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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<META name="generator" content="HTML Tidy, see www.w3.org">
<TITLE>PostgreSQL FAQ</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000" link="#FF0000" vlink="#A00000"
alink="#0000FF">
<H1>Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for PostgreSQL</H1>
<P>Last updated: Tue Oct 17 00:21:20 EDT 2000</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/faq-english.html">http://www.PostgreSQL.org/docs/faq-english.html</A>.</P>
<P>Platform-specific questions are answered at <A href=
"http://www.PostgreSQL.org/docs/">http://www.PostgreSQL.org/docs/</A>.</P>
<HR>
<CENTER>
<H2>General Questions</H2>
</CENTER>
<A href="#1.1">1.1</A>) What is PostgreSQL?<BR>
<A href="#1.2">1.2</A>) What's the copyright on PostgreSQL?<BR>
<A href="#1.3">1.3</A>) What Unix platforms does PostgreSQL run
on?<BR>
<A href="#1.4">1.4</A>) What non-unix ports are available?<BR>
<A href="#1.5">1.5</A>) Where can I get PostgreSQL?<BR>
<A href="#1.6">1.6</A>) Where can I get support?<BR>
<A href="#1.7">1.7</A>) What is the latest release?<BR>
<A href="#1.8">1.8</A>) What documentation is available?<BR>
<A href="#1.9">1.9</A>) How do I find out about known bugs or
missing features?<BR>
<A href="#1.10">1.10</A>) How can I learn SQL?<BR>
<A href="#1.11">1.11</A>) Is PostgreSQL Y2K compliant?<BR>
<A href="#1.12">1.12</A>) How do I join the development team?<BR>
<A href="#1.13">1.13</A>) How do I submit a bug report?<BR>
<A href="#1.14">1.14</A>) How does PostgreSQL compare to other
DBMS's?<BR>
<CENTER>
<H2>User Client Questions</H2>
</CENTER>
<A href="#2.1">2.1</A>) Are there ODBC drivers for PostgreSQL?<BR>
<A href="#2.2">2.2</A>) What tools are available for hooking
PostgreSQL to Web pages?<BR>
<A href="#2.3">2.3</A>) Does PostgreSQL have a graphical user
interface? A report generator? An embedded query language
interface?<BR>
<A href="#2.4">2.4</A>) What languages are available to
communicate with PostgreSQL?<BR>
<CENTER>
<H2>Administrative Questions</H2>
</CENTER>
<A href="#3.1">3.1</A>) Why does <I>initdb</I> fail?<BR>
<A href="#3.2">3.2</A>) How do I install PostgreSQL somewhere
other than <I>/usr/local/pgsql?</I><BR>
<A href="#3.3">3.3</A>) When I start the <I>postmaster</I>, I get
a <I>Bad System Call</I> or core dumped message. Why?<BR>
<A href="#3.4">3.4</A>) When I try to start the <I>postmaster</I>,
I get <I>IpcMemoryCreate</I> errors. Why?<BR>
<A href="#3.5">3.5</A>) When I try to start the <I>postmaster</I>,
I get <I>IpcSemaphoreCreate</I> errors. Why?<BR>
<A href="#3.6">3.6</A>) How do I prevent other hosts from
accessing my PostgreSQL database?<BR>
<A href="#3.7">3.7</A>) Why can't I connect to my database from
another machine?<BR>
<A href="#3.8">3.8</A>) Why can't I access the database as the
<I>root</I> user?<BR>
<A href="#3.9">3.9</A>) All my servers crash under concurrent
table access. Why?<BR>
<A href="#3.10">3.10</A>) How do I tune the database engine for
better performance?<BR>
<A href="#3.11">3.11</A>) What debugging features are
available?<BR>
<A href="#3.12">3.12</A>) I get <I>"Sorry, too many clients"</I>
when trying to connect. Why?<BR>
<A href="#3.13">3.13</A>) What are the <I>pg_sorttempNNN.NN</I>
files in my database directory?<BR>
<CENTER>
<H2>Operational Questions</H2>
</CENTER>
<A href="#4.1">4.1</A>) Why is the system confused about commas,
decimal points, and date formats.<BR>
<A href="#4.2">4.2</A>) What is the exact difference between
binary cursors and normal cursors?<BR>
<A href="#4.3">4.3</A>) How do I <SMALL>SELECT</SMALL> only the
first few rows of a query?<BR>
<A href="#4.4">4.4</A>) How do I get a list of tables or other
things I can see in <I>psql?</I><BR>
<A href="#4.5">4.5</A>) How do you remove a column from a
table?<BR>
<A href="#4.6">4.6</A>) What is the maximum size for a row, table,
database?<BR>
<A href="#4.7">4.7</A>) How much database disk space is required
to store data from a typical text file?<BR>
<A href="#4.8">4.8</A>) How do I find out what indices or
operations are defined in the database?<BR>
<A href="#4.9">4.9</A>) My queries are slow or don't make use of
the indexes. Why?<BR>
<A href="#4.10">4.10</A>) How do I see how the query optimizer is
evaluating my query?<BR>
<A href="#4.11">4.11</A>) What is an R-tree index?<BR>
<A href="#4.12">4.12</A>) What is Genetic Query Optimization?<BR>
<A href="#4.13">4.13</A>) How do I do regular expression searches
and case-insensitive regular expression searches?<BR>
<A href="#4.14">4.14</A>) In a query, how do I detect if a field
is NULL?<BR>
<A href="#4.15">4.15</A>) What is the difference between the
various character types?<BR>
<A href="#4.16.1">4.16.1</A>) How do I create a
serial/auto-incrementing field?<BR>
<A href="#4.16.2">4.16.2</A>) How do I get the value of a
<SMALL>SERIAL</SMALL> insert?<BR>
