Book Image

Mastering PostgreSQL 13 - Fourth Edition

By : Hans-Jürgen Schönig
Book Image

Mastering PostgreSQL 13 - Fourth Edition

By: Hans-Jürgen Schönig

Overview of this book

Thanks to its reliability, robustness, and high performance, PostgreSQL has become one of the most advanced open source databases on the market. This updated fourth edition will help you understand PostgreSQL administration and how to build dynamic database solutions for enterprise apps with the latest release of PostgreSQL, including designing both physical and technical aspects of the system architecture with ease. Starting with an introduction to the new features in PostgreSQL 13, this book will guide you in building efficient and fault-tolerant PostgreSQL apps. You’ll explore advanced PostgreSQL features, such as logical replication, database clusters, performance tuning, advanced indexing, monitoring, and user management, to manage and maintain your database. You’ll then work with the PostgreSQL optimizer, configure PostgreSQL for high speed, and move from Oracle to PostgreSQL. The book also covers transactions, locking, and indexes, and shows you how to improve performance with query optimization. You’ll also focus on how to manage network security and work with backups and replication while exploring useful PostgreSQL extensions that optimize the performance of large databases. By the end of this PostgreSQL book, you’ll be able to get the most out of your database by executing advanced administrative tasks.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)

Understanding how extensions work

Before digging into the extensions that are available, it is a good idea to take a look at how extensions work in the first place. Understanding the inner workings of the extension machinery can be quite beneficial.

Let's take a look at the syntax first:

test=# \h CREATE EXTENSION 
Command: CREATE EXTENSION
Description: install an extension
Syntax:
CREATE EXTENSION [ IF NOT EXISTS ] extension_name
[ WITH ] [ SCHEMA schema_name ]
[ VERSION version ]
[ CASCADE ]

URL: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/13/sql-createextension.html

When you want to deploy an extension, simply call the CREATE EXTENSION command. It will check for the extension and load it into your database. Note that the extension will be loaded into a database and not into the entire database instance.

If we are loading an extension, we can decide on the schema that we want to use. Many extensions can be relocated so that the user can choose which schema to use. Then...