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Practical PostgreSQL
book

Practical PostgreSQL

by Joshua D. Drake, John C. Worsley
January 2002
Intermediate to advanced content levelIntermediate to advanced
640 pages
16h 39m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Practical PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL Feature Set

As stated previously in this chapter, PostgreSQL is widely considered the most advanced open source database in the world. PostgreSQL provides a wealth of features that are usually only found in commercial databases such as DB2 or Oracle. The following is a brief listing of some of these core features, as of PostgreSQL 7.1.x.

Object-Relational DBMS

PostgreSQL approaches data with an object-relational model, and is capable of handling complex routines and rules. Examples of its advanced functionality are declarative SQL queries, multi-version concurrency control, multi-user support, transactions, query optimization, inheritance, and arrays.

Highly extensible

PostgreSQL supports user-defined operators, functions, access methods, and data types.

Comprehensive SQL support

PostgreSQL supports the core SQL99 specification and includes advanced features such as SQL92 joins.

Referential integrity

PostgreSQL supports referential integrity, which is used to insure the validity of a database’s data.

Flexible API

The flexibility of the PostgreSQL API has allowed vendors to provide development support easily for the PostgreSQL RDBMS. These interfaces include Object Pascal, Python, Perl, PHP, ODBC, Java/JDBC, Ruby, TCL, C/C++, and Pike.

Procedural languages

PostgreSQL has support for internal procedural languages, including a native language called PL/pgSQL. This language is comparable to the Oracle procedural language, PL/SQL. Another advantage to PostgreSQL is its ability to use ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781449309770Supplemental ContentErrata Page