<A href="#4.16.3">4.16.3</A>) Don't <I>currval()</I> and
<I>nextval()</I> lead to a race condition with other users?<BR>
<A href="#4.17">4.17</A>) What is an <SMALL>OID</SMALL>? What is a
<SMALL>TID</SMALL>?<BR>
<A href="#4.18">4.18</A>) What is the meaning of some of the terms
used in PostgreSQL?<BR>
<A href="#4.19">4.19</A>) Why do I get the error <I>"FATAL: palloc
failure: memory exhausted?"</I><BR>
<A href="#4.20">4.20</A>) How do I tell what PostgreSQL version I
am running? <BR>
<A href="#4.21">4.21</A>) My large-object operations get
<I>invalid large obj descriptor.</I> Why?<BR>
<A href="#4.22">4.22</A>) How do I create a column that will
default to the current time?<BR>
<A href="#4.23">4.23</A>) Why are my subqueries using
<CODE><SMALL>IN</SMALL></CODE> so slow?<BR>
<A href="#4.24">4.24</A>) How do I do an <I>outer</I> join?<BR>
<CENTER>
<H2>Extending PostgreSQL</H2>
</CENTER>
<A href="#5.1">5.1</A>) I wrote a user-defined function. When I run
it in <I>psql,</I> why does it dump core?<BR>
<A href="#5.2">5.2</A>) What does the message
<I>"NOTICE:PortalHeapMemoryFree: 0x402251d0 not in alloc set!"</I>
mean?<BR>
<A href="#5.3">5.3</A>) How can I contribute some nifty new types
and functions to PostgreSQL?<BR>
<A href="#5.4">5.4</A>) How do I write a C function to return a
tuple?<BR>
<A href="#5.5">5.5</A>) I have changed a source file. Why does the
recompile not see the change?<BR>
<HR>
<CENTER>
<H2>General Questions</H2>
</CENTER>
<H4><A name="1.1">1.1</A>) What is PostgreSQL?</H4>
<P>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.</P>
<P>PostgreSQL development is performed by a team of Internet
developers who all subscribe to the PostgreSQL development mailing
list. The current coordinator is Marc G. Fournier (<A href=
"mailto:scrappy@PostgreSQL.org">scrappy@PostgreSQL.org</A>). (See
below on how to join). This team is now responsible for all
development of PostgreSQL.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>It is pronounced <I>Post-Gres-Q-L.</I></P>
<H4><A name="1.2">1.2</A>) What's the copyright on PostgreSQL?</H4>
<P>PostgreSQL is subject to the following COPYRIGHT:</P>
<P>PostgreSQL Data Base Management System</P>
<P>Portions copyright (c) 1996-2000, PostgreSQL, Inc Portions
Copyright (c) 1994-6 Regents of the University of California</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<H4><A name="1.3">1.3</A>) What Unix platforms does PostgreSQL run
on?</H4>
<P>The authors have compiled and tested PostgreSQL on the following
platforms (some of these compiles require gcc):</P>
<UL>
<LI>aix - IBM on AIX 3.2.5 or 4.x</LI>
<LI>alpha - DEC Alpha AXP on Digital Unix 2.0, 3.2, 4.0</LI>
<LI>BSD44_derived - OSs derived from 4.4-lite BSD (NetBSD,
FreeBSD)</LI>
<LI>bsdi - BSD/OS 2.x, 3.x, 4.x</LI>
<LI>dgux - DG/UX 5.4R4.11</LI>
<LI>hpux - HP PA-RISC on HP-UX 9.*, 10.*</LI>
<LI>i386_solaris - i386 Solaris</LI>
<LI>irix5 - SGI MIPS on IRIX 5.3</LI>
<LI>linux - Intel i86 Alpha SPARC PPC M68k</LI>
<LI>sco - SCO 3.2v5 Unixware</LI>
<LI>sparc_solaris - SUN SPARC on Solaris 2.4, 2.5, 2.5.1</LI>
<LI>sunos4 - SUN SPARC on SunOS 4.1.3</LI>
<LI>svr4 - Intel x86 on Intel SVR4 and MIPS</LI>
<LI>ultrix4 - DEC MIPS on Ultrix 4.4</LI>
</UL>
<H4><A name="1.4">1.4</A>) What non-unix ports are available?</H4>
<P>It is possible to compile the <I>libpq</I> 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.</P>
<P>A file <I>win31.mak</I> is included in the distribution for
making a Win32 <I>libpq</I> library and psql.</P>
<P>The database server is now working on Windows NT using Cygwin,
the Cygnus Unix/NT porting library. See <I>pgsql/doc/FAQ_NT</I> in
the distribution. It does not work on MS Windows 9X because Cygwin
does not support the features we need on those platforms.</P>
<H4><A name="1.5">1.5</A>) Where can I get PostgreSQL?</H4>
<P>The primary anonymous ftp site for PostgreSQL is <A href=
"ftp://ftp.PostgreSQL.org/pub">ftp://ftp.PostgreSQL.org/pub</A>.
For mirror sites, see our main Web site.</P>
<H4><A name="1.6">1.6</A>) Where can I get support?</H4>
<P>There is no support for PostgreSQL from the University of
California, Berkeley. It is maintained through volunteer
effort.</P>
<P>The main mailing list is: <A href=
"mailto:pgsql-general@PostgreSQL.org">pgsql-general@PostgreSQL.org</A>.
It is available for discussion of matters pertaining to PostgreSQL.
To subscribe, send mail with the following lines in the body (not
the subject line)</P>
<PRE>
subscribe
end
</PRE>
<P>to <A href=
"mailto:pgsql-general-request@PostgreSQL.org">pgsql-general-request@PostgreSQL.org</A>.</P>
<P>There is also a digest list available. To subscribe to this
list, send email to: <A href=
"mailto:pgsql-general-digest-request@PostgreSQL.org">pgsql-general-digest-request@PostgreSQL.org</A>
with a body of:</P>
<PRE>
subscribe
end
</PRE>
Digests are sent out to members of this list whenever the main list
has received around 30k of messages.
<P>The bugs mailing list is available. To subscribe to this list,
send email to <A href=
"mailto:pgsql-bugs-request@PostgreSQL.org">pgsql-bugs-request@PostgreSQL.org</A>
with a body of:</P>
<PRE>
subscribe
end
</PRE>
There is also a developers discussion mailing list available. To
subscribe to this list, send email to <A href=
"mailto:pgsql-hackers-request@PostgreSQL.org">pgsql-hackers-request@PostgreSQL.org</A>
with a body of:
<PRE>
subscribe
end
</PRE>
<P>Additional mailing lists and information about PostgreSQL can be
found via the PostgreSQL WWW home page at:</P>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<A href="http://www.PostgreSQL.org">http://www.PostgreSQL.org</A>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>There is also an IRC channel on EFNet, channel
<I>#PostgreSQL.</I> I use the unix command <CODE>irc -c
'#PostgreSQL' "$USER" irc.phoenix.net.</CODE></P>
<P>Commercial support for PostgreSQL is available at <A href=
"http://www.pgsql.com">http://www.pgsql.com/</A>.</P>
<H4><A name="1.7">1.7</A>) What is the latest release?</H4>
<P>The latest release of PostgreSQL is version 7.0.2.</P>
<P>We plan to have major releases every four months.</P>
<H4><A name="1.8">1.8</A>) What documentation is available?</H4>
<P>Several manuals, manual pages, and some small test examples are
included in the distribution. See the <I>/doc</I> directory. You
can also browse the manual online at <A href=
"http://www.PostgreSQL.org/docs/postgres">http://www.PostgreSQL.org/docs/postgres</A>.</P>
<P>There is a PostgreSQL book available at <A href=
"http://www.PostgreSQL.org/docs/awbook.html">http://www.PostgreSQL.org/docs/awbook.html</A>.</P>
<P><I>psql</I> has some nice \d commands to show information about
types, operators, functions, aggregates, etc.</P>
<P>Our Web site contains even more documentation.</P>
<H4><A name="1.9">1.9</A>) How do I find out about known bugs or
missing features?</H4>
<P>PostgreSQL supports an extended subset of SQL-92. See our <A
href="http://www.PostgreSQL.org/docs/todo.html">TODO</A> list for
known bugs, missing features, and future plans.</P>
<H4><A name="1.10">1.10</A>) How can I learn SQL?</H4>
<P>The PostgreSQL book at <A href=
"http://www.PostgreSQL.org/docs/awbook.html">http://www.PostgreSQL.org/docs/awbook.html</A>
teaches SQL. There is a nice tutorial at <A href=
"http://w3.one.net/~jhoffman/sqltut.htm">http://w3.one.net/~jhoffman/sqltut.htm</A>
and at <A href=
"http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/graeme_birchall/HTM_COOK.HTM">
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/graeme_birchall/HTM_COOK.HTM.</A></P>
<P>Another one is "Teach Yourself SQL in 21 Days, Second Edition"
at <A href=
"http://members.tripod.com/er4ebus/sql/index.htm">http://members.tripod.com/er4ebus/sql/index.htm</A></P>
<P>Many of our users like <I>The Practical SQL Handbook</I>,
Bowman, Judith S., et al., Addison-Wesley. Others like <I>The
Complete Reference SQL</I>, Groff et al., McGraw-Hill.</P>
<H4><A name="1.11">1.11</A>) Is PostgreSQL Y2K compliant?</H4>
<P>Yes, we easily handle dates past the year 2000AD, and before
2000BC.</P>
<H4><A name="1.12">1.12</A>) How do I join the development
team?</H4>
<P>First, download the latest source and read the PostgreSQL
Developers documentation on our Web site, or in the distribution.
Second, subscribe to the <I>pgsql-hackers</I> and
<I>pgsql-patches</I> mailing lists. Third, submit high-quality
patches to pgsql-patches.</P>
<P>There are about a dozen people who have commit privileges to the
PostgreSQL CVS archive. They each have submitted so many
high-quality patches that it was impossible for the existing
committers to keep up, and we had confidence that patches they
committed were of high quality.</P>
<H4><A name="1.13">1.13</A>) How do I submit a bug report?</H4>
<P>Fill out the "bug-template" file and send it to: <A href=
"mailto:pgsql-bugs@PostgreSQL.org">pgsql-bugs@PostgreSQL.org</A></P>
<P>Also check out our ftp site <A href=
"ftp://ftp.PostgreSQL.org/pub">ftp://ftp.PostgreSQL.org/pub</A> to
see if there is a more recent PostgreSQL version or patches.</P>
<H4><A name="1.14">1.14</A>) How does PostgreSQL compare to other
DBMS's?</H4>
<P>There are several ways of measuring software: features,
performance, reliability, support, and price.</P>
<DL>
<DT><B>Features</B></DT>
<DD>PostgreSQL has most features present in large commercial
DBMS's, like transactions, subselects, triggers, views, foreign
key referential integrity, 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 outer joins, but are
working on them.<BR>
<BR>
</DD>
<DT><B>Performance</B></DT>
<DD>PostgreSQL runs in two modes. Normal <I>fsync</I> 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
<I>no-fsync</I> 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.<BR>
<BR>
