Thread: postgresql documentation iimprovements
There was some discussion a little while back about improving the documentation a little while back. I have a couple of suggestions about places where the documentation could be improved. 1. A 'best practices' section, either by command, or as a separate section. 2. IMHO, The documentation for create rule is not clear and detailed enough. PHPfreaks.com has a very nice tutorial about this command and how it could be used in a production database. It is very important for usage of this command to be clear, because only postgres has it, and mastery of it gives you access to a very nifty feature, write back views. 3. The technical discussion of transactions, MVCC, and locking and how they interrelate could use some improvement. Most especially, there should be some practical examples for what happens during a transaction conflict, lets say in a financial database. Merlin
On Tue, 2002-12-17 at 09:36, Merlin Moncure wrote: > There was some discussion a little while back about improving the > documentation a little while back. I have a couple of suggestions about > places where the documentation could be improved. FYI, -advocacy is not the right list for this (-docs is). > 2. IMHO, The documentation for create rule is not clear and detailed > enough. There's some pretty extensive documentation here: http://www.ca.postgresql.org/users-lounge/docs/7.3/postgres/rules.html Is there anything specifically missing from this? > PHPfreaks.com has a very nice tutorial about this command and > how it could be used in a production database. Could you give me the URL? Cheers, Neil -- Neil Conway <neilc@samurai.com> || PGP Key ID: DB3C29FC
On Tue, 17 Dec 2002, Merlin Moncure wrote: > 2. IMHO, The documentation for create rule is not clear and detailed > enough. PHPfreaks.com has a very nice tutorial about this command and > how it could be used in a production database. It is very important for > usage of this command to be clear, because only postgres has it, and FWIW Oracle and other databases have rules. Gavin
Gavin Sherry wrote: > On Tue, 17 Dec 2002, Merlin Moncure wrote: >>2. IMHO, The documentation for create rule is not clear and detailed >>enough. PHPfreaks.com has a very nice tutorial about this command and >>how it could be used in a production database. It is very important for >>usage of this command to be clear, because only postgres has it, and > > FWIW Oracle and other databases have rules. This didn't sound right, so I just checked. The Oracle docs do not mention "create rule". Google says Microsoft Transact SQL has a "create rule", but it's not at all the same: a really, really old syntax for check constraints or something. Only still there for backwards compatibility. I think Oracle's triggers just encompass everything PostgreSQL's rules do, but I've never dug into the docs enough to really understand the trigger/rule distinction. And it's late and I'm tired, so <http://www.postgresql.org/idocs/index.php?rules-triggers.html> doesn't make sense to me. Scott
On 18 Dec 2002 at 1:36, Scott Lamb wrote: > I think Oracle's triggers just encompass everything PostgreSQL's rules > do, but I've never dug into the docs enough to really understand the > trigger/rule distinction. And it's late and I'm tired, so > <http://www.postgresql.org/idocs/index.php?rules-triggers.html> doesn't > make sense to me. AFAIK, create rules runs actions instead of specified actions. Triggers run actions along with specified action. Pretty big difference IMO.. Bye Shridhar -- if (argc > 1 && strcmp(argv[1], "-advice") == 0) { printf("Don't Panic! "); exit(42); }(Arnold Robbins in the LJ of February '95, describing RCS)
Shridhar Daithankar wrote: > On 18 Dec 2002 at 1:36, Scott Lamb wrote: > >>I think Oracle's triggers just encompass everything PostgreSQL's rules >>do, but I've never dug into the docs enough to really understand the >>trigger/rule distinction. And it's late and I'm tired, so >><http://www.postgresql.org/idocs/index.php?rules-triggers.html> doesn't >>make sense to me. > > AFAIK, create rules runs actions instead of specified actions. Triggers run > actions along with specified action. Okay, yeah, that's an "instead of" trigger with Oracle. Thanks, Scott
On Wed, 18 Dec 2002, Scott Lamb wrote: > Gavin Sherry wrote: > > On Tue, 17 Dec 2002, Merlin Moncure wrote: > >>2. IMHO, The documentation for create rule is not clear and detailed > >>enough. PHPfreaks.com has a very nice tutorial about this command and > >>how it could be used in a production database. It is very important for > >>usage of this command to be clear, because only postgres has it, and > > > > FWIW Oracle and other databases have rules. > > This didn't sound right, so I just checked. The Oracle docs do not > mention "create rule". Google says Microsoft Transact SQL has a "create > rule", but it's not at all the same: a really, really old syntax for > check constraints or something. Only still there for backwards > compatibility. Hah. You're right. Its been a long year... Gavin