postgresql/doc/FAQ

                Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for PostgreSQL
                                       
   Last updated: Tue Sep 28 01:06:15 EDT 1999
   
   Current maintainer: Bruce Momjian (maillist@candle.pha.pa.us)
   
   The most recent version of this document can be viewed at the
   postgreSQL Web site, http://www.PostgreSQL.org.
   
   Linux-specific questions are answered in
   http://www.PostgreSQL.org/docs/faq-linux.html.
   
   Irix-specific questions are answered in
   http://www.PostgreSQL.org/docs/faq-irix.html.
   
   HPUX-specific questions are answered in
   http://www.PostgreSQL.org/docs/faq-hpux.shtml.
     _________________________________________________________________
   
                             General Questions
                                      
   1.1) What is PostgreSQL?
   1.2) What's the copyright on PostgreSQL?
   1.3) What Unix platforms does PostgreSQL run on?
   1.4) What non-unix ports are available?
   1.5) Where can I get PostgreSQL?
   1.6) Where can I get support for PostgreSQL?
   1.7) What is the latest release of PostgreSQL?
   1.8) What documentation is available for PostgreSQL?
   1.9) How do I find out about known bugs or missing features?
   1.10) How can I learn SQL?
   1.11) Is PostgreSQL Y2K compliant?
   1.12) How do I join the development team?
   1.13) How do I submit a bug report?
   1.14) How does PostgreSQL compare to other DBMS's?
   
                           User Client Questions
                                      
   2.1) Are there ODBC drivers for PostgreSQL?
   2.2) What tools are available for hooking PostgreSQL to Web pages?
   2.3) Does PostgreSQL have a graphical user interface? A report
   generator? An embedded query language interface?
   2.4) What languages are available to communicate with PostgreSQL?
   
                          Administrative Questions
                                      
   3.1) Why does initdb fail?
   3.2) How do I install PostgreSQL somewhere other than
   /usr/local/pgsql?
   3.3) When I start the postmaster, I get a Bad System Call or core
   dumped message. Why?
   3.4) When I try to start the postmaster, I get IpcMemoryCreate
   errors3. Why?
   3.5) When I try to start the postmaster, I get IpcSemaphoreCreate
   errors. Why?
   3.6) How do I prevent other hosts from accessing my PostgreSQL
   database?
   3.7) Why can't I connect to my database from another machine?
   3.8) Why can't I access the database as the root user?
   3.9) All my servers crash under concurrent table access. Why?
   3.10) How do I tune the database engine for better performance?
   3.11) What debugging features are available in PostgreSQL?
   3.12) I get 'Sorry, too many clients' when trying to connect. Why?
   3.13) What are the pg_psort.XXX files in my database directory?
   3.14) How do I set up a pg_group?
   
                           Operational Questions
                                      
   4.1) The system seems to be confused about commas, decimal points, and
   date formats.
   4.2) What is the exact difference between binary cursors and normal
   cursors?
   4.3) How do I select only the first few rows of a query?
   4.4) How do I get a list of tables, or other things I can see in psql?
   4.5) How do you remove a column from a table?
   4.6) What is the maximum size for a row, table, database?
   4.7) How much database disk space is required to store data from a
   typical flat file?
   4.8) How do I find out what indices or operations are defined in the
   database?
   4.9) My queries are slow or don't make use of the indexes. Why?
   4.10) How do I see how the query optimizer is evaluating my query?
   4.11) What is an R-tree index?
   4.12) What is Genetic Query Optimization?
   4.13) How do I do regular expression searches and case-insensitive
   regexp searching?
   4.14) In a query, how do I detect if a field is NULL?
   4.15) What is the difference between the various character types?
   4.16) How do I create a serial/auto-incrementing field?
   4.17) What is an oid? What is a tid?
   4.18) What is the meaning of some of the terms used in PostgreSQL?
   4.19) Why do I get the error "FATAL: palloc failure: memory
   exhausted?"
   4.20) How do I tell what PostgreSQL version I am running?
   4.21) My large-object operations get invalid large obj descriptor.
   Why?
   4.22) How do I create a column that will default to the current time?
   
                            Extending PostgreSQL
                                      
   5.1) I wrote a user-defined function. When I run it in psql, why does
   it dumps core?
   5.2) What does the message: NOTICE:PortalHeapMemoryFree: 0x402251d0
   not in alloc set! mean?
   5.3) How can I contribute some nifty new types and functions for
   PostgreSQL?
   5.4) How do I write a C function to return a tuple?
   5.5) I have changed a source file. Why does the recompile does not see
   the change?
     _________________________________________________________________
   
                             General Questions
                                      
    1.1) What is PostgreSQL?
    
