Re: [SQL] arrays

Achilleas Mantzios <achill@matrix.gatewaynet.com>

From: Achilleus Mantzios <achill@matrix.gatewaynet.com>
To: Bruno Wolff III <bruno@wolff.to>
Cc: Mike Sosteric <mikes@athabascau.ca>, <pgsql-general@postgresql.org>, <pgsql-sql@postgresql.org>
Date: 2002-09-30T13:18:54Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers, pgsql-general, pgsql-sql
On Mon, 30 Sep 2002, Bruno Wolff III wrote:

>
> It is unusual to want to store arrays in a database. Normally you want to
> use additional tables instead. For example multilanguage titles is something
> I would expect to be in a table that had a column referencing back to
> another table defining the object a title was for, a column with the
> title and a column with the language.

I think arrays are one of the cool features of postgres
(along with gist indexes).

Here are some common uses:

- Tree representation (the genealogical from child to ancestors approach)
- Storing of polynomial formulae of arbitary degree

checkout the intarray package in contrib for further info.

I think pgsql arrays provide a natural solution to certain problems
where it fits.



==================================================================
Achilleus Mantzios
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