Am Donnerstag, 20. Oktober 2005 19:59 schrieb David Fetter: > On Thu, Oct 20, 2005 at 06:04:53PM +0200, Janning Vygen wrote: > > By the way: What i really miss is a troubleshooting document in the > > docs. > > > That's a great idea. Please post a doc patch with some of the > > > troubleshooting tips you have in mind :) Hi David, I really would like to start it! Two reasons for me not to do it: I don't speak english very well, technical writing is even worse as my native language is german. Second: i have experience with postgresql for 5 years, but i don't think i have enough technical background for writing articles about troubleshooting. If it still makes sense to start, i will! But there is much more than troubleshooting what i miss. PostgreSQL was my first use of any SQL Database, so i have come across many problems an read the documentation many times. There is a lot of information, but some of the excellent features of PostgreSQL are hidden. Look at the relevant sections for UPDATE statement. http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.0/interactive/tutorial-update.html http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.0/interactive/dml-update.html http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.0/interactive/sql-update.html The UPDATE statement is so powerful in Postgresql, but it is only mentioned in the reference that you can use a from list. But it doesn't show up with any examples of some more complicated UPDATE statements. Of course, people coming from Oracle might know it. But there should be more stuff for people coming from mysql or from nowhere (like me). BTW: Reference Documentation of UPDATE should mention that you can't do a relational UPDATE like "UPDATE tableA SET id = id + 1;" if id is a primary key (in relational theory it should work!) Another point: the interactive mode looses information between versions. In 7.3 there were some user contributed notes: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/7.3/interactive/sql-update.html in 7.4 and 8.0 they are gone. As i use a lot of PHP i can tell you that user contributed notes are great. They are sometimes wrong, sometimes misleading, but always helps you to see, what problems other people had. I think that postgresql needs much docs and articles, how-tos and tipps&tricks. (really great stuff is at http://www.varlena.com/varlena/GeneralBits/ and techdocs has more links to great stuff but it is all scattered on many places. Maybe something like a Wiki would help with Sections about: - Troubleshooting - Examples - Howtos - Technical articels - FAQ - Postgresql GUI clients - High availability I would like to help as far as i can: starting with troubleshooting, installing and maintaining a wiki, collecting information. As you are more experienced, give me a hint what to do first if i can help at all. kind regards, Janning ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend