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
<I>Features</I> section above. We are built for flexibility and
features, though we continue to improve performance through
profiling and source code analysis. There is an interesting Web
page comparing PostgreSQL to MySQL at <A href=
"http://openacs.org/why-not-mysql.html">http://openacs.org/why-not-mysql.html</A><BR>
<BR>
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.<BR>
<BR>
</DD>
<DT><B>Reliability</B></DT>
<DD>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.<BR>
<BR>
</DD>
<DT><B>Support</B></DT>
<DD>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.)<BR>
<BR>
</DD>
<DT><B>Price</B></DT>
<DD>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.<BR>
<BR>
</DD>
</DL>
<HR>
<CENTER>
<H2>User Client Questions</H2>
</CENTER>
<H4><A name="2.1">2.1</A>) Are there ODBC drivers for
PostgreSQL?</H4>
<P>There are two ODBC drivers available, PsqlODBC and OpenLink
ODBC.</P>
<P>PsqlODBC is included in the distribution. More information about
it can be gotten from <A href=
"ftp://ftp.PostgreSQL.org/pub/odbc/">ftp://ftp.PostgreSQL.org/pub/odbc/</A>.</P>
<P>OpenLink ODBC can be gotten from <A href=
"http://www.openlinksw.com/">http://www.openlinksw.com</A>. 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).</P>
<P>They will probably be selling this product to people who need
commercial-quality support, but a freeware version will always be
available. Questions to <A href=
"mailto:postgres95@openlink.co.uk">postgres95@openlink.co.uk</A>.</P>
<P>See also the <A href=
"http://www.PostgreSQL.org/docs/programmer/odbc.htm">ODBC chapter
of the Programmer's Guide</A>.</P>
<H4><A name="2.2">2.2</A>) What tools are available for hooking
PostgreSQL to Web pages?</H4>
<P>A nice introduction to Database-backed Web pages can be seen at:
<A href="http://www.webtools.com">http://www.webtools.com</A></P>
<P>There is also one at <A href=
"http://www.phone.net/home/mwm/hotlist/">http://www.phone.net/home/mwm/hotlist/.</A></P>
<P>For Web integration, PHP is an excellent interface. It is at <A
href="http://www.php.net">http://www.php.net</A></P>
<P>For complex cases, many use the Perl interface and CGI.pm.</P>
<P>A WWW gateway based on WDB using Perl can be downloaded from <A
href=
"http://www.eol.ists.ca/~dunlop/wdb-p95">http://www.eol.ists.ca/~dunlop/wdb-p95</A></P>
<H4><A name="2.3">2.3</A>) Does PostgreSQL have a graphical user
interface? A report generator? An embedded query language
interface?</H4>
<P>We have a nice graphical user interface called <I>pgaccess,</I>
which is shipped as part of the distribution. <I>Pgaccess</I> also
has a report generator. The Web page is <A href=
"http://www.flex.ro/pgaccess">http://www.flex.ro/pgaccess</A></P>
<P>We also include <I>ecpg,</I> which is an embedded SQL query
language interface for C.</P>
<H4><A name="2.4">2.4</A>) What languages are available to
communicate with PostgreSQL?</H4>
<P>We have:</P>
<UL>
<LI>C (libpq)</LI>
<LI>C++ (libpq++)</LI>
<LI>Embedded C (ecpg)</LI>
<LI>Java (jdbc)</LI>
<LI>Perl (perl5)</LI>
<LI>ODBC (odbc)</LI>
<LI>Python (PyGreSQL)</LI>
<LI>TCL (libpgtcl)</LI>
<LI>C Easy API (libpgeasy)</LI>
<LI>Embedded HTML (<A href="http://www.php.net">PHP from
http://www.php.net</A>)</LI>
</UL>
<HR>
<CENTER>
<H2>Administrative Questions</H2>
</CENTER>
<H4><A name="3.1">3.1</A>) Why does <I>initdb</I> fail?</H4>
<P>Try these:</P>
<UL>
<LI>check that you don't have any of the previous version's
binaries in your path</LI>
<LI>check to see that you have the proper paths set</LI>
<LI>check that the <I>postgres</I> user owns the proper
files</LI>
</UL>
<P>If you see an error message about <I>oidvector,</I> you
definately have a version mismatch.</P>
<H4><A name="3.2">3.2</A>) How do I install PostgreSQL somewhere
other than <I>/usr/local/pgsql?</I></H4>
<P>The simplest way is to specify the --prefix option when running
<I>configure.</I> If you forgot to do that, you can edit
<I>Makefile.global</I> and change POSTGRESDIR accordingly, or
create a <I>Makefile.custom</I> and define POSTGRESDIR there.</P>
<H4><A name="3.3">3.3</A>) When I start the <I>postmaster</I>, I
get a <I>Bad System Call</I> or core dumped message. Why?</H4>
<P>It could be a variety of problems, but first check to see that
you have System V extensions installed in your kernel. PostgreSQL
requires kernel support for shared memory and semaphores.</P>
<H4><A name="3.4">3.4</A>) When I try to start the
<I>postmaster,</I> I get <I>IpcMemoryCreate</I> errors. Why?</H4>
<P>You either do not have shared memory configured properly in your
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 for the
<I>postmaster.</I> For most systems, with default numbers of
buffers and processes, you need a minimum of ~1MB.</P>
<H4><A name="3.5">3.5</A>) When I try to start the
<I>postmaster,</I> I get <I>IpcSemaphoreCreate</I> errors.
