postgres/doc/src/sgml/ref/create_collation.sgml

<!--
doc/src/sgml/ref/create_collation.sgml
PostgreSQL documentation
-->

<refentry id="sql-createcollation">
 <indexterm zone="sql-createcollation">
  <primary>CREATE COLLATION</primary>
 </indexterm>

 <refmeta>
  <refentrytitle>CREATE COLLATION</refentrytitle>
  <manvolnum>7</manvolnum>
  <refmiscinfo>SQL - Language Statements</refmiscinfo>
 </refmeta>

 <refnamediv>
  <refname>CREATE COLLATION</refname>
  <refpurpose>define a new collation</refpurpose>
 </refnamediv>

 <refsynopsisdiv>
<synopsis>
CREATE COLLATION [ IF NOT EXISTS ] <replaceable>name</replaceable> (
    [ LOCALE = <replaceable>locale</replaceable>, ]
    [ LC_COLLATE = <replaceable>lc_collate</replaceable>, ]
    [ LC_CTYPE = <replaceable>lc_ctype</replaceable>, ]
    [ PROVIDER = <replaceable>provider</replaceable>, ]
    [ DETERMINISTIC = <replaceable>boolean</replaceable>, ]
    [ RULES = <replaceable>rules</replaceable>, ]
    [ VERSION = <replaceable>version</replaceable> ]
)
CREATE COLLATION [ IF NOT EXISTS ] <replaceable>name</replaceable> FROM <replaceable>existing_collation</replaceable>
</synopsis>
 </refsynopsisdiv>

 <refsect1 id="sql-createcollation-description">
  <title>Description</title>

  <para>
   <command>CREATE COLLATION</command> defines a new collation using
   the specified operating system locale settings,
   or by copying an existing collation.
 </para>

  <para>
   To be able to create a collation, you must
   have <literal>CREATE</literal> privilege on the destination schema.
  </para>
 </refsect1>


 <refsect1>
  <title>Parameters</title>

   <variablelist>
    <varlistentry>
     <term><literal>IF NOT EXISTS</literal></term>
     <listitem>
      <para>
       Do not throw an error if a collation with the same name already exists.
       A notice is issued in this case. Note that there is no guarantee that
       the existing collation is anything like the one that would have been created.
      </para>
     </listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry>
     <term><replaceable>name</replaceable></term>

     <listitem>
      <para>
       The name of the collation. The collation name can be
       schema-qualified. If it is not, the collation is defined in the
       current schema. The collation name must be unique within that
       schema.  (The system catalogs can contain collations with the
       same name for other encodings, but these are ignored if the
       database encoding does not match.)
      </para>
     </listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry>
     <term><replaceable>locale</replaceable></term>

     <listitem>
      <para>
       The locale name for this collation. See <xref
       linkend="collation-managing-create-libc"/> and <xref
       linkend="collation-managing-create-icu"/> for details.
      </para>
      <para>
       If <replaceable>provider</replaceable> is <literal>libc</literal>, this
       is a shortcut for setting <symbol>LC_COLLATE</symbol> and
       <symbol>LC_CTYPE</symbol> at once.  If you specify
       <replaceable>locale</replaceable>, you cannot specify either of those
       parameters.
      </para>
      <para>
       If <replaceable>provider</replaceable> is <literal>builtin</literal>,
       then <replaceable>locale</replaceable> must be specified and set to
       either <literal>C</literal>, <literal>C.UTF-8</literal> or
       <literal>PG_UNICODE_FAST</literal>.
      </para>
     </listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry>
     <term><replaceable>lc_collate</replaceable></term>

     <listitem>
      <para>
       If <replaceable>provider</replaceable> is <literal>libc</literal>, use
       the specified operating system locale for the
       <symbol>LC_COLLATE</symbol> locale category.
      </para>
     </listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry>
     <term><replaceable>lc_ctype</replaceable></term>

     <listitem>
      <para>
       If <replaceable>provider</replaceable> is <literal>libc</literal>, use
       the specified operating system locale for the <symbol>LC_CTYPE</symbol>
       locale category.
      </para>
     </listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry>
     <term><replaceable>provider</replaceable></term>

     <listitem>
      <para>
       Specifies the provider to use for locale services associated with this
       collation.  Possible values are <literal>builtin</literal>,
       <literal>icu</literal><indexterm><primary>ICU</primary></indexterm> (if
       the server was built with ICU support) or <literal>libc</literal>.
       <literal>libc</literal> is the default.  See <xref
       linkend="locale-providers"/> for details.
      </para>
     </listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry>
     <term><literal>DETERMINISTIC</literal></term>

