1CREATE COLLATION(7) PostgreSQL 12.2 Documentation CREATE COLLATION(7)
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6 CREATE_COLLATION - define a new collation
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9 CREATE COLLATION [ IF NOT EXISTS ] name (
10 [ LOCALE = locale, ]
11 [ LC_COLLATE = lc_collate, ]
12 [ LC_CTYPE = lc_ctype, ]
13 [ PROVIDER = provider, ]
14 [ DETERMINISTIC = boolean, ]
15 [ VERSION = version ]
16 )
17 CREATE COLLATION [ IF NOT EXISTS ] name FROM existing_collation
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20 CREATE COLLATION defines a new collation using the specified operating
21 system locale settings, or by copying an existing collation.
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23 To be able to create a collation, you must have CREATE privilege on the
24 destination schema.
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27 IF NOT EXISTS
28 Do not throw an error if a collation with the same name already
29 exists. A notice is issued in this case. Note that there is no
30 guarantee that the existing collation is anything like the one that
31 would have been created.
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33 name
34 The name of the collation. The collation name can be
35 schema-qualified. If it is not, the collation is defined in the
36 current schema. The collation name must be unique within that
37 schema. (The system catalogs can contain collations with the same
38 name for other encodings, but these are ignored if the database
39 encoding does not match.)
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41 locale
42 This is a shortcut for setting LC_COLLATE and LC_CTYPE at once. If
43 you specify this, you cannot specify either of those parameters.
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45 lc_collate
46 Use the specified operating system locale for the LC_COLLATE locale
47 category.
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49 lc_ctype
50 Use the specified operating system locale for the LC_CTYPE locale
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53 provider
54 Specifies the provider to use for locale services associated with
55 this collation. Possible values are: icu, libc. libc is the
56 default. The available choices depend on the operating system and
57 build options.
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59 DETERMINISTIC
60 Specifies whether the collation should use deterministic
61 comparisons. The default is true. A deterministic comparison
62 considers strings that are not byte-wise equal to be unequal even
63 if they are considered logically equal by the comparison.
64 PostgreSQL breaks ties using a byte-wise comparison. Comparison
65 that is not deterministic can make the collation be, say, case- or
66 accent-insensitive. For that, you need to choose an appropriate
67 LC_COLLATE setting and set the collation to not deterministic here.
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69 Nondeterministic collations are only supported with the ICU
70 provider.
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72 version
73 Specifies the version string to store with the collation. Normally,
74 this should be omitted, which will cause the version to be computed
75 from the actual version of the collation as provided by the
76 operating system. This option is intended to be used by pg_upgrade
77 for copying the version from an existing installation.
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79 See also ALTER COLLATION (ALTER_COLLATION(7)) for how to handle
80 collation version mismatches.
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82 existing_collation
83 The name of an existing collation to copy. The new collation will
84 have the same properties as the existing one, but it will be an
85 independent object.
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88 CREATE COLLATION takes a SHARE ROW EXCLUSIVE lock, which is
89 self-conflicting, on the pg_collation system catalog, so only one
90 CREATE COLLATION command can run at a time.
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92 Use DROP COLLATION to remove user-defined collations.
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94 See Section 23.2.2.3 for more information on how to create collations.
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96 When using the libc collation provider, the locale must be applicable
97 to the current database encoding. See CREATE DATABASE
98 (CREATE_DATABASE(7)) for the precise rules.
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101 To create a collation from the operating system locale fr_FR.utf8
102 (assuming the current database encoding is UTF8):
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104 CREATE COLLATION french (locale = 'fr_FR.utf8');
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106 To create a collation using the ICU provider using German phone book
107 sort order:
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109 CREATE COLLATION german_phonebook (provider = icu, locale = 'de-u-co-phonebk');
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111 To create a collation from an existing collation:
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113 CREATE COLLATION german FROM "de_DE";
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115 This can be convenient to be able to use operating-system-independent
116 collation names in applications.
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119 There is a CREATE COLLATION statement in the SQL standard, but it is
120 limited to copying an existing collation. The syntax to create a new
121 collation is a PostgreSQL extension.
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124 ALTER COLLATION (ALTER_COLLATION(7)), DROP COLLATION
125 (DROP_COLLATION(7))
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129PostgreSQL 12.2 2020 CREATE COLLATION(7)