PostgreSQL Essential Reference

Barry Stinson , a charter member of his local LUG (lafix.org), is an active participant in the open source community. He is a day-to-day developer for PostgreSQL and he is currently the lead developer on the qikFax project, a linux fax server product, at sourceforge, (qikfax.sourceforge.net). Barry currently runs his own consulting company, Silicon Consulting Company, in Louisiana. His local clients include law firms, doctor offices, and various finance companies. Recently, he was given the task of replacing an existing database system, Microsoft's SQL Server, with PostgreSQL. Since the migration was completed over a year ago, there has been a marked improvement in system stability and the reduction of downtime.

Introduction.


What's Inside? Who Is This Book For? Who Is This Book Not For? Conventions.

I. SQL REFERENCE.

1. PostgreSQL SQL Reference.


Table of Commands. Alphabetical Listing.

II. POSTGRESQL SPECIFICS.

2. PostgreSQL Data Types.


Table of Data Types. Geometric Data Types. Logical Data Types. Network Data Types. Numeric Data Types. String Data Types. Time Data Types. Other Data Types. More Data Types.

3. PostgreSQL Operators.


Geometric Operators. Logical Operators. Network Operators. Numerical Operators. String Operators. Time Operators.

4. PostgreSQL Functions.


Map of Functions Grouped _by Category. Aggregate Functions. Conversion Functions. Geometric Functions. Network Functions. Numerical Functions. SQL Functions. String Functions. Time Functions. User Functions. Other Functions.

5. Other PostgreSQL Topics.


Arrays in Fields. Inheritance. PostgreSQL Indexes. OIDs. Multiversion Concurrency _Control.

III. POSTGRESQL ADMINISTRATION.

6. User Executable Files.


Alphabetical Listing of Files.

7. System Executable Files.


Alphabetical Listing of Files.

8. System Configuration Files and _Libraries.


System Configuration Files. Library Files.

9. Databases and Log Files.


PostgreSQL Data Directory. Log Files.

10. Common Administrative Tasks.


Compiling and Installation. Creating Users. Granting User Rights. Database Maintenance. Database Backup/Restore. Performance Tuning.

IV. PROGRAMMING WITH POSTGRESQL.

11. Server-Side Programming.


Benefits of Procedural Languages. Installing Procedural Languages. PL/pgSQL. PL/Tcl. PL/Perl.

12. Creating Custom Functions.


Creating Custom Functions. Creating Custom Triggers. Creating Custom Rules.

13. Client-Side Programming.


ecpg. JDBC. Libpq. libpq++. Libpgeasy. ODBC. Perl. Python (PyGreSQL). PHP.

14. Advanced PostgreSQL Programming.


Extending Functions. Extending Types. Extending Operators.

V. APPENDICES.

A: Additional Resources.


PostgreSQL versus Other _RDBMSs. Online PostgreSQL Resources. Books.

B: PostgreSQL Version _Information.


Version 7.1.2 (Released May 2001). Version 7.1.1 (Released May 2001). Version 7.1 (Released April 2001). Version 7.0.3 (Released November 2000). Version 7.0.2 (Released June 2000). Version 7.0 (Released May 2000). Version 6.5.2 (Released September 1999). Version 6.5.1 (Released July 1999). Version 6.5 (Released June 1999). Version 6.4.1 (Released December _1999). Version 6.4 (Released October _1998). Version 6.3 (Released March 1998). Version 6.2.1 (Released October _1997). Version 6.2 (Released June 1997). Version 6.1 (Released June 1997). Version Postgre95 .01 (Released May 1995).

Index.