"Dan Armbrust" <daniel.armbrust.list@gmail.com> writes:
> First, after validating some passwords, my installer will run this command:
> psql -c "select datname from pg_stat_activity where datname='fred'" -U
> username -d template1
> I then scan the output looking for 'fred'. My (perhaps incorrect)
> assumption is that if I don't find the database name 'fred' in the
> output, then I can assume that no process is using this database, and
> I should be able to drop it.
There are obvious race conditions in that assumption. Why don't you
just try the drop and see if it succeeds?
regards, tom lane