alink="#0000ff">
<H1>Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for PostgreSQL</H1>
- <P>Last updated: Wed Dec 15 20:06:34 EST 2004</P>
+ <P>Last updated: Fri Dec 24 12:18:49 EST 2004</P>
<P>Current maintainer: Bruce Momjian (<A href=
"mailto:pgman@candle.pha.pa.us">pgman@candle.pha.pa.us</A>)<BR>
</P>
<P>The most recent version of this document can be viewed at <A href=
- "http://www.PostgreSQL.org/docs/faqs/FAQ.html">http://www.PostgreSQL.org/docs/faqs/FAQ.html</A>.</P>
+ "http://www.postgresql.org/files/documentation/faqs/FAQ.html">
+ http://www.postgresql.org/files/documentation/faqs/FAQ.html</A>.</P>
<P>Platform-specific questions are answered at <A href=
- "http://www.PostgreSQL.org/docs/index.html">http://www.PostgreSQL.org/docs/index.html</A>.</P>
+ "http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq/">
+ http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq/</A>.</P>
<HR>
<H2 align="center">General Questions</H2>
responsible for all development of PostgreSQL. It is a community
project and is not controlled by any company. To get involved, see
the developer's FAQ at <A href=
- "http://www.PostgreSQL.org/docs/faqs/FAQ_DEV.html">http://www.PostgreSQL.org/docs/faqs/FAQ_DEV.html</A>
+ "http://www.postgresql.org/files/documentation/faqs/FAQ_DEV.html">
+ http://www.postgresql.org/files/documentation/faqs/FAQ_DEV.html</A>
</P>
<P>The authors of PostgreSQL 1.01 were Andrew Yu and Jolly Chen.
href=
"http://techdocs.PostgreSQL.org/">http://techdocs.PostgreSQL.org/</A>.</P>
- <P><I>psql</I> has some nice \d commands to show information about
- types, operators, functions, aggregates, etc.</P>
+ <P>The command line client program <I>psql</I> has some \d commands to show
+ information about types, operators, functions, aggregates, etc. - use \? to
+ display the available commands.</P>
<P>Our web site contains even more documentation.</P>
<H4><A name="1.13">1.13</A>) How do I submit a bug report?</H4>
<P>Visit the PostgreSQL bug form at <A href=
- "http://www.postgresql.org/bugform.html">
- http://www.postgresql.org/bugform.html</A>.</P>
+ "http://www.postgresql.org/support/submitbug">
+ http://www.postgresql.org/support/submitbug</A>.</P>
<P>Also check out our ftp site <A href=
"ftp://ftp.PostgreSQL.org/pub">ftp://ftp.PostgreSQL.org/pub</A> to
<DT><B>Performance</B></DT>
- <DD>PostgreSQL has performance similar to other commercial and
- open source databases. it is faster for some things, slower for
+ <DD>PostgreSQL's performance is comparable to other commercial and
+ open source databases. It is faster for some things, slower for
others. In comparison to MySQL or leaner database systems, we are
faster for multiple users, complex queries, and a read/write query
load. MySQL is faster for simple SELECT queries done by a few users.
Of course, MySQL does not have most of the features mentioned in the
<I>Features</I> section above. We are built for reliability and
features, and we continue to improve performance in every
- release. There is an interesting Web page comparing PostgreSQL to
- MySQL at <A href="http://openacs.org/philosophy/why-not-mysql.html">
- http://openacs.org/philosophy/why-not-mysql.html</A> Also, MySQL is
- is a company that distributes its products via open source, and requires
- a commercial license for close-source software, not an
- open source development community like PostgreSQL.<BR>
-
+ release. <BR>
<BR>
</DD>
"contributions" item is solely to support the PostgreSQL project
and does not fund any specific company. If you prefer, you can also
send a check to the contact address.</P>
- <HR>
- <P>Also, if you have a success story about PostgreSQL, please submit
- it to our advocacy site at <a href="http://advocacy.postgresql.org">
- http://advocacy.postgresql.org</a>.</P>
+ <P>Also, if you have a success story about PostgreSQL, please email
+ it to our advocacy list at <a href="mailto:pgsql-advocacy@postgresql.org">
+ pgsql-advocacy@postgresql.org</a>.</P>
+ <HR>
<H2 align="center">User Client Questions</H2>
<P>Yes, there are several graphical interfaces to PostgreSQL available.
These include PgAccess <a href="http://www.pgaccess.org">
- http://www.pgaccess.org</a>),
PgAdmin III (<a
+ http://www.pgaccess.org</a>),
pgAdmin III (<a
href="http://www.pgadmin.org">http://www.pgadmin.org</a>, RHDB Admin (<a
href="http://sources.redhat.com/rhdb/">http://sources.redhat.com/rhdb/
</a>), TORA (<a href="http://www.globecom.net/tora/">http://www.globecom.net/tora/
kernel's limit on shared memory space. Each buffer is 8K and the
default is 1000 buffers.</P>
- <P>You can also use the <I>sort_mem</I> and <I>work_mem</I> options
- to increase the maximum amount of memory used by the backend processes
- for each temporary sort. The default is 1024 (i.e. 1MB).</P>
+ <P>You can also use the <I>sort_mem</I> (from PostgreSQL 8.0: <I>work_mem</I>)
+ options to increase the maximum amount of memory used by the backend
+ processes for each temporary sort. The default is 1024 (i.e. 1MB).</P>
<P>You can also use the <SMALL>CLUSTER</SMALL> command to group
data in tables to match an index. See the <SMALL>CLUSTER</SMALL>
execute("INSERT INTO person (name) VALUES ('Blaise Pascal')");
new_id = execute("SELECT currval('person_id_seq')");
</PRE>
-
- Finally, you could use the <A href="#4.16"><SMALL>OID</SMALL></A>
+
+
<P>Finally, you could use the <A href="#4.16"><SMALL>OID</SMALL></A>
returned from the <SMALL>INSERT</SMALL> statement to look up the
default value, though this is probably the least portable approach,
and the oid value will wrap around when it reaches 4 billion.
- In Perl, using DBI with Edmund Mergl's DBD::Pg module, the oid
- value is made available via <I>$sth->{pg_oid_status}</I> after
- <I>$sth->execute()</I>.
+ In Perl, using DBI with the DBD::Pg module, the oid value is made
+ available via <I>$sth->{pg_oid_status}</I> after
+ <I>$sth->execute()</I>.</P>
<H4><A name="4.15.3">4.15.3</A>) Doesn't <I>currval()</I>
lead to a race condition with other users?</H4>
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