Thread: new user on mac
I have a postgres 9.1 database up & running, no problem. Purely in terms of writing sql (ddl, dml & pg/plsql), what tools are recommended? Coming from an Oracle world, I'm thinking of toad, sql developer, etc. 1. psql & text editor of choice (if so, which one?) 2. navicat 3. textmate with pgedit 4. eclipse plugin 5. other? Thank you, Scott
<br /><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 5:47 PM, Scott Swank <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:scott.swank@gmail.com">scott.swank@gmail.com</a>></span>wrote:<br /><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:00 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"> I have a postgres 9.1 database up & running, noproblem. Purely in<br /> terms of writing sql (ddl, dml & pg/plsql), what tools are<br /> recommended?<br /><br />Coming from an Oracle world, I'm thinking of toad, sql developer, etc.<br /><br /> 1. psql & text editor of choice(if so, which one?)<br /> 2. navicat<br /> 3. textmate with pgedit<br /> 4. eclipse plugin<br /> 5. other?<br /><br/> Thank you,<br /> Scott<br /><font color="#888888"><br /> --<br /> Sent via pgsql-sql mailing list (<a href="mailto:pgsql-sql@postgresql.org">pgsql-sql@postgresql.org</a>)<br/> To make changes to your subscription:<br /><a href="http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-sql"target="_blank">http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-sql</a><br /></font></blockquote></div><br/><br clear="all" />psql + editor is the basic tool set, certainly the most flexible.<br />Also be sure to check out pgadmin: <a href="http://www.pgadmin.org/download/macosx.php">http://www.pgadmin.org/download/macosx.php</a><br/><br />-Adam<br />
On Oct 19, 2011, at 7:38 AM, Adam Cornett wrote: > > On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 5:47 PM, Scott Swank <scott.swank@gmail.com> wrote: > I have a postgres 9.1 database up & running, no problem. Purely in > terms of writing sql (ddl, dml & pg/plsql), what tools are > recommended? > > Coming from an Oracle world, I'm thinking of toad, sql developer, etc. > > 1. psql & text editor of choice (if so, which one?) > 2. navicat > 3. textmate with pgedit > 4. eclipse plugin > 5. other? > > Thank you, > Scott > > -- > Sent via pgsql-sql mailing list (pgsql-sql@postgresql.org) > To make changes to your subscription: > http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-sql > > > psql + editor is the basic tool set, certainly the most flexible. > Also be sure to check out pgadmin: http://www.pgadmin.org/download/macosx.php +1 for pgAdmin3. If you have already used Toad, u would like to check it. Thanks & Regards, Vibhor Kumar Blogs:http://vibhork.blogspot.com http://vibhorkumar.wordpress.com
>> I have a postgres 9.1 database up & running, no problem. Purely in >> terms of writing sql (ddl, dml & pg/plsql), what tools are >> recommended? >> >> Coming from an Oracle world, I'm thinking of toad, sql developer, etc. >> >> 1. psql & text editor of choice (if so, which one?) >> 2. navicat >> 3. textmate with pgedit >> 4. eclipse plugin >> 5. other? >> +1 for pgAdmin3. If you have already used Toad, u would like to check it. Being new to SQL (but old to other relational databases) and a Mac guy, I have found pgAdmin to work surprisingly well. Surprisingbecause I have a knack for breaking/corrupting/crashing nearly every developer tool I start using as a newbie.But pgAdmin has worked nearly flawlessly for me. It looks goofy from a Mac aesthetics perspective, but it works. I may have once had an inexplicable glitch, but after restart all was well. I've only been bitten by 2 recurring bugs: • (Cosmetic) Changing font size for use on projectors in a meeting makes fonts bigger, but the rows of the Output Pane ina SQL window fail to grow in height. • (Serious) Tools > Server Configuration > pg_hba.conf has a nasty anti-feature. When loading a saved conf file with incorrectsyntax (usually I forget to put the slash+number on an IP address such as 127.0.0.1/32), pgAdmin parses the file,identifies the flaw, and chooses to ignore the rule by not displaying it. Unfortunately, pgAdmin does NOT parse theentries when entering or saving them. So if you screw up a rule: (a) You won't realize you saved incorrect syntax. To the user, it seems the rule you entered simply vanished. (b) You can't fix it in pgAdmin. You'll have to gain access to the filesystem as the Postgres