     <listitem>
      <para>
       Specifies whether the collation should use deterministic comparisons.
       The default is true.  A deterministic comparison considers strings that
       are not byte-wise equal to be unequal even if they are considered
       logically equal by the comparison.  PostgreSQL breaks ties using a
       byte-wise comparison.  Comparison that is not deterministic can make the
       collation be, say, case- or accent-insensitive.  For that, you need to
       choose an appropriate <literal>LOCALE</literal> setting
       <emphasis>and</emphasis> set the collation to not deterministic here.
      </para>

      <para>
       Nondeterministic collations are only supported with the ICU provider.
      </para>
     </listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry>
     <term><replaceable>rules</replaceable></term>

     <listitem>
      <para>
       Specifies additional collation rules to customize the behavior of the
       collation.  This is supported for ICU only.  See <xref
       linkend="icu-tailoring-rules"/> for details.
      </para>
     </listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry>
     <term><replaceable>version</replaceable></term>

     <listitem>
      <para>
       Specifies the version string to store with the collation.  Normally,
       this should be omitted, which will cause the version to be computed
       from the actual version of the collation as provided by the operating
       system.  This option is intended to be used
       by <command>pg_upgrade</command> for copying the version from an
       existing installation.
      </para>

      <para>
       See also <xref linkend="sql-altercollation"/> for how to handle
       collation version mismatches.
      </para>
     </listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry>
     <term><replaceable>existing_collation</replaceable></term>

     <listitem>
      <para>
       The name of an existing collation to copy.  The new collation
       will have the same properties as the existing one, but it
       will be an independent object.
      </para>
     </listitem>
    </varlistentry>
   </variablelist>
 </refsect1>


 <refsect1 id="sql-createcollation-notes">
  <title>Notes</title>

  <para>
   <command>CREATE COLLATION</command> takes a <literal>SHARE ROW
   EXCLUSIVE</literal> lock, which is self-conflicting, on the
   <structname>pg_collation</structname> system catalog, so only one
   <command>CREATE COLLATION</command> command can run at a time.
  </para>

  <para>
   Use <command>DROP COLLATION</command> to remove user-defined collations.
  </para>

  <para>
   See <xref linkend="collation-create"/> for more information on how to create collations.
  </para>

  <para>
   When using the <literal>libc</literal> collation provider, the locale must
   be applicable to the current database encoding.
   See <xref linkend="sql-createdatabase"/> for the precise rules.
  </para>
 </refsect1>

 <refsect1 id="sql-createcollation-examples">
  <title>Examples</title>

  <para>
   To create a collation from the operating system locale
   <literal>fr_FR.utf8</literal>
   (assuming the current database encoding is <literal>UTF8</literal>):
<programlisting>
CREATE COLLATION french (locale = 'fr_FR.utf8');
</programlisting>
  </para>

  <para>
   To create a collation using the ICU provider using German phone book sort order:
<programlisting>
CREATE COLLATION german_phonebook (provider = icu, locale = 'de-u-co-phonebk');
</programlisting>
  </para>

  <para>
   To create a collation using the ICU provider, based on the root ICU locale,
   with custom rules:
<programlisting>
<![CDATA[CREATE COLLATION custom (provider = icu, locale = 'und', rules = '&V << w <<< W');]]>
</programlisting>
   See <xref linkend="icu-tailoring-rules"/> for further details and examples
   on the rules syntax.
  </para>

  <para>
   To create a collation from an existing collation:
<programlisting>
CREATE COLLATION german FROM "de_DE";
</programlisting>
   This can be convenient to be able to use operating-system-independent
   collation names in applications.
  </para>
 </refsect1>


 <refsect1 id="sql-createcollation-compat">
  <title>Compatibility</title>

  <para>
   There is a <command>CREATE COLLATION</command> statement in the SQL
   standard, but it is limited to copying an existing collation.  The
   syntax to create a new collation is
   a <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> extension.
  </para>
 </refsect1>


 <refsect1 id="sql-createcollation-seealso">
  <title>See Also</title>

  <simplelist type="inline">
   <member><xref linkend="sql-altercollation"/></member>
   <member><xref linkend="sql-dropcollation"/></member>
  </simplelist>
 </refsect1>

</refentry>