Book Image

Learn PostgreSQL - Second Edition

By : Luca Ferrari, Enrico Pirozzi
1 (2)
Book Image

Learn PostgreSQL - Second Edition

1 (2)
By: Luca Ferrari, Enrico Pirozzi

Overview of this book

The latest edition of this PostgreSQL book will help you to start using PostgreSQL from absolute scratch, helping you to quickly understand the internal workings of the database. With a structured approach and practical examples, go on a journey that covers the basics, from SQL statements and how to run server-side programs, to configuring, managing, securing, and optimizing database performance. This new edition will not only help you get to grips with all the recent changes within the PostgreSQL ecosystem but will also dig deeper into concepts like partitioning and replication with a fresh set of examples. The book is also equipped with Docker images for each chapter which makes the learning experience faster and easier. Starting with the absolute basics of databases, the book sails through to advanced concepts like window functions, logging, auditing, extending the database, configuration, partitioning, and replication. It will also help you seamlessly migrate your existing database system to PostgreSQL and contains a dedicated chapter on disaster recovery. Each chapter ends with practice questions to test your learning at regular intervals. By the end of this book, you will be able to install, configure, manage, and develop applications against a PostgreSQL database.
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
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Index

Exploring PostgreSQL terminology

In order for you to understand how PostgreSQL works and follow the examples in the chapters of this book, we need to introduce the terminology used within PostgreSQL and its community of users.

PostgreSQL is a service, which means it runs as a daemon on the operating system; a running PostgreSQL daemon is called an instance. A PostgreSQL instance is often called a cluster because a single instance can serve and handle multiple databases. Every database is an isolated space where users and applications can store data.

A database is accessed by allowed users, but users connected to a database cannot cross the database boundaries and interact with data contained in another database unless they explicitly connect to the latter database too.

A database can be organized into namespaces, called schemas. A schema is a mnemonic name that the user can assign to organize database objects, such as tables, into a more structured collection. Schemas...