Why?</H4>
<P>If the error message is <I>IpcSemaphoreCreate: semget failed (No
space left on device)</I> then your kernel is not configured with
enough semaphores. Postgres needs one semaphore per potential
backend process. A temporary solution is to start the
<I>postmaster</I> with a smaller limit on the number of backend
processes. Use <I>-N</I> with a parameter less than the default of
32. A more permanent solution is to increase your kernel's
<SMALL>SEMMNS</SMALL> and <SMALL>SEMMNI</SMALL> parameters.</P>
<P>If the error message is something else, you might not have
semaphore support configured in your kernel at all.</P>
<H4><A name="3.6">3.6</A>) How do I prevent other hosts from
accessing my PostgreSQL database?</H4>
<P>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>-i</I> flag to the
<I>postmaster,</I> <B>and</B> enable host-based authentication by
modifying the file <I>$PGDATA/pg_hba.conf</I> accordingly. This
will allow TCP/IP connections.</P>
<H4><A name="3.7">3.7</A>) Why can't I connect to my database from
another machine?</H4>
<P>The default configuration allows only unix domain socket
connections from the local machine. To enable TCP/IP connections,
make sure the <I>postmaster</I> has been started with the <I>-i</I>
option, and add an appropriate host entry to the file
<I>pgsql/data/pg_hba.conf</I>.</P>
<H4><A name="3.8">3.8</A>) Why can't I access the database as the
<I>root</I> user?</H4>
<P>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 users to dynamically link
object modules into the database engine.</P>
<H4><A name="3.9">3.9</A>) All my servers crash under concurrent
table access. Why?</H4>
<P>This problem can be caused by a kernel that is not configured to
support semaphores.</P>
<H4><A name="3.10">3.10</A>) How do I tune the database engine for
better performance?</H4>
<P>Certainly, indices can speed up queries. The
<SMALL>EXPLAIN</SMALL> command allows you to see how PostgreSQL is
interpreting your query, and which indices are being used.</P>
<P>If you are doing a lot of <SMALL>INSERTs</SMALL>, consider doing
them in a large batch using the <SMALL>COPY</SMALL> command. This
is much faster than individual <SMALL>INSERTS.</SMALL> Second,
statements not in a <SMALL>BEGIN WORK/COMMIT</SMALL> 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.</P>
<P>There are several tuning options. You can disable <I>fsync()</I>
by starting the <I>postmaster</I> with a <I>-o -F</I> option. This
will prevent <I>fsync()'s</I> from flushing to disk after every
transaction.</P>
<P>You can also use the <I>postmaster</I> <I>-B</I> option to
increase the number of shared memory buffers used by the backend
processes. If you make this parameter too high, the
<I>postmaster</I> may not start because you've exceeded your
kernel's limit on shared memory space. Each buffer is 8K and the
default is 64 buffers.</P>
<P>You can also use the backend <I>-S</I> option to increase the
maximum amount of memory used by the backend process for temporary
sorts. The <I>-S</I> value is measured in kilobytes, and the
default is 512 (ie, 512K).</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>
manual page for more details.</P>
<H4><A name="3.11">3.11</A>) What debugging features are
available?</H4>
<P>PostgreSQL has several features that report status information
that can be valuable for debugging purposes.</P>
<P>First, by running <I>configure</I> with the --enable-cassert
option, many <I>assert()'s</I> monitor the progress of the backend
and halt the program when something unexpected occurs.</P>
<P>Both <I>postmaster</I> and <I>postgres</I> have several debug
options available. First, whenever you start the <I>postmaster,</I>
make sure you send the standard output and error to a log file,
like:</P>
<PRE>
cd /usr/local/pgsql
./bin/postmaster >server.log 2>&1 &
</PRE>
<P>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. <I>Postmaster</I> has a <I>-d</I>
option that allows even more detailed information to be reported.
The <I>-d</I> option takes a number that specifies the debug level.
Be warned that high debug level values generate large log
files.</P>
<P>If the <I>postmaster</I> is not running, you can actually run
the <I>postgres</I> backend from the command line, and type your
SQL statement directly. This is recommended <B>only</B> 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 <I>postmaster,</I> it is not running in an
identical environment and locking/backend interaction problems may
not be duplicated.</P>
<P>If the <I>postmaster</I> is running, start <I>psql</I> in one
window, then find the <SMALL>PID</SMALL> of the <I>postgres</I>
process used by <I>psql.</I> Use a debugger to attach to the
<I>postgres</I> <SMALL>PID.</SMALL> You can set breakpoints in the
debugger and issue queries from <I>psql.</I> If you are debugging
<I>postgres</I> startup, you can set PGOPTIONS="-W n", then start
<I>psql.</I> This will cause startup to delay for <I>n</I> seconds
so you can attach with the debugger and trace through the startup
sequence.</P>
<P>The <I>postgres</I> program has <I>-s, -A,</I> and <I>-t</I>
options that can be very useful for debugging and performance
measurements.</P>
<P>You can also compile with profiling to see what functions are
taking execution time. The backend profile files will be deposited
in the <I>pgsql/data/base/dbname</I> directory. The client profile
file will be put in the client's current directory.</P>
<H4><A name="3.12">3.12</A>) I get 'Sorry, too many clients' when
trying to connect. Why?</H4>
<P>You need to increase the <I>postmaster's</I> limit on how many
concurrent backend processes it can start.</P>
<P>In PostgreSQL 6.5 and up, the default limit is 32 processes. You
can increase it by restarting the <I>postmaster</I> with a suitable
<I>-N</I> value. With the default configuration you can set
<I>-N</I> as large as 1024. If you need more, increase
<SMALL>MAXBACKENDS</SMALL> in <I>include/config.h</I> and rebuild.
