Rename a postgresql database with open connection

Rename Postrgres Database

Ref: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5108876/kill-a-postgresql-session-connection

Postgres (rightfully) stops you from renaming a database while it has connections open connections.  To test an exception handler which attempts to handle lost database connection, I was able to do the following:

1. \c (database that you are not trying to rename)
  \c template1

2. select pg_terminate_backend(pid) from pg_stat_activity where datname ~ 'db_name_you_are_trying_to_rename';
3. alter database db_name_you_are_trying_to_rename rename to new_name;