   PostgreSQL is an enhancement of the POSTGRES database management
   system, a next-generation DBMS research prototype. While PostgreSQL
   retains the powerful data model and rich data types of POSTGRES, it
   replaces the PostQuel query language with an extended subset of SQL.
   PostgreSQL is free and the complete source is available.
   
   PostgreSQL development is being performed by a team of Internet
   developers who all subscribe to the PostgreSQL development mailing
   list. The current coordinator is Marc G. Fournier
   (scrappy@postgreSQL.org). (See below on how to join). This team is now
   responsible for all current and future development of PostgreSQL.
   
   The authors of PostgreSQL 1.01 were Andrew Yu and Jolly Chen. Many
   others have contributed to the porting, testing, debugging and
   enhancement of the code. The original Postgres code, from which
   PostgreSQL is derived, was the effort of many graduate students,
   undergraduate students, and staff programmers working under the
   direction of Professor Michael Stonebraker at the University of
   California, Berkeley.
   
   The original name of the software at Berkeley was Postgres. When SQL
   functionality was added in 1995, its name was changed to Postgres95.
   The name was changed at the end of 1996 to PostgreSQL.
   
    1.2) What's the copyright on PostgreSQL?
    
   PostgreSQL is subject to the following COPYRIGHT.
   
   PostgreSQL Data Base Management System
   
   Copyright (c) 1994-6 Regents of the University of California
   
   Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its
   documentation for any purpose, without fee, and without a written
   agreement is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice
   and this paragraph and the following two paragraphs appear in all
   copies.
   
   IN NO EVENT SHALL THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BE LIABLE TO ANY PARTY
   FOR DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES,
   INCLUDING LOST PROFITS, ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE AND
   ITS DOCUMENTATION, EVEN IF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA HAS BEEN
   ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
   
   THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTIES,
   INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
   MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE SOFTWARE
   PROVIDED HEREUNDER IS ON AN "AS IS" BASIS, AND THE UNIVERSITY OF
   CALIFORNIA HAS NO OBLIGATIONS TO PROVIDE MAINTENANCE, SUPPORT,
   UPDATES, ENHANCEMENTS, OR MODIFICATIONS.
   
    1.3) What Unix platforms does PostgreSQL run on?
    
   The authors have compiled and tested PostgreSQL on the following
   platforms (some of these compiles require gcc):
     * aix - IBM on AIX 3.2.5 or 4.x
     * alpha - DEC Alpha AXP on Digital Unix 2.0, 3.2, 4.0
     * BSD44_derived - OSs derived from 4.4-lite BSD (NetBSD, FreeBSD)
     * bsdi - BSD/OS 2.x, 3.x, 4.x
     * dgux - DG/UX 5.4R4.11
     * hpux - HP PA-RISC on HP-UX 9.*, 10.*
     * i386_solaris - i386 Solaris
     * irix5 - SGI MIPS on IRIX 5.3
     * linux - Intel i86 Alpha SPARC PPC M68k
     * sco - SCO 3.2v5 Unixware
     * sparc_solaris - SUN SPARC on Solaris 2.4, 2.5, 2.5.1
     * sunos4 - SUN SPARC on SunOS 4.1.3
     * svr4 - Intel x86 on Intel SVR4 and MIPS
     * ultrix4 - DEC MIPS on Ultrix 4.4
       
    1.4) What non-unix ports are available?
    
   It is possible to compile the libpq C library, psql, and other
   interfaces and binaries to run on MS Windows platforms. In this case,
   the client is running on MS Windows, and communicates via TCP/IP to a
   server running on one of our supported Unix platforms.
   
   A file win31.mak is included in the distribution for making a Win32
   libpq library and psql.
   
   The database server is now working on Windows NT using the Cygnus
   Unix/NT porting library. See pgsql/doc/README.NT in the distribution.
   
   There is also a web page at
   http://members.tripod.com/~kevlo/postgres/portNT.html. There is
   another port using U/Win at http://surya.wipro.com/uwin/ported.html.
   
    1.5) Where can I get PostgreSQL?
    
   The primary anonymous ftp site for PostgreSQL is
   ftp://ftp.postgreSQL.org/pub
   
   For mirror sites, see our main web site.
   
    1.6) Where can I get support for PostgreSQL?
    
   There is no official support for PostgreSQL from the University of
   California, Berkeley. It is maintained through volunteer effort.
   