You can set the default value of <I>-N</I> at configuration time,
if you like, using <I>configure's</I> <I>--with-maxbackends</I>
switch.</P>
<P>Note that if you make <I>-N</I> larger than 32, you must also
increase <I>-B</I> beyond its default of 64; <I>-B</I> must be at
least twice <I>-N,</I> and probably should be more than that for
best performance. 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, <SMALL>SHMMAX;</SMALL> the maximum number
of semaphores, <SMALL>SEMMNS</SMALL> and <SMALL>SEMMNI;</SMALL> the
maximum number of processes, <SMALL>NPROC;</SMALL> the maximum
number of processes per user, <SMALL>MAXUPRC;</SMALL> and the
maximum number of open files, <SMALL>NFILE</SMALL> and
<SMALL>NINODE.</SMALL> The reason that PostgreSQL has a limit on
the number of allowed backend processes is so your system won't run
out of resources.</P>
<P>In PostgreSQL versions prior to 6.5, the maximum number of
backends was 64, and changing it required a rebuild after altering
the MaxBackendId constant in
<I>include/storage/sinvaladt.h.</I></P>
<H4><A name="3.13">3.13</A>) What are the <I>pg_sorttempNNN.NN</I>
files in my database directory?</H4>
<P>They are temporary files generated by the query executor. For
example, if a sort needs to be done to satisfy an <SMALL>ORDER
BY,</SMALL> and the sort requires more space than the backend's
<I>-S</I> parameter allows, then temporary files are created to
hold the extra data.</P>
<P>The temporary files should be deleted automatically, but might
not if a backend crashes during a sort. If you have no backends
running at the time, it is safe to delete the pg_tempNNN.NN
files.</P>
<HR>
<CENTER>
<H2>Operational Questions</H2>
</CENTER>
<H4><A name="4.1">4.1</A>) Why is system confused about commas,
decimal points, and date formats.</H4>
<P>Check your locale configuration. PostgreSQL uses the locale
setting of the user that ran the <I>postmaster</I> process. There
are postgres and psql SET commands to control the date format. Set
those accordingly for your operating environment.</P>
<H4><A name="4.2">4.2</A>) What is the exact difference between
binary cursors and normal cursors?</H4>
<P>See the <SMALL>DECLARE</SMALL> manual page for a
description.</P>
<H4><A name="4.3">4.3</A>) How do I <SMALL>SELECT</SMALL> only the
first few rows of a query?</H4>
<P>See the <SMALL>FETCH</SMALL> manual page, or use SELECT ...
LIMIT....</P>
<P>The entire query may have to be evaluated, even if you only want
the first few rows. Consider a query that has an <SMALL>ORDER
BY.</SMALL> If there is an index that matches the <SMALL>ORDER
BY</SMALL>, PostgreSQL may be able to evaluate only the first few
records requested, or the entire query may have to be evaluated
until the desired rows have been generated.</P>
<H4><A name="4.4">4.4</A>) How do I get a list of tables or other
things I can see in <I>psql?</I><BR>
</H4>
<P>You can read the source code for <I>psql</I> in file
<I>pgsql/src/bin/psql/psql.c.</I> It contains SQL commands that
generate the output for psql's backslash commands. You can also
start <I>psql</I> with the <I>-E</I> option so it will print out
the queries it uses to execute the commands you give.</P>
<H4><A name="4.5">4.5</A>) How do you remove a column from a
table?</H4>
<P>We do not support <SMALL>ALTER TABLE DROP COLUMN,</SMALL> but do
this:</P>
<PRE>
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;
</PRE>
<H4><A name="4.6">4.6</A>) What is the maximum size for a row,
table, database?</H4>
<P>These are the limits:</P>
<PRE>
Maximum size for a database? unlimited (60GB databases exist)
Maximum size for a table? unlimited on all operating systems
Maximum size for a row? 8k, configurable to 32k
Maximum number of rows in a table? unlimited
Maximum number of columns in a table? unlimited
Maximum number of indexes on a table? unlimited
</PRE>
Of course, these are not actually unlimited, but limited to
available disk space.
<P>To change the maximum row size, edit <I>include/config.h</I> and
change <SMALL>BLCKSZ.</SMALL> To use attributes larger than 8K, you
can also use the large object interface.</P>
<P>The row length limit will be removed in 7.1.</P>
<H4><A name="4.7">4.7</A>) How much database disk space is required
to store data from a typical text file?<BR>
</H4>
<P>A PostgreSQL database may need six-and-a-half times the disk
space required to store the data in a flat file.</P>
<P>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:</P>
<PRE>
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)
</PRE>
<P>Indexes do not require as much overhead, but do contain the data
that is being indexed, so they can be large also.</P>
<H4><A name="4.8">4.8</A>) How do I find out what indices or
operations are defined in the database?</H4>
<P><I>psql</I> has a variety of backslash commands to show such
information. Use \? to see them.</P>
<P>Also try the file <I>pgsql/src/tutorial/syscat.source.</I> It
illustrates many of the <SMALL>SELECT</SMALL>s needed to get
information from the database system tables.</P>
<H4><A name="4.9">4.9</A>) My queries are slow or don't make use of
the indexes. Why?</H4>
<P>PostgreSQL does not automatically maintain statistics.
