PostgreSQL, Second Edition

Creating New Tables

The previous section described how to create and drop databases. Now let's move down one level in the PostgreSQL storage hierarchy and talk about creating and dropping tables.

You've created some simple tables in the first two chapters; it's time to talk about some of the more advanced features of the CREATE TABLE command. Here is the command that you used to create the customers table:

CREATE TABLE customers (
        customer_id   INTEGER UNIQUE,
        customer_name VARCHAR(50),
        phone         CHAR(8),
        birth_date    DATE,
        balance       DECIMAL(7,2)
);

This command creates a permanent table named customers. A table name must meet the naming criteria described earlier in this chapter. When you create a table, PostgreSQL automatically creates a new data type ...