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  1. Learning PostgreSQL

    Gevik Babakhani <gevik@xs4all.nl> — 2003-10-05T21:15:56Z

    Dear PostgreSQL masters,

I know this might look like a childish question and you 
probably might have a good laugh over this but I
would like to learn how PostgreSQL works inside-out.
Could anyone please give me some pointers of where to start
in/from the source code?

I am grateful for any help.
Gevik.

  2. Re: Learning PostgreSQL

    Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> — 2003-10-05T21:21:17Z

    Gevik Babakhani wrote:
> Dear PostgreSQL masters,
> 
> I know this might look like a childish question and you 
> probably might have a good laugh over this but I
> would like to learn how PostgreSQL works inside-out.
> Could anyone please give me some pointers of where to start
> in/from the source code?

Sure, check out the developers web page.  It has some basic outlines,
and an FAQ.  After that, it is mostly digging. You will need an editor
that supports tags or some way to pull symbols out of the code, and
hopefully cross-references.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 359-1001
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  13 Roberts Road
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

  3. Re: Learning PostgreSQL

    Neil Conway <neilc@samurai.com> — 2003-10-05T21:37:29Z

    On Sun, 2003-10-05 at 17:21, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> Sure, check out the developers web page.  It has some basic outlines,
> and an FAQ.  After that, it is mostly digging. You will need an editor
> that supports tags or some way to pull symbols out of the code, and
> hopefully cross-references.

Depending on what part of the source you're interested in, a book on
DBMS implementation might also be useful, such as

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0072465638/qid=1065389816/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/104-3447470-6475940?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

-Neil

  4. Re: Learning PostgreSQL

    Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> — 2003-10-05T21:45:16Z

    Neil Conway wrote:
> On Sun, 2003-10-05 at 17:21, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > Sure, check out the developers web page.  It has some basic outlines,
> > and an FAQ.  After that, it is mostly digging. You will need an editor
> > that supports tags or some way to pull symbols out of the code, and
> > hopefully cross-references.
> 
> Depending on what part of the source you're interested in, a book on
> DBMS implementation might also be useful, such as
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0072465638/qid=1065389816/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/104-3447470-6475940?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Wow, $100.  Does it cover internals?

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 359-1001
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  13 Roberts Road
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

  5. Re: Learning PostgreSQL

    Nigel J. Andrews <nandrews@investsystems.co.uk> — 2003-10-05T21:48:52Z

    On Sun, 5 Oct 2003, Gevik Babakhani wrote:

> Dear PostgreSQL masters,
> 
> I know this might look like a childish question and you 
> probably might have a good laugh over this but I
> would like to learn how PostgreSQL works inside-out.
> Could anyone please give me some pointers of where to start
> in/from the source code?
> 
> I am grateful for any help.

As Bruce says, the developers website (http://developer.postgresql.org/ - I
think). On the other hand I'd suggest a good read of the user documentation
first. Get an idea of what it can do from the user perspective then start
poking around inside.

When it comes to poking around inside a decent start might be to take a look at
one of the PLs and contrib items.


--
Nigel

  6. Re: Learning PostgreSQL

    Neil Conway <neilc@samurai.com> — 2003-10-05T21:52:50Z

    On Sun, 2003-10-05 at 17:45, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> Neil Conway wrote:
> > Depending on what part of the source you're interested in, a book on
> > DBMS implementation might also be useful, such as

> Wow, $100.

Well, it's a CS textbook -- I have several textbooks this semester that
are > $100.

>   Does it cover internals?

Yeah, although it's more of a broad survey of DB-related topics, so the
internals coverage isn't that in-depth. It talks about storage/indexing
(the heap, ISAM/B+-tree indexes, hash indexes, etc.), query evaluation,
query optimization, transaction management & concurrency control.

That book just happens to be the one on my desk, but there are plenty of
alternatives that cover the same subject matter.

Perhaps you could add this to the developer's FAQ?

