Cover; Copyright; Credits; About the Authors; About the Reviewer; www.PacktPub.com; Table of Contents; Preface; Chapter 1:What Is a PostgreSQL Server?; Why program in the server?; Using PL/pgSQL for integrity checks; About this book's code examples; Switching to the expanded display; Moving beyond simple functions; Data comparisons using operators; Managing related data with triggers; Auditing changes; Data cleaning; Custom sort orders; Programming best practices; KISS -- keep it simple stupid; DRY -- don't repeat yourself; YAGNI -- you ain't gonna need it; SOA -- service-oriented architecture.

Type extensibilityOn caching; Wrap up -- why program in the server?; Performance; Ease of maintenance; Simple ways to tighten security; Summary; Chapter 2:Server Programming Environment; Cost of acquisition; Availability of developers; Licensing; Predictability; Community; Procedural languages; Platform compatibility; Application design; Databases are considered harmful; Encapsulation; What does PostgreSQL offer?; Data locality; More basics; Transactions; General error reporting and error handling; User-defined functions (UDF); Other parameters; More control; Summary.

Chapter 3:Your First PL/pgSQL FunctionWhy PL/pgSQL?; Structure of a PL/pgSQL function; Accessing function arguments; Conditional expressions; Loops with counters; Looping through query results; PERFORM versus SELECT; Returning a record; Acting on function results; Summary; Chapter 4:Returning Structured Data; Sets and arrays; Returning sets; Returning a set of integers; Using a set-returning function; Returning rows from a function; Functions based on views; OUT parameters and records; OUT parameters; Returning records; Using RETURNS TABLE; Returning with no predefined structure.

Returning SETOF ANYVariadic argument lists; Summary of RETURN SETOF variants; Returning cursors; Iterating over cursors returned from another function; Wrap up of functions returning a cursor(s); Other ways to work with structured data; Complex data types for modern world -- XML and JSON; XML data type and returning data as XML from functions; Returning data in the JSON format; Summary; Chapter 5:PL/pgSQL Trigger Functions; Creating the trigger function; Creating the trigger; Simple ""Hey, I'm called"" trigger; The audit trigger; Disallowing DELETE; Disallowing TRUNCATE.

Modifying the NEW recordTimestamping trigger; Immutable fields trigger; Controlling when a trigger is called; Conditional trigger; Trigger on specific field changes; Visibility; And most importantly -- use triggers cautiously!; Variables passed to the PL/pgSQL TRIGGER function; Summary; Chapter 6:Debugging PL/pgSQL; ''Manual'' debugging with RAISE NOTICE; Throwing exceptions; Logging to a file; Advantages of RAISE NOTICE; Disadvantages of RAISE NOTICE; Visual debugging; Getting the debugger installed; Installing pgAdmin3; Using the debugger; Advantages of the debugger.