Cover; Copyright; Credits; About the Authors; About the Reviewer; www.PacktPub.com; Table of Contents; Preface; Chapter 1:What Is a PostgreSQL Server?; Why program in the server?; Using PL/pgSQL for integrity checks; About this book's code examples; Switching to the expanded display; Moving beyond simple functions; Data comparisons using operators; Managing related data with triggers; Auditing changes; Data cleaning; Custom sort orders; Programming best practices; KISS
keep it simple stupid; DRY
don't repeat yourself; YAGNI
you ain't gonna need it; SOA
service-oriented architecture. Type extensibilityOn caching; Wrap up
why program in the server?; Performance; Ease of maintenance; Simple ways to tighten security; Summary; Chapter 2:Server Programming Environment; Cost of acquisition; Availability of developers; Licensing; Predictability; Community; Procedural languages; Platform compatibility; Application design; Databases are considered harmful; Encapsulation; What does PostgreSQL offer?; Data locality; More basics; Transactions; General error reporting and error handling; User-defined functions (UDF); Other parameters; More control; Summary. Chapter 3:Your First PL/pgSQL FunctionWhy PL/pgSQL?; Structure of a PL/pgSQL function; Accessing function arguments; Conditional expressions; Loops with counters; Looping through query results; PERFORM versus SELECT; Returning a record; Acting on function results; Summary; Chapter 4:Returning Structured Data; Sets and arrays; Returning sets; Returning a set of integers; Using a set-returning function; Returning rows from a function; Functions based on views; OUT parameters and records; OUT parameters; Returning records; Using RETURNS TABLE; Returning with no predefined structure. Returning SETOF ANYVariadic argument lists; Summary of RETURN SETOF variants; Returning cursors; Iterating over cursors returned from another function; Wrap up of functions returning a cursor(s); Other ways to work with structured data; Complex data types for modern world
XML and JSON; XML data type and returning data as XML from functions; Returning data in the JSON format; Summary; Chapter 5:PL/pgSQL Trigger Functions; Creating the trigger function; Creating the trigger; Simple ""Hey, I'm called"" trigger; The audit trigger; Disallowing DELETE; Disallowing TRUNCATE. Modifying the NEW recordTimestamping trigger; Immutable fields trigger; Controlling when a trigger is called; Conditional trigger; Trigger on specific field changes; Visibility; And most importantly
use triggers cautiously!; Variables passed to the PL/pgSQL TRIGGER function; Summary; Chapter 6:Debugging PL/pgSQL; ''Manual'' debugging with RAISE NOTICE; Throwing exceptions; Logging to a file; Advantages of RAISE NOTICE; Disadvantages of RAISE NOTICE; Visual debugging; Getting the debugger installed; Installing pgAdmin3; Using the debugger; Advantages of the debugger.

This practical guide leads you through numerous aspects of working with PostgreSQL. Step by step examples allow you to easily set up and extend PostgreSQL. ""PostgreSQL Server Programming"" is for moderate to advanced PostgreSQL database professionals. To get the best understanding of this book, you should have general experience in writing SQL, a basic idea of query tuning, and some coding experience in a language of your choice.