   The main mailing list is: pgsql-general@postgreSQL.org. It is
   available for discussion of matters pertaining to PostgreSQL. To
   subscribe, send a mail with the lines in the body (not the subject
   line)
        subscribe
        end

   to pgsql-general-request@postgreSQL.org.
   
   There is also a digest list available. To subscribe to this list, send
   email to: pgsql-general-digest-request@postgreSQL.org with a BODY of:
        subscribe
        end

   Digests are sent out to members of this list whenever the main list
   has received around 30k of messages.
   
   The bugs mailing list is available. To subscribe to this list, send
   email to bugs-request@postgreSQL.org with a BODY of:
   
        subscribe
        end

   There is also a developers discussion mailing list available. To
   subscribe to this list, send email to hackers-request@postgreSQL.org
   with a BODY of:
   
        subscribe
        end

   Additional mailing lists and information about PostgreSQL can be found
   via the PostgreSQL WWW home page at:
   
     http://postgreSQL.org
     
   There is also an IRC channel on EFNet, channel #PostgreSQL. I use the
   unix command irc -c '#PostgreSQL' "$USER" irc.phoenix.net
   
   Commercial support for PostgreSQL is available at
   http://www.pgsql.com/
   
    1.7) What is the latest release of PostgreSQL?
    
   The latest release of PostgreSQL is version 6.5.2.
   
   We plan to have major releases every four months.
   
    1.8) What documentation is available for PostgreSQL?
    
   Several manuals, manual pages, and some small test examples are
   included in the distribution. See the /doc directory.
   
   psql has some nice \d commands to show information about types,
   operators, functions, aggregates, etc.
   
   The web site contains even more documentation.
   
    1.9) How do I find out about known bugs or missing features?
    
   PostgreSQL supports an extended subset of SQL-92. See our TODO for a
   list of known bugs, missing features, and future plans.
   
    1.10) How can I learn SQL?
    
   There is a nice tutorial at http://w3.one.net/~jhoffman/sqltut.htm and
   at
   http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Graeme_Birchall/DB2_COOK.HTM.
   
   Many of our users like The Practical SQL Handbook, Bowman et al.,
   Addison Wesley.
   
    1.11) Is PostgreSQL Y2K compliant?
    
   Yes, we easily handle dates past the year 2000AD, and before 2000BC.
   
    1.12) How do I join the development team?
    
   First, download the latest sources and read the PostgreSQL Developers
   documentation on our web site, or in the distribution. Second,
   subscribe to the pgsql-hackers and pgsql-patches mailing lists. Third,
   submit high-quality patches to pgsql-patches.
   
   There are about a dozen people who have commit privileges to the
   PostgreSQL CVS archive. All of them have submitted so many
   high-quality patches that it was a pain for the existing committers to
   keep up, and we had confidence that patches they committed were likely
   to be of high quality.
   
    1.13) How do I submit a bug report?
    
   Fill out the "bug-template" file and send it to: bugs@postgreSQL.org
   
   Also check out our ftp site ftp://ftp.postgreSQL.org/pub to see if
   there is a more recent PostgreSQL version or patches.
   
    1.14) How does PostgreSQL compare to other DBMS's?
    
   There are several ways of measuring software: features, performance,
   reliability, support, and price.
   
   Features
          PostgreSQL has most features present in large commercial
          DBMS's, like transactions, subselects, triggers, views, and
          sophisticated locking. We have some features they don't have,
          like user-defined types, inheritance, rules, and multi-version
          concurrency control to reduce lock contention. We don't have
          foreign key referential integrity or outer joins, but are
          working on them for our next release.
          
   Performance
          PostgreSQL runs in two modes. Normal fsync mode flushes every
          completed transaction to disk, guaranteeing that if the OS
          crashes or loses power in the next few seconds, all your data
          is safely stored on disk. In this mode, we are slower than most
          commercial databases, partly because few of them do such
          conservative flushing to disk in their default modes. In
          no-fsync mode, we are usually faster than commercial databases,
          though in this mode, an OS crash could cause data corruption.
          We are working to provide an intermediate mode that suffers
          less performance overhead than full fsync mode, and will allow
          data integrity within 30 seconds of an OS crash. The mode is
          select-able by the database administrator.
          In comparison to MySQL or leaner database systems, we are
          slower on inserts/updates because we have transaction overhead.
          Of course, MySQL doesn't have any of the features mentioned in
          the Features section above. We are built for flexibility and
          features, though we continue to improve performance through
          profiling and source code analysis.
          We handle each user connection by creating a Unix process.
          Backend processes share data buffers and locking information.
          With multiple CPU's, multiple backends can easily run on
          different CPU's.
          
