On Mon, 18 Jan 1999, Karl F. Larsen wrote:
> I'm wondering if ANYONE has used the posgress data base? It comes
> already loaded on Red Hat 5.2 and I printed the large book "PostgrSQL
> User's Guide" by Thomas Lockhart. It is exactly useless to me!
Karl,
Yes, I use it daily for a small relational db at work where
I set it up with approx 123,000 entries in a simple table with
around 12 different views. It's fast and relatively powerful,
especially considering the cost :-)
>
> I found there is a posgres login and so I can su - postgres and I
> will be in that login. I did a "createdb mydb" and it worked. Then I used
> psql mydb and that worked. Then I saw that destroydb mydb works fine.
>
> I now have postgres open in an nxterm window by itself and want to
> enter a data base which is an ascii phone number name address list. But
> there is no way to do this. The book stops here and goes off talking about
> SQL and without any explanation.
>
> What is a query?
The sql tutorial mentioned in another reply is a good starting point.
A popular book (and a good one - which explains it's popularity) is
"The Practical SQL Handbook Using Structured Query Language" by
Bowman, Emerson, Darnovsky - Addison Wesley Developers Press.
It is an excellent intro to SQL with very good examples and a CD with
a complete database that needs minor changes to be entered into PostgreSQL
and that exercise alone will teach you a great deal about SQL and
PostgreSQL
>
> I am just lost. Is there a REAL Postgres User's Manual? Should I
> quit trying to use it because I am so stupid? The postgres-HOWTO is even
> MORE confusing bringing in perl and other things. I just want to put in
> names and telephone numbers.
For names and telephone numbers it's overkill to say the least, but for
other big databases it's as good as any. It's very much text-based,
i.e., not MS Access, although there are some simple graphic interfaces
available that may be used once the database is built... by hand... at
a keyboard. If you have all the docs that came with it there is in the
documentation a very simple tutorial about entering weather info into
a small db. It, like a lot of open source docs is not designed to teach
you about relational databases in general and how to set one up and
then use it. The docs explain PostgreSQL relative to relational database
systems and assume you know a lot already.
Buy the book above and you'll be happy. And remember, db administrators
don't make $50,000 to $100,000 a year for nothing :-) It can become a
little complicated.
John Cusick
KB6FST
