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)
20
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21
Index

Advanced statistics with pg_stat_statements

While the PostgreSQL statistics collector is rich and mature, having to monitor connection activity can be a little tricky since the pg_stat_activity catalog does not provide historical information. For example, as we explained previously, there will be a single tuple with the last executed statement, so no history nor extended details will be provided.

The pg_stat_statements extension solves this problem by providing a single view that gives you a full history of executed statements, timing, and other little details that can come in very handy when doing introspection. Moreover, pg_stat_statements provides a count of how many times the same statement has been executed, resulting in important information that queries might need to pay attention to for optimization purposes.

Several monitoring tools require pg_stat_statements to be installed in order to gather data.

In the following subsections, you will learn how to install this...