   Reliability
          We realize that a DBMS must be reliable, or it is worthless. We
          strive to release well-tested, stable code that has a minimum
          of bugs. Each release has at least one month of beta testing,
          and our release history shows that we can provide stable, solid
          releases that are ready for production use. We believe we
          compare favorably to other database software in this area.
          
   Support
          Our mailing list provides a large group of developers and users
          to help resolve any problems encountered. While we can not
          guarantee a fix, commercial DBMS's don't always supply a fix
          either. Direct access to developers, the user community,
          manuals, and the source code often make PostgreSQL support
          superior to other DBMS's. There is commercial per-incident
          support available for those who need it. (See support FAQ
          item.)
          
   Price
          We are free for all use, both commercial and non-commercial.
          You can add our code to your product with no limitations,
          except those outlined in our BSD-style license stated above.
     _________________________________________________________________
   
                           User Client Questions
                                      
    2.1) Are there ODBC drivers for PostgreSQL?
    
   There are two ODBC drivers available, PostODBC and OpenLink ODBC.
   
   PostODBC is included in the distribution. More information about it
   can be gotten from: http://www.insightdist.com/psqlodbc
   
   OpenLink ODBC can be gotten from http://www.openlinksw.com. It works
   with their standard ODBC client software so you'll have PostgreSQL
   ODBC available on every client platform they support (Win, Mac, Unix,
   VMS).
   
   They will probably be selling this product to people who need
   commercial-quality support, but a freeware version will always be
   available. Questions to postgres95@openlink.co.uk.
   
    2.2) What tools are available for hooking PostgreSQL to Web pages?
    
   A nice introduction to Database-backed Web pages can be seen at:
   http://www.webtools.com
   
   There is also one at http://www.phone.net/home/mwm/hotlist/.
   
   For web integration, PHP is an excellent interface. It is at:
   http://www.php.net
   
   PHP is great for simple stuff, but for more complex cases, many use
   the perl interface and CGI.pm.
   
   A WWW gateway based on WDB using perl can be downloaded from
   http://www.eol.ists.ca/~dunlop/wdb-p95
   
    2.3) Does PostgreSQL have a graphical user interface? A report generator?
    An embedded query language interface?
    
   We have a nice graphical user interface called pgaccess, which is
   shipped as part of the distribution. Pgaccess also has a report
   generator. The web page is http://www.flex.ro/pgaccess
   
   We also include ecpg, which is an embedded SQL query language
   interface for C.
   
    2.4) What languages are available to communicate with PostgreSQL?
    
   We have:
     * C(libpq)
     * C++(libpq++)
     * Embedded C(ecpg)
     * Java(jdbc)
     * Perl(perl5)
     * ODBC(odbc)
     * Python(PyGreSQL)
     * TCL(libpgtcl)
     * A crude C/4GL(contrib/pginterface)
     * Embedded HTML(PHP from http://www.php.net)
     _________________________________________________________________
   
                          Administrative Questions
                                      
    3.1) Why does initdb fail?
    
     * check that you don't have any of the previous version's binaries
       in your path (If you see the message WARN:heap_modifytuple: repl
       is \ 9, this is the problem.)
     * check to see that you have the proper paths set
     * check that the postgres user owns the proper files
       
    3.2) How do I install PostgreSQL somewhere other than /usr/local/pgsql?
    
   The simplest way is to specify the --prefix option when running
   configure. If you forgot to do that, you can edit Makefile.global and
   change POSTGRESDIR accordingly, or create a Makefile.custom and define
   POSTGRESDIR there.
   
    3.3) When I start the postmaster, I get a Bad System Call or core dumped
    message. Why?
    
   It could be a variety of problems, but first check to see that you
   have system V extensions installed on your kernel. PostgreSQL requires
   kernel support for shared memory and semaphores.
   
    3.4) When I try to start the postmaster, I get IpcMemoryCreate errors. Why?
    
   You either do not have shared memory configured properly in kernel or
   you need to enlarge the shared memory available in the kernel. The
   exact amount you need depends on your architecture and how many
   buffers and backend processes you configure postmaster to run with.
   For most systems, with default numbers of buffers and processes, you
   need a minimum of ~1MB.
   
    3.5) When I try to start the postmaster, I get IpcSemaphoreCreate errors.
    Why?
    
