Re: pg_ctl telling only half the truth

Markus Bertheau <twanger(at)bluetwanger(dot)de> writes:
> Guess what happend here:
> [bertheau(at)dicaprio pg80]$ bin/pg_ctl -D data -l log start
> postmaster starting
> [bertheau(at)dicaprio pg80]$

> No, postmaster was not starting - it was configured to listen on the
> default port - and there was already another postmaster running on 5432.
> This information was of course in the log file, but pg_ctl should have
> said that the postmaster did not start successfully.

It did not say that the postmaster had started; it said it was starting,
which was true. If you want it to wait around to verify whether the
postmaster started OK, use the -w switch.

regards, tom lane