superuser (usually that's theUnix user 'postgres'), and edit the file. This is not easy to do as a Mac GUI user. This issue has been acknowledged in the mailing lists. But otherwise, pgAdmin has served me well for connecting to the Postgres server, creating databases, creating tables, creatingcolumns, creating a few initial rows of data, editing some field values, and so on. When first starting out creating tables, I used the GUI dialogs in pgAdmin. Nowadays I take advantage of the feature wherepgAdmin generates and shows you the SQL that would re-create the table on which you've clicked. When creating a newtable, I copy the SQL from a similar table, paste into a text editor, and edit appropriately. Then I paste the SQL backinto a SQL window in pgAdmin to execute. My usual choice in text editors is TextMate, running the surprisingly productive "Zenburnesque" Fonts & Color scheme in Preferences,where you can force the text to be interpreted as SQL without bothering to save the file by choosing "SQL" fromthe popup at the window's bottom frame. Other good text editors include JEdit (Java-based, free-of-cost), TextWrangler (free of cost), and BBEdit. http://www.jedit.org/ http://www.textwrangler.com/products/textwrangler/ TextWrangler's commercial big-brother BBEdit is also a popular text-editor on Mac OS X. http://www.textwrangler.com/products/bbedit/ Other Java-based IDEs are free-of-cost, run well on Mac OS X, and include SQL editing tools: IntelliJ, NetBeans, Eclipse. There are many other SQL tools that run on Mac OS X, especially the Java-based tools using JDBC. I've not tried them yetas pgAdmin is sufficient for now. == Caution == I'm not too clear on Postgres' defaults when installing Postgres, and when creating a new database. But I believe Postgresdefaults to a character set appropriate to the platform. I explicitly choose UTF-8 for both, rather than depend onsome mysterious default. The docs are not clear about this, so I'm not sure about the best course of action. Other than this character set issue, one tip I've learned from experts is to trust the default settings of both Postgresand pgAdmin. == Another Caution == Most text editors and IDEs on the Mac, both native and Java, have a tendency to default: • The character set to MacRoman. You may want to change the default to UTF-8. • The newline/end-of-line to CarriageReturn. You may want to change the default to Linefeed for the Unix convention. Note that some tools do not change the character-set or newline of an existing file, or require that you choose a menu itemto make the change happen. --Basil Bourque
Thanks all. I'd tried pgadmin3 and perhaps moved on too quickly. On 2nd look it's better than I'd initially considered. Cheers, Scott On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 1:13 AM, Basil Bourque <basil.list@me.com> wrote: >>> I have a postgres 9.1 database up & running, no problem. Purely in >>> terms of writing sql (ddl, dml & pg/plsql), what tools are >>> recommended? >>> >>> Coming from an Oracle world, I'm thinking of toad, sql developer, etc. >>> >>> 1. psql & text editor of choice (if so, which one?) >>> 2. navicat >>> 3. textmate with pgedit >>> 4. eclipse plugin >>> 5. other? > >>> +1 for pgAdmin3. If you have already used Toad, u would like to check it. > > Being new to SQL (but old to other relational databases) and a Mac guy, I have found pgAdmin to work surprisingly well.Surprising because I have a knack for breaking/corrupting/crashing nearly every developer tool I start using as a newbie.But pgAdmin has worked nearly flawlessly for me. It looks goofy from a Mac aesthetics perspective, but it works. > > I may have once had an inexplicable glitch, but after restart all was well. I've only been bitten by 2 recurring bugs: > > • (Cosmetic) Changing font size for use on projectors in a meeting makes fonts bigger, but the rows of the Output Panein a SQL window fail to grow in height. > > • (Serious) Tools > Server Configuration > pg_hba.conf has a nasty anti-feature. When loading a saved conf file with incorrectsyntax (usually I forget to put the slash+number on an IP address such as 127.0.0.1/32), pgAdmin parses the file,identifies the flaw, and chooses to ignore the rule by not displaying it. Unfortunately, pgAdmin does NOT parse theentries when entering or saving them. So if you screw up a rule: > (a) You won't realize you saved incorrect syntax. To the user, it seems