I'd suggest forcing use of C locale,
myself. "initdb --no-locale" will do it IIRC.

regards, tom lane

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TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster