Last updated: Sat Apr 23 11:22:46 EDT 2005

Starting with version 8.0, PostgreSQL now runs natively on Microsoft

Windows NT-based operating systems like Win2000, WinXP, and Win2003. A

prepackaged installer is available at

http://pgfoundry.org/projects/pginstaller. MSDOS-based versions of

Windows (Win95, Win98, WinMe) can run PostgreSQL using Cygwin.

The primary anonymous ftp site for PostgreSQL is

ftp://ftp.PostgreSQL.org/pub/. For mirror sites, see our main web

site.

irc.freenode.net or use any of the other popular IRC clients. A

Spanish one also exists on the same network, (#postgresql-es), and a

French one, (#postgresqlfr). There is also a PostgreSQL channel on

EFNet.

We plan to have major releases every ten to twelve months.

The PostgreSQL book at

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/books/awbook.html teaches SQL. There is

another PostgreSQL book at http://www.commandprompt.com/ppbook. There

is a nice tutorial at

http://www.intermedia.net/support/sql/sqltut.shtm, at

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/graeme_birchall/HTM_COOK.HTM,

and at http://sqlcourse.com.

Another one is "Teach Yourself SQL in 21 Days, Second Edition" at

et al., McGraw-Hill.

First, download the latest source and read the PostgreSQL Developers

FAQ and 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. 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.

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 Features section above.

We are built for reliability and features, and we continue to

improve performance in every release.

Yes, there are several graphical interfaces to PostgreSQL available.

These include pgAdmin III (http://www.pgadmin.org, PgAccess

http://www.pgaccess.org), RHDB Admin (http://sources.redhat.com/rhdb/

), TORA ( http://www.globecom.net/tora/, partly commercial), and

Rekall ( http://www.rekallrevealed.org/). There is also PhpPgAdmin (

http://phppgadmin.sourceforge.net/ ), a web-based interface to

PostgreSQL.

See http://techdocs.postgresql.org/guides/GUITools for a more detailed

The following detailed debug instructions are to be used to provide

more detailed information for server developers debugging a problem.

It is also possible to debug the server if it isn't operating

properly. 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.

The 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.

If postmaster is not running, 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 postmaster, it is not running

in an identical environment and locking/backend interaction problems

may not be duplicated.

If postmaster is running, start psql in one window, then find the PID

of the postgres process used by psql using SELECT pg_backend_pid().

Use a debugger to attach to the postgres PID. You can set breakpoints

in the debugger and issue queries from psql. If you are debugging

postgres startup, you can set PGOPTIONS="-W n", then start psql. This

will cause startup to delay for n seconds so you can attach to the

process with the debugger, set any breakpoints, and continue through

the startup sequence.

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 client's current directory. Linux requires a compile with

-DLINUX_PROFILE for proper profiling.

so upgrading from 7.4 to 7.4.1 does not require a dump and restore.

Indexes are not automatically used by every query. Indexes are only

used if the table is larger than a minimum size, and the query selects

only a small percentage of the rows in the table. This is because the

random disk access caused by an index scan can be slower than a

straight read through the table, or sequential scan.