Create PostgreSQL ROLE (user) if it doesn't exist

Question

How do I write an SQL script to create a ROLE in PostgreSQL 9.1, but without raising an error if it already exists?

The current script simply has:

CR         


        

Answer 1

The same solution as for Simulate CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS for PostgreSQL? should work - send a CREATE USER … to \gexec.

Workaround from within psql

SELECT 'CREATE USER my_user'
WHERE NOT EXISTS (SELECT FROM pg_catalog.pg_roles WHERE rolname = 'my_user')\gexec

Workaround from the shell

echo "SELECT 'CREATE USER my_user' WHERE NOT EXISTS (SELECT FROM pg_catalog.pg_roles WHERE rolname = 'my_user')\gexec" | psql

See accepted answer there for more details.

Answer 2

Here is a generic solution using plpgsql:

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION create_role_if_not_exists(rolename NAME) RETURNS TEXT AS
$$
BEGIN
    IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT * FROM pg_roles WHERE rolname = rolename) THEN
        EXECUTE format('CREATE ROLE %I', rolename);
        RETURN 'CREATE ROLE';
    ELSE
        RETURN format('ROLE ''%I'' ALREADY EXISTS', rolename);
    END IF;
END;
$$
LANGUAGE plpgsql;

Usage:

posgres=# SELECT create_role_if_not_exists('ri');
 create_role_if_not_exists 
---------------------------
 CREATE ROLE
(1 row)
posgres=# SELECT create_role_if_not_exists('ri');
 create_role_if_not_exists 
---------------------------
 ROLE 'ri' ALREADY EXISTS
(1 row)

Answer 3

Or if the role is not the owner of any db objects one can use:

DROP ROLE IF EXISTS my_user;
CREATE ROLE my_user LOGIN PASSWORD 'my_password';

But only if dropping this user will not make any harm.

Answer 4

My team was hitting a situation with multiple databases on one server, depending on which database you connected to, the ROLE in question was not returned by SELECT * FROM pg_catalog.pg_user, as proposed by @erwin-brandstetter and @a_horse_with_no_name. The conditional block executed, and we hit role "my_user" already exists.

Unfortunately we aren't sure of exact conditions, but this solution works around the problem:

        DO  
        $body$
        BEGIN
            CREATE ROLE my_user LOGIN PASSWORD 'my_password';
        EXCEPTION WHEN others THEN
            RAISE NOTICE 'my_user role exists, not re-creating';
        END
        $body$

It could probably be made more specific to rule out other exceptions.