PostgreSQL

Locales, collations, encodings and the PostgreSQL sort order (1) – basics

When it comes to sorting strings it is all about locales and how PostgreSQL is using them. PostgreSQL uses the locales provided by the underlying operating system, by default this is “C” or “POSIX”. To see(…)

What is the difference between session_user and current_user in PostgreSQL?

When you want to know the currently connected user in PostgreSQL for your session there are two system information functions which seem to do the same thing. There is “session_user” and there is “current_user”. So what is the difference between(…)

PostgreSQL 17: Support for AT LOCAL

When it comes to conversions between time zones in PostgreSQL, there is already much you can do today. What PostgreSQL up to version 16 does not support, is the conversion to the local session’s time zone with ‘AT LOCAL’. Starting(…)

How the name of the initial superuser is chosen in PostgreSQL

When working with a PostgreSQL instance, most of the time the initial superuser is called “postgres”. One might think this is always the case, and this user is there by default. But the name for that user is chosen by(…)

Sql Konferenz 2023 in Hanau, Germany

Introduction It was a very great pleasure to participate to the Sql Server konferenz 2023 in Hanau, Germany, the 12 and 13 September 2023. I went with my colleague Petar, of the same Microsoft Sql Server team by dbi services,(…)

Things you can, but probably shouldn’t do in PostgreSQL: Tables in tables, types in types, and arrays on top

PostgreSQL comes with a lot of flexibility for defining new data types, defining tables and defining arrays over data types. You can make that as complex as you want, which does not mean that you should do it. Somehow you(…)

No more snapshot too old in PostgreSQL 17

Currently PostgreSQL has a feature which is called snapshot too old. While each release of PostgreSQL comes with a bunch of new features, sometimes features also get removed. Starting with PostgreSQL 17 there will be most likely no more “snapshot(…)

“create user”, “create role”, what should be used in PostgreSQL?

Recently we’ve seen a video on YouTube which recommends not to use the “create user” command in PostgreSQL and instead always use the “create role” command. It was also mentioned that “create group” should not be used as well. We’ve(…)

Zabbix Better Storage

Among the different possibilities for Zabbix storage, one piqued my curiosity: TimescaleDB TimescaleDB is a time series database plugin for PostgreSQL. Joël Cattin already blogged about it here from a general point(…)

PostgreSQL 17: Allow “\watch” to stop based on the number of rows returned

psql already is really powerful but still it gets more features with almost every release of PostgreSQL. One example is the “\watch” meta command. This command was introduced in PostgreSQL 9.3 and hasn’t changed much since(…)