-Neil

  7. Re: Learning PostgreSQL

    Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@dcc.uchile.cl> — 2003-10-05T21:59:51Z

    On Sun, Oct 05, 2003 at 11:15:56PM +0200, Gevik Babakhani wrote:

Gevik,

> I know this might look like a childish question and you 
> probably might have a good laugh over this but I
> would like to learn how PostgreSQL works inside-out.
> Could anyone please give me some pointers of where to start
> in/from the source code?

You probably won't hear too many laughs.  I don't think it's a childish
question myself.

The best place to start is probably Bruce Momjian's presentations.  You
can find some of them at http://developer.postgresql.org.  Make sure you
read the "Flowchart of the PostgreSQL backend" and follow all the links
you can find there.

Also read the whole "Internals" chapter in the documentation, at
http://candle.pha.pa.us/main/writings/pgsql/sgml/internals.html

Then you will probably need to poke at the README files spread through
the source code.  After that, there probably isn't much else short of
reading the actual source code.  If you like it, we will be hopefully
hearing back from you again as you try to contribute something...

-- 
Alvaro Herrera (<alvherre[a]dcc.uchile.cl>)
"Aprender sin pensar es inútil; pensar sin aprender, peligroso" (Confucio)

  8. Re: Learning PostgreSQL

    Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> — 2003-10-05T22:23:34Z

    Neil Conway wrote:
> On Sun, 2003-10-05 at 17:45, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > Neil Conway wrote:
> > > Depending on what part of the source you're interested in, a book on
> > > DBMS implementation might also be useful, such as
> 
> > Wow, $100.
> 
> Well, it's a CS textbook -- I have several textbooks this semester that
> are > $100.
> 
> >   Does it cover internals?
> 
> Yeah, although it's more of a broad survey of DB-related topics, so the
> internals coverage isn't that in-depth. It talks about storage/indexing
> (the heap, ISAM/B+-tree indexes, hash indexes, etc.), query evaluation,
> query optimization, transaction management & concurrency control.
> 
> That book just happens to be the one on my desk, but there are plenty of
> alternatives that cover the same subject matter.
> 
> Perhaps you could add this to the developer's FAQ?

Yes, is this the book we should recommend?  I know we have Gray's
transaction book on there already.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 359-1001
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  13 Roberts Road
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

  9. Re: Learning PostgreSQL

    Roderick A. Anderson <raanders@acm.org> — 2003-10-07T21:39:26Z

    On Sun, 5 Oct 2003, Bruce Momjian wrote:

> Neil Conway wrote:
> > On Sun, 2003-10-05 at 17:45, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > > Neil Conway wrote:
> > > > Depending on what part of the source you're interested in, a book on
> > > > DBMS implementation might also be useful, such as
> > 
> > > Wow, $100.
> > 
> > Well, it's a CS textbook -- I have several textbooks this semester that
> > are > $100.
> > 
> > >   Does it cover internals?
> > 
> > Yeah, although it's more of a broad survey of DB-related topics, so the
> > internals coverage isn't that in-depth. It talks about storage/indexing
> > (the heap, ISAM/B+-tree indexes, hash indexes, etc.), query evaluation,
> > query optimization, transaction management & concurrency control.
> > 
> > That book just happens to be the one on my desk, but there are plenty of
> > alternatives that cover the same subject matter.
> > 
> > Perhaps you could add this to the developer's FAQ?
> 
> Yes, is this the book we should recommend?  I know we have Gray's
> transaction book on there already.

I just got a message from Wiley about new tech books but can't justify a
desk copy as I only teach part time at a two year college and not
database. But ... I looked at a sample chapter and saw PostgreSQL as the
RDBMS.  That was a plus in my book.
   The author is Richard Watson and I feel I know the name but can't place
him.

http://he-cda.wiley.com/WileyCDA/HigherEdTitle/productCd-0471347116,courseCd-IS1900.html


Rod
-- 
  "Open Source Software - Sometimes you get more than you paid for..."