Document that PGDATA has to point to the configuration files, rather

than the actual data storage directory.

Per suggestion from Thom Brown

diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/ref/pg_ctl-ref.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/ref/pg_ctl-ref.sgml
index 90725d9326f892fecc09807943320dafb3016b8b..7a4c2bec3b67045397a5e34768e1881f0de9e094 100644 (file)
--- a/doc/src/sgml/ref/pg_ctl-ref.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/ref/pg_ctl-ref.sgml
@@ -261,7 +261,7 @@ PostgreSQL documentation
       --pgdata datadir
       
        
-        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
         PGDATA is used.
        

diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/ref/postgres-ref.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/ref/postgres-ref.sgml
index a1f36e1836cc040ff2e862da0696429e766d81f5..41745fb34dc22ece126957036b354ab157ae9ed8 100644 (file)
--- a/doc/src/sgml/ref/postgres-ref.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/ref/postgres-ref.sgml
@@ -179,8 +179,8 @@ PostgreSQL documentation
       -D datadir
       
        
-        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
          for details.
        
       

diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/storage.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/storage.sgml
index bd2dca39fcbd229ea1c78952c8af1f9e45a51f3d..e0a93c1b5eb0c881e41322b2942e8c74dce1f708 100644 (file)
--- a/doc/src/sgml/storage.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/storage.sgml
@@ -19,7 +19,8 @@ directories.
 
 
 
-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 PGDATA (after the name of the
 environment variable that can be used to define it).  A common location for
 PGDATA is /var/lib/pgsql/data.  Multiple clusters,
@@ -33,7 +34,7 @@ these required items, the cluster configuration files
 postgresql.conf, pg_hba.conf, and
 pg_ident.conf are traditionally stored in
 PGDATA (although in PostgreSQL 8.0 and
-later, it is possible to keep them elsewhere).
+later, it is possible to place them elsewhere).