the rule you entered simply vanished. > (b) You can't fix it in pgAdmin. You'll have to gain access to the filesystem as the Postgres superuser (usually that'sthe Unix user 'postgres'), and edit the file. This is not easy to do as a Mac GUI user. > This issue has been acknowledged in the mailing lists. > > But otherwise, pgAdmin has served me well for connecting to the Postgres server, creating databases, creating tables, creatingcolumns, creating a few initial rows of data, editing some field values, and so on. > > When first starting out creating tables, I used the GUI dialogs in pgAdmin. Nowadays I take advantage of the feature wherepgAdmin generates and shows you the SQL that would re-create the table on which you've clicked. When creating a newtable, I copy the SQL from a similar table, paste into a text editor, and edit appropriately. Then I paste the SQL backinto a SQL window in pgAdmin to execute. > > My usual choice in text editors is TextMate, running the surprisingly productive "Zenburnesque" Fonts & Color scheme inPreferences, where you can force the text to be interpreted as SQL without bothering to save the file by choosing "SQL"from the popup at the window's bottom frame. > > Other good text editors include JEdit (Java-based, free-of-cost), TextWrangler (free of cost), and BBEdit. > http://www.jedit.org/ > http://www.textwrangler.com/products/textwrangler/ > TextWrangler's commercial big-brother BBEdit is also a popular text-editor on Mac OS X. > http://www.textwrangler.com/products/bbedit/ > > Other Java-based IDEs are free-of-cost, run well on Mac OS X, and include SQL editing tools: IntelliJ, NetBeans, Eclipse. > > There are many other SQL tools that run on Mac OS X, especially the Java-based tools using JDBC. I've not tried them yetas pgAdmin is sufficient for now. > > == Caution == > > I'm not too clear on Postgres' defaults when installing Postgres, and when creating a new database. But I believe Postgresdefaults to a character set appropriate to the platform. I explicitly choose UTF-8 for both, rather than depend onsome mysterious default. The docs are not clear about this, so I'm not sure about the best course of action. > > Other than this character set issue, one tip I've learned from experts is to trust the default settings of both Postgresand pgAdmin. > > == Another Caution == > > Most text editors and IDEs on the Mac, both native and Java, have a tendency to default: > > • The character set to MacRoman. > You may want to change the default to UTF-8. > > • The newline/end-of-line to CarriageReturn. > You may want to change the default to Linefeed for the Unix convention. > > Note that some tools do not change the character-set or newline of an existing file, or require that you choose a menuitem to make the change happen. > > --Basil Bourque > -- > Sent via pgsql-sql mailing list (pgsql-sql@postgresql.org) > To make changes to your subscription: > http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-sql >
On Wed, 2011-10-19 at 01:13 -0700, Basil Bourque wrote: > >> I have a postgres 9.1 database up & running, no problem. Purely in > >> terms of writing sql (ddl, dml & pg/plsql), what tools are > >> recommended? > >> > >> Coming from an Oracle world, I'm thinking of toad, sql developer, etc. > >> > >> 1. psql & text editor of choice (if so, which one?) > >> 2. navicat > >> 3. textmate with pgedit > >> 4. eclipse plugin > >> 5. other? > > >> +1 for pgAdmin3. If you have already used Toad, u would like to check it. > > Being new to SQL (but old to other relational databases) and a Mac guy, I have found pgAdmin to work surprisingly well. Thanks :) > Surprising because I have a knack for breaking/corrupting/crashing nearly every developer tool I start using as a newbie. Don't we all do? > But pgAdmin has worked nearly flawlessly for me. It looks goofy from a Mac aesthetics perspective, but it works. Yeah, the wxWidgets toolkit doesn't really have a native UI for every widget, so it can look goofy in some windows. > I may have once had an inexplicable glitch, but after restart all was well. I've only been bitten by 2 recurring bugs: > > • (Cosmetic) Changing font size for use on projectors in a meeting makes fonts bigger, but the rows of the Output Panein a SQL window fail to grow in height. > Yeah, someone already reported this bug. It shouldn't be hard to fix. You can always use the mousewheel in the query tool. The new setting will be temporary but it should work for a meeting. > • (Serious) Tools > Server Configuration > pg_hba.conf has a nasty anti-feature. When loading a saved conf file with incorrectsyntax (usually I forget to put the slash+number on an IP address such as 127.0.0.1/32), pgAdmin parses the file,identifies the flaw, and chooses to ignore the rule by not displaying it. Unfortunately, pgAdmin does NOT parse theentries when entering or saving them. So if you screw up a rule: > (a) You won't realize you saved incorrect syntax. To the user, it seems the rule you entered simply vanished. > (b) You can't fix it in pgAdmin. You'll have to gain access to the filesystem as the Postgres superuser (usually that'sthe Unix user 'postgres'), and edit the file. This is not easy to do as a Mac GUI user. > This issue has been acknowledged in the mailing lists. > Yes, it was already reported and we have to fix this. > But otherwise, pgAdmin has served me well for connecting to the Postgres server, creating databases, creating tables, creatingcolumns, creating a few initial rows of data, editing some field values, and so on. > Good. > When first starting out creating tables, I used the GUI dialogs in pgAdmin. Nowadays I take advantage of the feature wherepgAdmin generates and shows you the SQL that would re-create the table on which you've clicked. When creating a newtable, I copy the SQL from a similar table, paste into a text editor, and edit appropriately. Then I paste the SQL backinto a SQL window in pgAdmin to execute. > When you are on a PostgreSQL object, you can simply click the query tool button, and the query tool will open with the SQL create query for this object. > My usual choice in text editors is TextMate, running the surprisingly productive "Zenburnesque" Fonts & Color scheme inPreferences, where you can force the text to be interpreted as SQL without bothering to save the file by choosing "SQL"from the popup at the window's bottom frame. > > Other good text editors include JEdit (Java-based, free-of-cost), TextWrangler (free of cost), and BBEdit. > http://www.jedit.org/ > http://www.textwrangler.com/products/textwrangler/ > TextWrangler's commercial big-brother BBEdit is also a popular text-editor on Mac OS X. > http://www.textwrangler.com/products/bbedit/ > > Other Java-based IDEs are free-of-cost, run well on Mac OS X, and include SQL editing tools: IntelliJ, NetBeans, Eclipse. > > There are many other SQL tools that run on Mac OS X, especially the Java-based tools using JDBC. I've not tried them yetas pgAdmin is sufficient for now. > And we are interested in hearing about other users' feelings/reviews about pgAdmin to make it even better. That can happen on the usual PostgreSQL mailing lists or on the pgadmin ones. -- Guillaume http://blog.guillaume.lelarge.info http://www.dalibo.com
Here is a seeming quirk in pgadmin3. I say seeming, because I may simply not be sufficiently familiar with this tool. [A quick note for non-mac users, the Finder is the gui file browser, equivalent to Nautilus/Dolphin in linux or the Window Explorer in MS Windows.] I have associated sql files with pgadmin. When I open pgadmin I have a "pgadmin" window and I can open additional "query tool" windows. However, if from the finder I open a sql file I do not see it in a query tool window. Application focus changes from the finder to pgadmin, but I do not see the sql. Conversely, if I do not have pgadmin open and from the finder I open a sql file I see it in a query tool window. I, however, I open additional sql files from the finder they do not open in a query tool window, but again focus changes to pgadmin. Also, if I start pgadmin this way I only have query tool windows, how do I open the basic pgadmin window? This behavior does not seem to depend on how I open the file, e.g. double-click, or "open with: pgadmin3". Is this simply an os integration issue on mac, or am I missing something? Thank you again, Scott On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 3:22 AM, Guillaume Lelarge <guillaume@lelarge.info> wrote: > On Wed, 2011-10-19 at 01:13 -0700, Basil Bourque wrote: >> >> I have a postgres 9.1 database up & running, no problem. Purely in >> >> terms of writing sql (ddl, dml & pg/plsql), what tools are >> >> recommended? >> >> >> >> Coming from an Oracle world, I'm thinking of toad, sql developer, etc. >> >> >> >> 1. psql & text editor of choice (if so, which one?) >> >> 2. navicat >> >> 3. textmate with pgedit >> >> 4. eclipse plugin >> >> 5. other? >> >> >> +1 for pgAdmin3. If you have already used Toad, u would like to check it. >> >> Being new to SQL (but old to other relational databases) and a Mac guy, I have found pgAdmin to work surprisingly well. > > Thanks :) > >> Surprising because I have a knack for breaking/corrupting/crashing nearly every developer tool I start using as a newbie. > > Don't we all do? > >> But pgAdmin has worked nearly flawlessly for me. It looks goofy from a Mac aesthetics perspective, but it works. > > Yeah, the wxWidgets toolkit doesn't really have a native UI for every > widget, so it can look goofy in some windows. > >> I may have once had an inexplicable glitch, but after restart all was well. I've only been bitten by 2 recurring bugs: >> >> • (Cosmetic) Changing font size for use on projectors in a meeting makes fonts bigger, but the rows of the Output Panein a SQL window fail to grow in height. >> > > Yeah, someone already reported this bug. It shouldn't be hard to fix. > You can always use the mousewheel in the query tool. The new setting > will be temporary but it should work for a meeting. > >> • (Serious) Tools > Server Configuration > pg_hba.conf has a nasty anti-feature. When loading a saved conf file with incorrectsyntax (usually I forget to put the slash+number on an IP address such as 127.0.0.1/32), pgAdmin parses the file,identifies the flaw, and chooses to ignore the rule by not displaying it. Unfortunately, pgAdmin does NOT parse theentries when entering or saving them. So if you screw up a rule: >> (a) You won't realize you saved incorrect syntax. To the user, it seems the rule you entered simply vanished. >> (b) You can't fix it in pgAdmin. You'll have to gain access to the filesystem as the Postgres superuser (usually that'sthe Unix user 'postgres'), and edit the file. This is not easy to do as a Mac GUI user. >> This issue has been acknowledged in the mailing lists. >> > > Yes, it was already reported and we have to fix this. > >> But otherwise, pgAdmin has served me well for connecting to the Postgres server, creating databases, creating tables,creating columns, creating a few initial rows of data, editing some field values, and so on. >> > > Good. > >> When first starting out creating tables, I used the GUI dialogs in pgAdmin. Nowadays I take advantage of the feature wherepgAdmin generates and shows you the SQL that would re-create the table on which you've clicked. When creating a newtable, I copy the SQL from a similar table, paste into a text editor, and edit appropriately. Then I paste the SQL backinto a SQL window in pgAdmin to execute. >> > > When you are on a PostgreSQL object, you can simply click the query tool > button, and the query tool will open with the SQL create query for this > object. > >> My usual choice in text editors is TextMate, running the surprisingly productive "Zenburnesque" Fonts & Color scheme inPreferences, where you can force the text to be interpreted as SQL without bothering to save the file by choosing "SQL"from the popup at the window's bottom frame. >> >> Other good text editors include JEdit (Java-based, free-of-cost), TextWrangler (free of cost), and BBEdit. >> http://www.jedit.org/ >> http://www.textwrangler.com/products/textwrangler/ >> TextWrangler's commercial big-brother BBEdit is also a popular text-editor on Mac OS X. >> http://www.textwrangler.com/products/bbedit/ >> >> Other Java-based IDEs are free-of-cost, run well on Mac OS X, and include SQL editing tools: IntelliJ, NetBeans, Eclipse. >> >> There are many other SQL tools that run on Mac OS X, especially the Java-based tools using JDBC. I've not tried them yetas pgAdmin is sufficient for now. >> > > And we are interested in hearing about other users' feelings/reviews > about pgAdmin to make it even better. That can happen on the usual > PostgreSQL mailing lists or on the pgadmin ones. > > > -- > Guillaume > http://blog.guillaume.lelarge.info > http://www.dalibo.com > > > -- > Sent via pgsql-sql mailing list (pgsql-sql@postgresql.org) > To make changes to your subscription: > http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-sql >
On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 2:47 PM, Scott Swank <scott.swank@gmail.com> wrote:
I have a postgres 9.1 database up & running, no problem. Purely in
terms of writing sql (ddl, dml & pg/plsql), what tools are
recommended?
