Re: [SQL] questions on features

> All,
> I've just about convinced a friend to rip out an old DB->Web system at their
> company and replace it with a linux solution running php and postgres. There
> are some issues however. They are running oracle 7.3 on a non-y2k
> compliant AIX box, with a non y2k complient front-end cgi. As they are used to
> oracle they had some questions about the features of postgres.
>
> 1) Does postgres support formatting of columns, say in monetary format. That
> is using a select, have postgres format the value of the column in dollars,
> ect.

Yes, define it as money. Even supports foreign stuff, I think.

>
> 2) Does postgres support the || feature in selectes. That is having a select
> look like: select a || '-' || b from fubar; to get output that looks like
> 1-2
> 2-3
> 3-4
> ect...

Yes, but you have to use parens if you use more than one ||. This is
because of the type-extensibility features.

select (a || b) || c.

>
> 3) When will postgres support: select count(distinct(*)) from fubar; ? I
> would guess this falls into sub-selects?

Not sure.

>
> 4) Are there any better clients than psql? The psql client is very
> unforgiving in that if you mis-type a piece of sql, you cannot tell
> psql to abort the current expression.(At least not that I'm aware of)

Everyone I heard loves psql. \e lets you edit the query, or up-arrow.

>
> 5) What about a report generator, does postgres have one?

Not sure, but I have heard of some.

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