Book Image

Learning PostgreSQL 10 - Second Edition

Book Image

Learning PostgreSQL 10 - Second Edition

Overview of this book

PostgreSQL is one of the most popular open source databases in the world, supporting the most advanced features included in SQL standards. This book will familiarize you with the latest features released in PostgreSQL 10. We’ll start with a thorough introduction to PostgreSQL and the new features introduced in PostgreSQL 10. We’ll cover the Data Definition Language (DDL) with an emphasis on PostgreSQL, and the common DDL commands supported by ANSI SQL. You’ll learn to create tables, define integrity constraints, build indexes, and set up views and other schema objects. Moving on, we’ll cover the concepts of Data Manipulation Language (DML) and PostgreSQL server-side programming capabilities using PL/pgSQL. We’ll also explore the NoSQL capabilities of PostgreSQL and connect to your PostgreSQL database to manipulate data objects. By the end of this book, you’ll have a thorough understanding of the basics of PostgreSQL 10 and will have the necessary skills to build efficient database solutions.
Table of Contents (23 chapters)
Title Page
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface

PostgreSQL database components


A PostgreSQL database could be considered as a container for database schema; the database must contain at least one schema. A database schema is used to organize the database objects in a manner similar to namespaces in high-level programming languages.

Schema

Object names can be reused in different schema without conflict. The schema contains all the database named objects, including tables, views, functions, aggregates, indexes, sequences, triggers, data types, domains, and ranges:

By default, there is a schema called public in the template databases. That means all the newly created databases also contain this schema. All users, by default, can access this schema implicitly. Again, this is inherited from the template databases. Allowing this access pattern simulates the situation where the server is not schema-aware. This is useful in small companies where there is no need to have complex security. Also, this enables smooth transition from non-schema-aware...