Subject: FAQ

From: "David Alan Nelson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 May 1994 10:26:47 +0100 (BST)

Can anybody tell me if there's a Postgres FAQ around, and where it is?

Cheers

Dave
-- 

Mail ID : [email-masked]

Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.  (091) 222 8789

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From: [email-masked] (Paul M. Aoki)
Date: Wed, 18 May 94 02:52:08 -0700

> Can anybody tell me if there's a Postgres FAQ around, and where it is?

ftp://s2k-ftp.CS.Berkeley.EDU/pub/postgres/postgres.faq
--
  Paul M. Aoki  |  CS Div., Dept. of EECS, UCB  |  [email-masked]
                |  Berkeley, CA 94720           |  ...!uunet!ucbvax!aoki

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From: Chris Bitmead <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 May 1994 09:54:04 +1000

Following is a Postgres FAQ although it is a little old.

                 Frequently Asked Questions about POSTGRES

Q.  What Is POSTGRES?

A.  POSTGRES was a database research project directed by Prof. Michael
    Stonebraker at U. C. Berkeley.  To facilitate research efforts, a
    software test-bed was created; this is the "POSTGRES" DBMS
    software.  The POSTGRES DBMS is extended relational or object
    oriented, depending on the buzzword du jour.

    The major purpose of this software is to provide a platform and a
    basis for the testing of implementations of new ideas in database
    research.  Several graduate students, staff members, as well as
    undergraduate programmers have contributed to the implementation
    of the POSTGRES software.  After this paragraph, all references to
    "POSTGRES" refer to the software itself.
    
    As of this writing, POSTGRES is no longer an official research 
    effort at U.C. Berkeley.

    POSTGRES is:

    o	Relational.  One of the major goals of POSTGRES was to show 
	that an essentially relational DBMS can be extended to handle 
	complex objects, rules, and be highly extensible.

    o	Highly extensible.  POSTGRES allows user-defined operators,
	types, functions and access methods.

    o	While POSTGRES is relational, object-oriented ideas have been
	implemented in POSTGRES (inheritance, etc).

    POSTGRES also has many other features, such as query language 
    procedures, rules, triggers, etc., which are beyond the scope of 
    this discussion.

    For more info on the POSTGRES research itself, you should get the
    POSTGRES technical documentation described below.

Q.  What is the connection between POSTGRES and University Ingres?

A.  There is none, aside from Prof. Stonebraker.  There is no
    compatibility between the two software packages, and the research
    projects had differing objectives.  We do not support University
    Ingres at all.  Questions about it should be sent to the USENET
    newsgroup "comp.databases" or "comp.databases.ingres".  You can
    also, in a pinch, try the mailing list:

	[email-masked]

Q.  How do I get the POSTGRES software package?

A.  In one of two ways:

    1.  Via anonymous FTP from the host s2k-ftp.CS.Berkeley.EDU 
	(IP address as of this writing: 128.32.149.157)
        The directory that contains the relevant files is:

        pub/postgres/postgres-v4r2
	(Note: transmit .Z  files in BINARY mode.)

    2.  If you don't have Internet access, you can get POSTGRES by sending a
        check for US$150 payable to

        Regents of the University of California

        This should be addressed to

        The POSTGRES Project
        557 Evans Hall
        University of California
        Berkeley, CA 94720

        Indicate in your accompanying letter whether you want the
        system on a 9-track tape at 1600 BPI or 6250 BPI, a QIC 24
        cartridge tape, a DEC TK50 cartridge tape, a 4mm DAT tape, or
	an Exabyte 2GB 8mm tape.

    We do not distribute POSTGRES in any other format (such as
    FTPmail).  However, you can also get POSTGRES on a variety of
    "freeware" CDROMs (such as those from PrimeTime Freeware or
    Yggdrasil Computing).  We have nothing to do with the distributors
    of these CDROMs, and if you are interested in obtaining POSTGRES 
    this way you should contact your local computer bookstore.  Do
    note that, if you can get them, they will cost much less than
    US$150.

Q.  What is the POSTGRES query language?

A.  PostQUEL, which is an incompatible, extended version of QUEL (the
    Ingres query language).

Q.  What about SQL support?

A.  POSTGRES does not support SQL.  A commercial version of POSTGRES
    produced by Montage Software, Inc. (see below) does support SQL.