V<SMALL>ACUUM</SMALL> must be run 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.</P>
<P>For column-specific optimization statistics, use <SMALL>VACUUM
ANALYZE.</SMALL> <SMALL>VACUUM ANALYZE</SMALL> is important for
complex multijoin 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
<SMALL>VACUUM ANALYZE</SMALL> must be run to collect them
periodically.</P>
<P>Indexes are usually not used for <SMALL>ORDER BY</SMALL>
operations: a sequential scan followed by an explicit sort is
faster than an indexscan of all tuples of a large table, because it
takes fewer disk accesses.</P>
<P>When using wild-card operators such as <SMALL>LIKE</SMALL> or
<I>~,</I> indices can only be used if the beginning of the search
is anchored to the start of the string. So, to use indices,
<SMALL>LIKE</SMALL> searches should not begin with <I>%,</I> and
<I>~</I>(regular expression searches) should start with
<I>^.</I></P>
<H4><A name="4.10">4.10</A>) How do I see how the query optimizer
is evaluating my query?</H4>
<P>See the <SMALL>EXPLAIN</SMALL> manual page.</P>
<H4><A name="4.11">4.11</A>) What is an R-tree index?</H4>
<P>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 <I>point,</I> the system can more
efficiently answer queries such as "select all points within a
bounding rectangle."</P>
<P>The canonical paper that describes the original R-tree design
is:</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>You can also find this paper in Stonebraker's "Readings in
Database Systems".</P>
<P>Built-in 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 requires a bit of work and we don't
currently have any documentation on how to do it.</P>
<H4><A name="4.12">4.12</A>) What is Genetic Query
Optimization?</H4>
<P>The GEQO module speeds query optimization when joining many
tables by means of a Genetic Algorithm (GA). It allows the handling
of large join queries through nonexhaustive search.</P>
<H4><A name="4.13">4.13</A>) How do I do regular expression
searches and case-insensitive regular expression searches?</H4>
<P>The <I>~</I> operator does regular expression matching, and
<I>~*</I> does case-insensitive regular expression matching. There
is no case-insensitive variant of the LIKE operator, but you can
get the effect of case-insensitive <SMALL>LIKE</SMALL> with
this:</P>
<PRE>
WHERE lower(textfield) LIKE lower(pattern)
</PRE>
<H4><A name="4.14">4.14</A>) In a query, how do I detect if a field
is NULL?</H4>
<P>You test the column with IS NULL and IS NOT NULL.</P>
<H4><A name="4.15">4.15</A>) What is the difference between the
various character types?</H4>
<PRE>
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 no specific upper limit on length
BYTEA bytea variable-length byte array (null-safe)
</PRE>
<P>You will see the internal name when examining system catalogs
and in some error messages.</P>
<P>The last four types above are "varlena" types (i.e., the first
four bytes on disk are the length, followed by the data). Thus the
actual space used is slightly greater than the declared size.
However, these data types are also subject to compression or being
stored out-of-line by TOAST, so the space on disk might also be
less than expected.</P>
<H4><A name="4.16.1">4.16.1</A>) How do I create a
serial/auto-incrementing field?</H4>
<P>PostgreSQL supports a <SMALL>SERIAL</SMALL> data type. It
auto-creates a sequence and index on the column. For example,
this:</P>
<PRE>
CREATE TABLE person (
id SERIAL,
name TEXT
);
</PRE>
is automatically translated into this:
<PRE>
CREATE SEQUENCE person_id_seq;
CREATE TABLE person (
id INT4 NOT NULL DEFAULT nextval('person_id_seq'),
name TEXT
);
CREATE UNIQUE INDEX person_id_key ON person ( id );
</PRE>
See the <I>create_sequence</I> manual page for more information
about sequences. You can also use each row's <I>OID</I> field as a
unique value. However, if you need to dump and reload the database,
you need to use <I>pg_dump's -o</I> option or <SMALL>COPY WITH
OIDS</SMALL> option to preserve the <SMALL>OID</SMALL>s.
<P><A href="http://www.PostgreSQL.org/docs/aw_pgsql_book">Numbering
Rows.</A></P>
<H4><A name="4.16.2">4.16.2</A>) How do I get the value of a
<SMALL>SERIAL</SMALL> insert?</H4>
<P>One approach is to to retrieve the next SERIAL value from the
sequence object with the <I>nextval()</I> function <I>before</I>
inserting and then insert it explicitly. Using the example table in
<A href="#4.16.1">4.16.1</A>, that might look like this:</P>
<PRE>
$newSerialID = nextval('person_id_seq');
INSERT INTO person (id, name) VALUES ($newSerialID, 'Blaise Pascal');
</PRE>
You would then also have the new value stored in
<CODE>$newSerialID</CODE> for use in other queries (e.g., as a
foreign key to the <CODE>person</CODE> table). Note that the name
of the automatically created SEQUENCE object will be named
<<I>table</I>>_<<I>serialcolumn</I>>_<I>seq</I>, where
<I>table</I> and <I>serialcolumn</I> are the names of your table
and your SERIAL column, respectively.
<P>Alternatively, you could retrieve the assigned SERIAL value with
the <I>currval</I>() function <I>after</I> it was inserted by
default, e.g.,</P>
<PRE>
INSERT INTO person (name) VALUES ('Blaise Pascal');
$newID = currval('person_id_seq');
</PRE>
Finally, you could use the <A href="#4.17"><SMALL>OID</SMALL></A>
returned from the INSERT statement to look up the default value,
though this is probably the least portable approach. In Perl, using
DBI with Edmund Mergl's DBD::Pg module, the oid value is made
available via <I>$sth->{pg_oid_status} after
$sth->execute().</I>
<H4><A name="4.16.3">4.16.3</A>) Don't <I>currval()</I> and
<I>nextval()</I> lead to a race condition with other users?</H4>
<P>No. This is handled by the backends.</P>
<H4><A name="4.17">4.17</A>) What is an <SMALL>OID</SMALL>? What is
a <SMALL>TID</SMALL>?</H4>
<P><SMALL>OID</SMALL>s are PostgreSQL's answer to unique row ids.
