Mastering PostgreSQL 9.6

Common pitfalls

There are some very basic syntax elements that work in Oracle but might not work in PostgreSQL. This section lists some of the most important things. Of course, this list is not complete by far, but it should point you into the right direction.

In Oracle, you might find the following statement:

DELETE mytable;

In PostgreSQL, this statement is wrong as PostgreSQL requires you to use a FROM clause in the DELETE statement. The good news is that this kind of statement is easy to fix.

The next thing you might find is:

SELECT sysdate FROM dual; 

PostgreSQL neither has sysdate function nor dual function. The dual function part is easy to fix as you can simply create a view returning one line. In Oracle, dual function works like ...