Postgres, developed originally in the UC Berkeley Computer Science Department, pioneered many of the object-relational concepts now becoming available in some commercial databases. It provides SQL92/SQL3 language support, transaction integrity, and type extensibility. PostgreSQL is a public-domain, open source descendant of this original Berkeley code.
PostgreSQL is available without cost. The current version is available at www.PostgreSQL.org.
Since version 6.3 (03/02/1998) PostgreSQL uses unix domain sockets. A table is shown below describing these new connection possibilities. This socket will be found in /tmp/.s.PGSQL.5432. This option can be enabled with the '-i' flag to postmaster and it's meaning is: "listen on TCP/IP sockets as well as Unix domain sockets".
Table 1. Postmaster and PHP
Postmaster | PHP | Status |
---|---|---|
postmaster & | pg_connect("dbname=MyDbName"); | OK |
postmaster -i & | pg_connect("dbname=MyDbName"); | OK |
postmaster & | pg_connect("host=localhost dbname=MyDbName"); | Unable to connect to PostgreSQL server: connectDB() failed: Is the postmaster running and accepting TCP/IP (with -i) connection at 'localhost' on port '5432'? in /path/to/file.php3 on line 20. |
postmaster -i & | pg_connect("host=localhost dbname=MyDbName"); | OK |
One can establish a connection with the following value pairs set in the command string: $conn = pg_Connect("host=myHost port=myPort tty=myTTY options=myOptions user=myUser password=myPassword dbname=myDB");
The previous syntax of: $conn = pg_connect ("host", "port", "options", "tty", "dbname") has been deprecated.
To use the large object (lo) interface, it is necessary to enclose it within a transaction block. A transaction block starts with a begin and if the transaction was valid ends with commit or end. If the transaction fails the transaction should be closed with rollback or abort.