   If the error message is IpcSemaphoreCreate: semget failed (No space
   left on device) then your kernel is not configured with enough
   semaphores. Postgres needs one semaphore per potential backend
   process. A temporary solution is to start the postmaster with a
   smaller limit on the number of backend processes. Use -N with a
   parameter less than the default of 32. A more permanent solution is to
   increase your kernel's SEMMNS and SEMMNI parameters.
   
   If the error message is something else, you might not have semaphore
   support configured in your kernel at all.
   
    3.6) How do I prevent other hosts from accessing my PostgreSQL database?
    
   By default, PostgreSQL only allows connections from the local machine
   using unix domain sockets. Other machines will not be able to connect
   unless you add the -i flag to the postmaster, and enable host-based
   authentication by modifying the file $PGDATA/pg_hba.conf accordingly.
   This will allow TCP/IP connections.
   
    3.7) Why can't I connect to my database from another machine?
    
   The default configuration allows only unix domain socket connections
   from the local machine. To enable TCP/IP connections, make sure the
   postmaster has been started with the -i option, and add an appropriate
   host entry to the file pgsql/data/pg_hba.conf. See the pg_hba.conf
   manual page.
   
    3.8) Why can't I access the database as the root user?
    
   You should not create database users with user id 0 (root). They will
   be unable to access the database. This is a security precaution
   because of the ability of any user to dynamically link object modules
   into the database engine.
   
    3.9) All my servers crash under concurrent table access. Why?
    
   This problem can be caused by a kernel that is not configured to
   support semaphores.
   
    3.10) How do I tune the database engine for better performance?
    
   Certainly, indices can speed up queries. The explain command allows
   you to see how PostgreSQL is interpreting your query, and which
   indices are being used.
   
   If you are doing a lot of inserts, consider doing them in a large
   batch using the copy command. This is much faster than single
   individual inserts. Second, statements not in a begin work/commit
   transaction block are considered to be in their own transaction.
   Consider performing several statements in a single transaction block.
   This reduces the transaction overhead. Also consider dropping and
   recreating indices when making large data changes.
   
   There are several tuning things that can be done. You can disable
   fsync() by starting the postmaster with a -o -F option. This will
   prevent fsync()'s from flushing to disk after every transaction.
   
   You can also use the postmaster -B option to increase the number of
   shared memory buffers used by the backend processes. If you make this
   parameter too high, the postmaster may not start up because you've
   exceeded your kernel's limit on shared memory space. Each buffer is 8K
   and the default is 64 buffers.
   
   You can also use the backend -S option to increase the maximum amount
   of memory used by each backend process for temporary sorts. The -S
   value is measured in kilobytes, and the default is 512 (ie, 512K). It
   is unwise to make this value too large, or you may run out of memory
   when a query invokes several concurrent sorts.
   
   You can also use the cluster command to group data in base tables to
   match an index. See the cluster(l) manual page for more details.
   
    3.11) What debugging features are available in PostgreSQL?
    
   PostgreSQL has several features that report status information that
   can be valuable for debugging purposes.
   
   First, by running configure with the --enable-cassert option, many
   assert()'s monitor the progress of the backend and halt the program
   when something unexpected occurs.
   
   Both postmaster and postgres have several debug options available.
   First, whenever you start the postmaster, make sure you send the
   standard output and error to a log file, like:
        cd /usr/local/pgsql
        ./bin/postmaster >server.log 2>&1 &

   This will put a server.log file in the top-level PostgreSQL directory.
   This file contains useful information about problems or errors
   encountered by the server. Postmaster has a -d option that allows even
   more detailed information to be reported. The -d option takes a number
   that specifies the debug level. Be warned that high debug level values
   generate large log files.
   
   You can actually run the postgres backend from the command line, and
   type your SQL statement directly. This is recommended only for
   debugging purposes. Note that a newline terminates the query, not a
   semicolon. If you have compiled with debugging symbols, you can use a
   debugger to see what is happening. Because the backend was not started
   from the postmaster, it is not running in an identical environment and
   locking/backend interaction problems may not be duplicated. Some
   operating system can attach to a running backend directly to diagnose
   problems.
   
   The postgres program has -s, -A, and -t options that can be very
   useful for debugging and performance measurements.
   
   You can also compile with profiling to see what functions are taking
   execution time. The backend profile files will be deposited in the
   pgsql/data/base/dbname directory. The client profile file will be put
   in the current directory.
   
    3.12) I get 'Sorry, too many clients' when trying to connect. Why?
    
   You need to increase the postmaster's limit on how many concurrent
   backend processes it can start.
   