Every row that is created in PostgreSQL gets a unique
<SMALL>OID</SMALL>. All <SMALL>OID</SMALL>s generated during
<I>initdb</I> are less than 16384 (from
<I>backend/access/transam.h</I>). All user-created
<SMALL>OID</SMALL>s are equal to or greater than this. By default,
all these <SMALL>OID</SMALL>s are unique not only within a table or
database, but unique within the entire PostgreSQL installation.</P>
<P>PostgreSQL uses <SMALL>OID</SMALL>s in its internal system
tables to link rows between tables. These <SMALL>OID</SMALL>s can
be used to identify specific user rows and used in joins. It is
recommended you use column type <SMALL>OID</SMALL> to store
<SMALL>OID</SMALL> values. You can create an index on the
<SMALL>OID</SMALL> field for faster access.</P>
<P>O<SMALL>id</SMALL>s are assigned to all new rows from a central
area that is used by all databases. If you want to change the
<SMALL>OID</SMALL> to something else, or if you want to make a copy
of the table, with the original <SMALL>OID</SMALL>'s, there is no
reason you can't do it:</P>
<PRE>
CREATE TABLE new_table(old_oid oid, mycol int);
SELECT old_oid, mycol INTO new FROM old;
COPY new TO '/tmp/pgtable';
DELETE FROM new;
COPY new WITH OIDS FROM '/tmp/pgtable';
<!--
CREATE TABLE new_table (mycol int);
INSERT INTO new_table (oid, mycol) SELECT oid, mycol FROM old_table;
-->
</PRE>
<P>O<SMALL>ID</SMALL>s are stored as 4-byte integers, and will
overflow at 4 billion. No one has reported this ever happening, and
we plan to have the limit removed before anyone does.</P>
<P>T<SMALL>ID</SMALL>s 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.</P>
<H4><A name="4.18">4.18</A>) What is the meaning of some of the
terms used in PostgreSQL?</H4>
<P>Some of the source code and older documentation use terms that
have more common usage. Here are some:</P>
<UL>
<LI>table, relation, class</LI>
<LI>row, record, tuple</LI>
<LI>column, field, attribute</LI>
<LI>retrieve, select</LI>
<LI>replace, update</LI>
<LI>append, insert</LI>
<LI><SMALL>OID</SMALL>, serial value</LI>
<LI>portal, cursor</LI>
<LI>range variable, table name, table alias</LI>
</UL>
<P>A list of general database terms can be found at: <A href=
"http://www.comptechnews.com/~reaster/dbdesign.html">http://www.comptechnews.com/~reaster/dbdesign.html</A></P>
<H4><A name="4.19">4.19</A>) Why do I get the error <I>"FATAL:
palloc failure: memory exhausted?"</I><BR>
</H4>
<P>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 <I>postmaster:</I></P>
<PRE>
ulimit -d 65536
limit datasize 64m
</PRE>
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.
<H4><A name="4.20">4.20</A>) How do I tell what PostgreSQL version
I am running?<BR>
</H4>
<P>From <I>psql,</I> type <CODE>select version();</CODE></P>
<H4><A name="4.21">4.21</A>) My large-object operations get
<I>invalid large obj descriptor.</I> Why?<BR>
</H4>
<P>You need to put <CODE>BEGIN WORK</CODE> and <CODE>COMMIT</CODE>
around any use of a large object handle, that is, surrounding
<CODE>lo_open</CODE> ... <CODE>lo_close.</CODE></P>
<P>Currently PostgreSQL enforces the rule by closing large object
handles at transaction commit. So the first attempt to do anything
with the handle will draw <I>invalid large obj descriptor.</I> 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.</P>
<P>If you are using a client interface like ODBC you may need to
set <CODE>auto-commit off.</CODE></P>
<H4><A name="4.22">4.22</A>) How do I create a column that will
default to the current time?<BR>
</H4>
<P>Use <I>now()</I>:</P>
<PRE>
<CODE>CREATE TABLE test (x int, modtime timestamp DEFAULT now() );
</CODE>
</PRE>
<H4><A name="4.23">4.23</A>) Why are my subqueries using
<CODE><SMALL>IN</SMALL></CODE> so slow?<BR>
</H4>
<P>Currently, we join subqueries to outer queries by sequentially
scanning the result of the subquery for each row of the outer
query. A workaround is to replace <CODE>IN</CODE> with
<CODE>EXISTS</CODE>:</P>
<PRE>
<CODE>SELECT *
FROM tab
WHERE col1 IN (SELECT col2 FROM TAB2)
</CODE>
</PRE>
to:
<PRE>
<CODE>SELECT *
FROM tab
WHERE EXISTS (SELECT col2 FROM TAB2 WHERE col1 = col2)
</CODE>
</PRE>
We hope to fix this limitation in a future release.
<H4><A name="4.24">4.24</A>) How do I do an <I>outer</I> join?<BR>
</H4>
<P>PostgreSQL does not support outer joins in the current release.
They can be simulated using <SMALL>UNION</SMALL> and <SMALL>NOT
IN</SMALL>. For example, when joining <I>tab1</I> and <I>tab2,</I>
the following query does an <I>outer</I> join of the two
tables:</P>
<PRE>
SELECT tab1.col1, tab2.col2
FROM tab1, tab2
WHERE tab1.col1 = tab2.col1
UNION ALL
SELECT tab1.col1, NULL
FROM tab1
WHERE tab1.col1 NOT IN (SELECT tab2.col1 FROM tab2)
ORDER BY tab1.col1
</PRE>
<HR>
<CENTER>
<H2>Extending PostgreSQL</H2>
</CENTER>
<H4><A name="5.1">5.1</A>) I wrote a user-defined function. When I
run it in <I>psql,</I> why does it dump core?</H4>
<P>The problem could be a number of things. Try testing your
user-defined function in a stand-alone test program first.</P>
<H4><A name="5.2">5.2</A>) What does the message
<I>"NOTICE:PortalHeapMemoryFree: 0x402251d0 not in alloc set!"</I>
mean?</H4>
<P>You are <I>pfree'</I>ing something that was not
<I>palloc'</I>ed. Beware of mixing <I>malloc/free</I> and
<I>palloc/pfree.</I></P>
<H4><A name="5.3">5.3</A>) How can I contribute some nifty new
types and functions to PostgreSQL?</H4>
<P>Send your extensions to the <I>pgsql-hackers</I> mailing list,
and they will eventually end up in the <I>contrib/</I>
subdirectory.</P>
<H4><A name="5.4">5.4</A>) How do I write a C function to return a
tuple?</H4>
<P>This requires wizardry so extreme that the authors have never
tried it, though in principle it can be done.</P>
<H4><A name="5.5">5.5</A>) I have changed a source file. Why does
the recompile not see the change?</H4>
<P>The <I>Makefiles</I> do not have the proper dependencies for
include files. You have to do a <I>make clean</I> and then another
<I>make</I>.</P>
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