Rarely Used But Useful PostgreSQL Features

I’m an avid user of SQL and the variety of – frequently overlooked – features it provides.

However, unfortunately the possibilities of SQL and modern, advanced open source incarnations of RDBMS such as PostgreSQL aren’t utilised to the extent they could be when developing web or enterprise applications today. More often than not SQL database are perceived as a mere data store for persisting object-oriented data, which can give rise to the famous object-relational impedance mismatch.

SQL servers, PostgreSQL in particular, are capable of so much more, though. Take for example these features that come with PostgreSQL and examples of what you can achieve with them:

• Analyzing Large Datasets With SQL
• Hands-on SQL Tips: Sentinels And Window Functions

pgDash, a supplier of a diagnostic and monitoring solution for PostgreSQL, also posted an article on lesser-known PostgreSQL features you might want to try out.

From the features mentioned this article, I found pub / sub notifications, table inheritance and foreign data wrappers to be particularly interesting.