   In Postgres 6.5.*, the default limit is 32 processes. You can increase
   it by restarting the postmaster with a suitable -N value. With the
   default configuration you can set -N as large as 1024; if you need
   more, increase MAXBACKENDS in include/config.h and rebuild. You can
   set the default value of -N at configuration time, if you like, using
   configure's --with-maxbackends switch.
   
   Note that if you make -N larger than 32, you should consider
   increasing -B beyond its default of 64. For large numbers of backend
   processes, you are also likely to find that you need to increase
   various Unix kernel configuration parameters. Things to check include
   the maximum size of shared memory blocks, SHMMAX, the maximum number
   of semaphores, SEMMNS and SEMMNI, the maximum number of processes,
   NPROC, the maximum number of processes per user, MAXUPRC, and the
   maximum number of open files, NFILE and NINODE. The reason that
   Postgres has a limit on the number of allowed backend processes is so
   that you can ensure that your system won't run out of resources.
   
   In Postgres versions prior to 6.5, the maximum number of backends was
   64, and changing it required a rebuild after altering the MaxBackendId
   constant in include/storage/sinvaladt.h.
   
    3.13) What are the pg_tempNNN.NN files in my database directory?
    
   They are temporary files generated by the query executor. For example,
   if a sort needs to be done to satisfy an order by, and the sort
   requires more space than the backend's -S parameter allows, then temp
   files are created to hold the extra data.
   
   The temp files should go away automatically, but might not if a
   backend crashes during a sort. If you have no transactions running at
   the time, it is safe to delete the pg_tempNNN.NN files.
   
    3.14) How do I set up a pg_group?
    
   Currently, there is no easy interface to set up user groups. You have
   to explicitly insert/update the pg_group table. For example:
        jolly=> insert into pg_group (groname, grosysid, grolist)
        jolly=>     values ('posthackers', '1234', '{5443, 8261}');
        INSERT 548224
        jolly=> grant insert on foo to group posthackers;
        CHANGE
        jolly=>

   The fields in pg_group are:
     * groname: the group name. This a name and should be purely
       alphanumeric. Do not include underscores or other punctuation.
     * grosysid: the group id. This is an int4. This should be unique for
       each group.
     * grolist: the list of pg_user id's that belong in the group. This
       is an int4[].
     _________________________________________________________________
   
                           Operational Questions
                                      
    4.1) The system seems to be confused about commas, decimal points, and date
    formats.
    
   Check your locale configuration. PostgreSQL uses the locale settings
   of the user that ran the postmaster process. There are postgres and
   psql SET commands to control the date format. Set those accordingly
   for your operating environment.
   
    4.2) What is the exact difference between binary cursors and normal
    cursors?
    
   See the declare manual page for a description.
   
    4.3) How do I select only the first few rows of a query?
    
   See the fetch manual page, or use SELECT ... LIMIT....
   
   This only prevents all row results from being transferred to the
   client. The entire query must be evaluated, even if you only want just
   the first few rows. Consider a query that has an order by. There is no
   way to return any rows until the entire query is evaluated and sorted.
   
    4.4) How do I get a list of tables, or other information I see in psql?
    
   You can read the source code for psql, file pgsql/src/bin/psql/psql.c.
   It contains SQL commands that generate the output for psql's backslash
   commands. Beginning in Postgres 6.5, you can also start psql with the
   -E option so that it will print out the queries it uses to execute the
   commands you give.
   
    4.5) How do you remove a column from a table?
    
   We do not support alter table drop column, but do this:
        SELECT ...  -- select all columns but the one you want to remove
        INTO TABLE new_table
        FROM old_table;
        DROP TABLE old_table;
        ALTER TABLE new_table RENAME TO old_table;

    4.6) What is the maximum size for a row, table, database?
    
   Rows are limited to 8K bytes, but this can be changed by editing
   include/config.h and changing BLCKSZ. To use attributes larger than
   8K, you can also use the large object interface.
   
   Rows do not cross 8k boundaries so a 5k row will require 8k of
   storage.
   
   Table and database sizes are unlimited. There are many databases that
   are tens of gigabytes, and probably some that are hundreds.
   
    4.7)How much database disk space is required to store data from a typical
    flat file?
    
   A Postgres database can require about six and a half times the disk
   space required to store the data in a flat file.
   
