Book Image

Learning PostgreSQL

Book Image

Learning PostgreSQL

Overview of this book

PostgreSQL is one of the most powerful and easy to use database management systems. It supports the most advanced features included in SQL standards. The book starts with the introduction of relational databases with PostegreSQL. It then moves on to covering data definition language (DDL) with emphasis on PostgreSQL and common DDL commands supported by ANSI SQL. You will then learn the data manipulation language (DML), and advanced topics like locking and multi version concurrency control (MVCC). This will give you a very robust background to tune and troubleshoot your application. The book then covers the implementation of data models in the database such as creating tables, setting up integrity constraints, building indexes, defining views and other schema objects. Next, it will give you an overview about the NoSQL capabilities of PostgreSQL along with Hstore, XML, Json and arrays. Finally by the end of the book, you'll learn to use the JDBC driver and manipulate data objects in the Hibernate framework.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
Learning PostgreSQL
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Chapter 1. Relational Databases

This chapter will provide a high-level overview of topics related to database development. Understanding the basic relational database concepts enables the developers to not only come up with clean designs, but also to master relational databases. This chapter is not restricted to learning PostgreSQL, but covers all relational databases.

The topics covered in this chapter include the following:

  • Database management systems: Understanding the different database categories enables the developer to utilize the best in each world.

  • Relational algebra: Understanding relational algebra enables the developers to master the SQL language, especially, SQL code rewriting.

  • Data modeling: Using data modeling techniques leads to better communication.