Q.  What does POSTGRES run on?

A.  POSTGRES 4.2 is known to run on Sun-4 (SPARC) computers running SunOS
    4.1.2 or higher, DECstation 3100 and 5000 (MIPS) computers running
    Ultrix 4.2 or higher, H-P 9000 Model 700 and 800 (PA-RISC)
    computers running HP-UX 9.00 or higher, DECstation 3000 (Alpha
    AXP) running OSF/1 1.3, and IBM RS/6000 (POWER) running AIX 3.2.3
    or higher.

    The experience of outside developers indicates that POSTGRES is
    relatively easy to port to any system that supports:

    1.  Berkeley-style sockets
    2.  System V shared memory and semaphores
    3.  A K&R-compatible C compiler
    4.  Other "normal" Unix system calls 

    For example, versions of POSTGRES have been ported to Windows NT.
    Some header file problems may be encountered; these are easily
    fixed by a programmer knowledgable with the local OS.

Q.  How do I get papers about POSTGRES?

A.  The documents and manpages are available directly in the POSTGRES
    source.  At the top level there are pre-formatted manual pages and
    a reference manual.  There are a number of other documents in the
    src/doc directory and there is a directory in there that has
    pre-formatted postscript files.  You can order hard-copies of
    technical reports individually.  For more details, send e-mail or
    call Michelle Mattera at (510) 642-3417; her e-mail address is

        [email-masked]

Q.  What is the status of the POSTGRES implementation?

A.  It is not up to commercial levels of reliability.  I would not want
    _my_ payroll records in it :-) However, it is quite adequate for
    managing scientific and experimental datasets and as an
    instructional system.  Its speed on applications which stress
    transaction processing is not particularly good, but it is within
    about 50% of commercial systems on the more "report-oriented"
    Wisconsin benchmark, and is twice as fast as University Ingres on
    the Wisconsin.

Q.  Does POSTGRES have a user interface?  A report generator?  An
    embedded query language interface?

A.  No, no and no.  On the other hand, "pgbrowse," a powerful and
    extensible graphical user interface based on Tcl/TK, is available
    from crseo.ucsb.edu (128.111.100.50) in pub/pgbrowse.

Q.  What about a C-callable interface for writing applications?

A.  There most definitely is one, called libpq.  There is also an
    interface for referencing POSTGRES data from shell and perl
    scripts.  See the POSTGRES Reference Manual for details.

Q.  Is there a discussion group about POSTGRES?

A.  Yes - the mailing list

        [email-masked]

    has (as of this writing) over six hundred readers and gateways; you
    can subscribe to the mailing list by sending mail to

        [email-masked]

    with "ADD" as the Subject.

    You UNsubscribe from the mailing list by sending mail to

        [email-masked]

    with "DEL" as the Subject.

Q.  How do I make a bug report?

A.  If you find a bug, send a description of your database schema,
    queries, and a stack dump (type "where" in DBX) if possible to

        [email-masked]

Q.  How do I find out about known bugs?

A.  The known bug list for version 4.2 does not exist yet, but will be
    placed in the file

        pub/postgres/postgres-v4r2/postgres.bugs

    as soon as we start getting feedback on the release.

Q.  Please summarize the important files on s2k-ftp.cs.berkeley.edu.

A.  Please see pub/postgres/postgres-v4r2/README.

Q.  Please summarize the important POSTGRES mailing aliases.

A.  Mailing Address              Purpose

    postgres@postgres            POSTGRES general discussion and
				 announcements
    postgres-request@postgres    Administrative requests (ADD/DEL)
    bug-postgres@postgres        POSTGRES bug reports
    postgres-questions@postgres  Questions to the developers of POSTGRES
				 (see response to the next question)

Q.  Please summarize the main contacts at the POSTGRES group.

A.  Unfortunately, POSTGRES is no longer an active research project at
    U.C. Berkeley, so there is no longer a POSTGRES group.  Some of the
    developers will probably be staying in touch on the previously
    mentioned mailing lists, so that is your best bet.

Q.  Is there a commercial version of POSTGRES?

A.  Yes.  Montage Software, Inc. has performed a substantial amount of
    bullet-proofing and performance improvement and has added many new
    features (true log-based crash recovery, an type system that makes
    sense, SQL support).  They also provide technical support.  You can
    contact them at:

	Montage Software, Inc.
	1111 Broadway, Suite 2000
	Oakland, CA 94607
	510-652-8000
	510-652-8050 (fax)
	[email-masked]