   Consider a file of 300,000 lines with two integers on each line. The
   flat file is 2.4MB. The size of the PostgreSQL database file
   containing this data can be estimated at 14MB:
    36 bytes: each row header (approximate)
   + 8 bytes: two int fields @ 4 bytes each
   + 4 bytes: pointer on page to tuple
   ----------------------------------------
    48 bytes per row

   The data page size in PostgreSQL is 8192 bytes (8 KB), so:

   8192 bytes per page
   -------------------   =  171 rows per database page (rounded up)
     48 bytes per row

   300000 data rows
   --------------------  =  1755 database pages
      171 rows per page

1755 database pages * 8192 bytes per page  =  14,376,960 bytes (14MB)

   Indexes do not contain as much overhead, but do contain the data that
   is being indexed, so they can be large also.
   
    4.8) How do I find out what indices or operations are defined in the
    database?
    
   psql has a variety of backslash commands to show such information. Use
   \? to see them.
   
   Also try the file pgsql/src/tutorial/syscat.source. It illustrates
   many of the selects needed to get information from the database system
   tables.
   
    4.9) My queries are slow or don't make use of the indexes. Why?
    
   PostgreSQL does not automatically maintain statistics. One has to make
   an explicit vacuum call to update the statistics. After statistics are
   updated, the optimizer knows how many rows in the table, and can
   better decide if it should use indices. Note that the optimizer does
   not use indices in cases when the table is small because a sequential
   scan would be faster.
   
   For column-specific optimization statistics, use vacuum analyze.
   Vacuum analyze is important for complex multi-join queries, so the
   optimizer can estimate the number of rows returned from each table,
   and choose the proper join order. The backend does not keep track of
   column statistics on its own, so vacuum analyze must be run to collect
   them periodically.
   
   Indexes are not used for order by operations.
   
   When using wild-card operators such as LIKE or ~, indices can only be
   used if the beginning of the search is anchored to the start of the
   string. So, to use indices, LIKE searches can should not begin with %,
   and ~(regular expression searches) should start with ^.
   
    4.10) How do I see how the query optimizer is evaluating my query?
    
   See the explain manual page.
   
    4.11) What is an R-tree index?
    
   An r-tree index is used for indexing spatial data. A hash index can't
   handle range searches. A B-tree index only handles range searches in a
   single dimension. R-tree's can handle multi-dimensional data. For
   example, if an R-tree index can be built on an attribute of type
   point, the system can more efficient answer queries like select all
   points within a bounding rectangle.
   
   The canonical paper that describes the original R-Tree design is:
   
   Guttman, A. "R-Trees: A Dynamic Index Structure for Spatial
   Searching." Proc of the 1984 ACM SIGMOD Int'l Conf on Mgmt of Data,
   45-57.
   
   You can also find this paper in Stonebraker's "Readings in Database
   Systems"
   
   Builtin R-Trees can handle polygons and boxes. In theory, R-trees can
   be extended to handle higher number of dimensions. In practice,
   extending R-trees require a bit of work and we don't currently have
   any documentation on how to do it.
   
    4.12) What is Genetic Query Optimization?
    
   The GEQO module in PostgreSQL is intended to solve the query
   optimization problem of joining many tables by means of a Genetic
   Algorithm (GA). It allows the handling of large join queries through
   non-exhaustive search.
   
   For further information see the documentation.
   
    4.13) How do I do regular expression searches and case-insensitive regexp
    searching?
    
   ~ and ~* are probably what you want. See psql's \do command.
   
    4.14) In a query, how do I detect if a field is NULL?
    
   You test the column with IS NULL and IS NOT NULL.
   
    4.15) What is the difference between the various character types?
    
Type            Internal Name   Notes
--------------------------------------------------
CHAR            char            1 character
CHAR(#)         bpchar          blank padded to the specified fixed length
VARCHAR(#)      varchar         size specifies maximum length, no padding
TEXT            text            length limited only by maximum row length
BYTEA           bytea           variable-length array of bytes

   You need to use the internal name when doing internal operations.
   
   The last four types above are "varlena" types (i.e. the first four
   bytes are the length, followed by the data). char(#) allocates the
   maximum number of bytes no matter how much data is stored in the
   field. text, varchar(#), and bytea all have variable length on the
   disk, and because of this, there is a small performance penalty for
   using them. Specifically, the penalty is for access to all columns
   after the first column of this type.
   
    4.16) How do I create a serial/auto-incrementing field?
    
   PostgreSQL supports a serial data type. It auto-creates a sequence and
   index on the column. See the create_sequence manual page for more
   information about sequences. You can also use each row's oid field as
   a unique value. However, if you need to dump and reload the database,
   you need to use pg_dump's -o option or copy with oids option to
   preserve the oids.
   
    4.17) What is an oid? What is a tid?
    
