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Wiki / Configuration Parameters

wal_init_zero

If set to on (the default), this option causes new WAL files to be filled with zeroes. On some file systems, this ensures that space is allocated before we need to write WAL records. However, Copy-On-Write (COW) file systems may not benefit from this technique, so the option is given to skip the unnecessary work. If set to off, only the final byte is written when the file is created so that it has the expected size.

English manual coverage begins with PostgreSQL 7.4. Source history and runtime observations have their own recorded version boundaries.

Reading PG 18·Select a recorded version

boot val
on
category
Write-Ahead Log / Settings
context
superuser
documented
true
enumvals
Unknown
extra desc
Unknown
lang
en
max val
Unknown
metadata version
18
min val
Unknown
name
wal_init_zero
short desc
Writes zeroes to new WAL files before first use.
source
pg-settings-source-snapshot
unit
Unknown
vartype
bool

Definition PG 18

If set to on (the default), this option causes new WAL files to be filled with zeroes. On some file systems, this ensures that space is allocated before we need to write WAL records. However, Copy-On-Write (COW) file systems may not benefit from this technique, so the option is given to skip the unnecessary work. If set to off, only the final byte is written when the file is created so that it has the expected size.

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center · PostgreSQL 18 · wiki-repair-20261023:b5e24bd30817aa137b4df03cecc86ef760d64e08919f5fa3ae65d7a7571a40ed

Text language: en · wiki-repair-20261023:b5e24bd30817aa137b4df03cecc86ef760d64e08919f5fa3ae65d7a7571a40ed