PostgreSQL environment file on Mac OSX?

Question

PostgreSQL seems to have an environment file that allows settings environment variables. On Linux (Kubuntu 11.10 in my case), it is located at e.g. /etc/postgresql/8.4/mai

Answer 1

There is no standard way to specify environment variables for PostgreSQL, I assume that file is Kubuntu specific.

What I did to ease my life was copying approach used by ORACLE:

• I have /etc/pgtab file on each server where I run PostgreSQL databases;
• I specify each cluster I run on a single line in the /etc/pgtab;
• I've created a script pgenv which based on the /etc/pgtab shows the menu of clusters (in case there're more then just one) and initialize all PATHs and variables.

It works on my MacBookPro and on all Linux and HP-UX based servers.