   Oids are PostgreSQL's answer to unique row ids. Every row that is
   created in PostgreSQL gets a unique oid. All oids generated during
   initdb are less than 16384 (from backend/access/transam.h). All
   user-created oids are equal or greater that this. By default, all
   these oids are unique not only within a table, or database, but unique
   within the entire PostgreSQL installation.
   
   PostgreSQL uses oids in its internal system tables to link rows
   between tables. These oids can be used to identify specific user rows
   and used in joins. It is recommended you use column type oid to store
   oid values. See the sql(l) manual page to see the other internal
   columns. You can create an index on the oid field for faster access.
   
   Oids are assigned to all new rows from a central area that is used by
   all databases. If you want to change the oid to something else, or if
   you want to make a copy of the table, with the original oid's, there
   is no reason you can't do it:
        CREATE TABLE new_table(old_oid oid, mycol int);
        SELECT INTO new SELECT old_oid, mycol FROM old;
        COPY new TO '/tmp/pgtable';
        DELETE FROM new;
        COPY new WITH OIDS FROM '/tmp/pgtable';

   Tids are used to identify specific physical rows with block and offset
   values. Tids change after rows are modified or reloaded. They are used
   by index entries to point to physical rows.
   
    4.18) What is the meaning of some of the terms used in PostgreSQL?
    
   Some of the source code and older documentation use terms that have
   more common usage. Here are some:
     * row, record, tuple
     * attribute, field, column
     * table, class
     * retrieve, select
     * replace, update
     * append, insert
     * oid, serial value
     * portal, cursor
     * range variable, table name, table alias
       
    4.19) Why do I get the error "FATAL: palloc failure: memory exhausted?"
    
   It is possible you have run out of virtual memory on your system, or
   your kernel has a low limit for certain resources. Try this before
   starting the postmaster:
        ulimit -d 65536
        limit datasize 64m

   Depending on your shell, only one of these may succeed, but it will
   set your process data segment limit much higher and perhaps allow the
   query to complete. This command applies to the current process, and
   all subprocesses created after the command is run. If you are having a
   problem with the SQL client because the backend is returning too much
   data, try it before starting the client.
   
    4.20) How do I tell what PostgreSQL version I am running?
    
   From psql, type select version();
   
    4.21) My large-object operations get invalid large obj descriptor. Why?
    
   You need to put BEGIN WORK and COMMIT around any use of a large object
   handle, that is, surrounding lo_open ... lo_close.
   
   The documentation has always stated that lo_open must be wrapped in a
   transaction, but PostgreSQL versions prior to 6.5 didn't enforce that
   rule. Instead, they'd just fail occasionally if you broke it.
   
   Current PostgreSQL enforces the rule by closing large object handles
   at transaction commit, which will be instantly upon completion of the
   lo_open command if you are not inside a transaction. So the first
   attempt to do anything with the handle will draw invalid large obj
   descriptor. So code that used to work (at least most of the time) will
   now generate that error message if you fail to use a transaction.
   
   If you are using a client interface like ODBC you may need to set
   auto-commit off.
   
    4.22) How do I create a column that will default to the current time?
    
   The tempation is to do:
        create table test (x int, modtime timestamp default 'now');

   but this makes the column default to the time of table creation, not
   the time of row insertion. Instead do:
        create table test (x int, modtime timestamp default text 'now');

   The casting of the value to text prevents the default value from being
   computed at table creation time, and delays it until insertion time.
     _________________________________________________________________
   
                            Extending PostgreSQL
                                      
    5.1) I wrote a user-defined function. When I run it in psql, why does it
    dump core?
    
   The problem could be a number of things. Try testing your user-defined
   function in a stand alone test program first. Also, make sure you are
   not sending elog NOTICES when the front-end is expecting data, such as
   during a type_in() or type_out() functions
   
    5.2) What does the message: NOTICE:PortalHeapMemoryFree: 0x402251d0 not in
    alloc set! mean?
    
   You are pfree'ing something that was not palloc'ed. Beware of mixing
   malloc/free and palloc/pfree.
   
    5.3) How can I contribute some nifty new types and functions for
    PostgreSQL?
    
   Send your extensions to the pgsql-hackers mailing list, and they will
   eventually end up in the contrib/ subdirectory.
   
    5.4) How do I write a C function to return a tuple?
    
   This requires wizardry so extreme that the authors have never tried
   it, though in principle it can be done.
   
    5.5) I have changed a source file. Why does the recompile does not see the
    change?
    
   The Makefiles do not have the proper dependencies for include files.
   You have to do a make clean and then another make.