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

Dynamic SQL


Dynamic SQL is used to build and execute queries on the fly. Unlike the static SQL statement, a dynamic SQL statement's full text is unknown and can change between successive executions. These queries can be DDL, DCL, and DML statements. Dynamic SQL is used to reduce repetitive tasks. For example, one could use dynamic SQL to create table partitioning for a certain table on a daily basis, to add missing indexes on all foreign keys, or add data auditing capabilities to a certain table without major coding effects. Another important use of dynamic SQL is to overcome the side effects of PL/pgSQL caching, as queries executed using the EXECUTE statement are not cached.

Dynamic SQL is achieved via the EXECUTE statement. The EXECUTE statement accepts a string and simply evaluates it. The synopsis to execute a statement is given as follows:

EXECUTE command-string [ INTO [STRICT] target ] [ USING expression [, ...] ];

Executing DDL statements in dynamic SQL

In some cases, one needs to perform...