Re: pg_ctl reports succes when start fails

Tommi Maekitalo <t(dot)maekitalo(at)epgmbh(dot)de> writes:
> I installed 7.4beta5, created a data-dir and tried to start postgresql with
> pg_ctl without initdb. As expected, this will fail. But pg_ctl tells me
> "postmaster successfully started", after a fatal error, which looks very
> confusing. When I use -l for specifying a logfile, I don't even see the
> error, but only the success-message.

If you don't use -w, then pg_ctl doesn't wait around to see whether the
postmaster started or not. It'd probably be a good idea for it to issue
a less positive message in this case, maybe only "postmaster launched".

I also wonder why -w isn't the default.

regards, tom lane