[GENERAL] VACUUMing in general

Is any work being done to streamline/redesign the way PostgreSQL handles updates and/or the way VACUUM works so that it doesn't lock the entire table while it does it's job?  It seems that tables that need to be VACUUM'ed the most would typically have fewer acceptable "windows" in which to w

[GENERAL] Oracle Conversions Tools

bit more complicated :-)  But I think at least a schema and data migration tool would be a powerful addition to the PostgreSQL arsenal.     Just my two cents, Erich smime.p7s

[GENERAL] Replication options in Postgres

I am setting up a system that processes transactions, and it needs to be highly reliable. Once a transaction happens, it can never be lost. This means that there needs to be real-time off-site replication of data. I'm wondering what's the best way to do this. One thing that might simplify thi

[GENERAL] PG vs. Oracle for larger databases

How suitable is PG for doing larger databases? The need I am considering would be a financial database that does maybe up to 100k transactions/day. Obviously, it needs to be very reliable, and have minimal scheduled, and no unscheduled downtime. Should this project be on Oracle or Postgres? t

[GENERAL] From timestamp to seconds since epoch?

I've read through all the documentation, and I can't find a function that takes a timestamp and converts iit to seconds since epoch. Here's what I need to do: I have pairs of timestamps ('2000-07-12 03:33:53+00'), and I want to find out how many seconds are in the interval between them. I know I

[GENERAL] References on functions?

I'm starting to write functions in plpgsql, and I can do the basic stuff just fine, but the language isn't so well documented. Is there any good tutorial on the language? Or should I switch over to perl? I would rather learn plpgsql than do it in perl, because I would guess that plpgsql is fast

[GENERAL] How to get PL languages to work in Postgres

I'm sure this is a dumb question, but... When I try to create a PL/pgSQL function, even a very simple one like the add_one function in the example, I get this error: ERROR: Unrecognized language specified in a CREATE FUNCTION: 'plpgsql'. Recognized languages are sql, C, internal and the crea

Re: [GENERAL] Figured it out (psql and Gnu readline)

> Well, that's darn peculiar. configure.in has a test for > readline/history.h, big as life: > AC_CHECK_HEADERS(readline/history.h) > Does the config.log file show why it failed to find the include? Here's the lines from config.log: configure:2539: checking for main in -lreadline configu

Re: [GENERAL] Figured it out (psql and Gnu readline)

> configure is supposed to handle all that for you ... if it failed to > find the right location of libreadline and associated includes then > the question is why. You sure you ran configure after installing > the include files? I just deleted my postgres tree, and then unpacked it again, and r

[GENERAL] Figured it out (psql and Gnu readline)

With some helpful hints from various people, I figured out how to get this to work, and now my life is more pleasant and meaningful. Situation: Stock installation of OpenBSD 2.7, with PostgreSQL 7.0.2. I installed postgres by downloading the source tar and compiling, not by going through /usr/po

Re: [GENERAL] International Address Format Standard

International addresses can be very strange. To send a package to someone in Anguilla, you address it like this: John Doe 344 444 The Valley, Anguilla where 344 444 is the guy's phone number. In Laos, an address is like this: John Doe Near Wa