Coming from an Oracle world, I'm thinking of toad, sql developer, etc.
1. psql & text editor of choice (if so, which one?)
Count me as one who has never felt the need for anything other than terminal window, vim/emacs, a browser with the postgresql docs, and the psql client. I used pg_dump to get create statements if I need them, but mostly just the \d command in psql to show me table structure without create statements. It is definitely worth exploring the various meta-commands in psql in order to learn what is available. Most of the psql documentation is devoted to them - http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/app-psql.html Even if you use pgAdmin, you'll be much better off if you know how to do more than just the basics in psql.
Scott Swank, 18.10.2011 23:47: > I have a postgres 9.1 database up& running, no problem. Purely in > terms of writing sql (ddl, dml& pg/plsql), what tools are > recommended? > > Coming from an Oracle world, I'm thinking of toad, sql developer, etc. > > 1. psql& text editor of choice (if so, which one?) > 2. navicat > 3. textmate with pgedit > 4. eclipse plugin > 5. other? check out the list at: http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Community_Guide_to_PostgreSQL_GUI_Tools
On Thu, 2011-10-20 at 12:22 +0200, Guillaume Lelarge wrote: > On Wed, 2011-10-19 at 01:13 -0700, Basil Bourque wrote: > [...] > > I may have once had an inexplicable glitch, but after restart all was well. I've only been bitten by 2 recurring bugs: > > > > • (Cosmetic) Changing font size for use on projectors in a meeting makes fonts bigger, but the rows of the Output Panein a SQL window fail to grow in height. > > > > Yeah, someone already reported this bug. It shouldn't be hard to fix. > You can always use the mousewheel in the query tool. The new setting > will be temporary but it should work for a meeting. > This is fixed. -- Guillaume http://blog.guillaume.lelarge.info http://www.dalibo.com
On Thu, 2011-10-20 at 04:15 -0700, Scott Swank wrote: > Here is a seeming quirk in pgadmin3. I say seeming, because I may > simply not be sufficiently familiar with this tool. > > [A quick note for non-mac users, the Finder is the gui file browser, > equivalent to Nautilus/Dolphin in linux or the Window Explorer in MS > Windows.] > > I have associated sql files with pgadmin. > > When I open pgadmin I have a "pgadmin" window and I can open > additional "query tool" windows. However, if from the finder I open a > sql file I do not see it in a query tool window. Application focus > changes from the finder to pgadmin, but I do not see the sql. > > Conversely, if I do not have pgadmin open and from the finder I open a > sql file I see it in a query tool window. I, however, I open > additional sql files from the finder they do not open in a query tool > window, but again focus changes to pgadmin. Also, if I start pgadmin > this way I only have query tool windows, how do I open the basic > pgadmin window? > > This behavior does not seem to depend on how I open the file, e.g. > double-click, or "open with: pgadmin3". > > Is this simply an os integration issue on mac, or am I missing something? > Seems to be an integration issue. I created a ticket to work on this later. Sorry for the (really really) late answer. -- Guillaume http://blog.guillaume.lelarge.info http://www.dalibo.com PostgreSQL Sessions #3: http://www.postgresql-sessions.org