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Functions for Manipulating Data in PostgreSQL

Brian Piccolo

Sr. Director, Digital Strategy

The Sakila Database

Highly normalized
Representative data types
Custom functions

Topics

Common data types in PostgreSQL
Date and time functions and operators
Parsing and manipulating text
Full-text search and PostgreSQL Extensions

Common data types

Text data types
- CHAR, VARCHAR and TEXT
Numeric data types
- INT and DECIMAL
Date / time data types
- DATE, TIME, TIMESTAMP, INTERVAL
Arrays

Text data types

SELECT title 
FROM film
LIMIT 5

+-------------------+
| title             |
|-------------------|
| ACADEMY DINOSAUR  |
| ACE GOLDFINGER    |
| ADAPTATION HOLES  |
| AFFAIR PREJUDICE  |
| AFRICAN EGG       |
+-------------------+

SELECT description 
FROM film
LIMIT 2

+-----------------------------------------+
| description                             |
|-----------------------------------------|
| A Epic Drama of a Feminist And a Mad    |     
|  Scientist who must Battle a Teacher in |
|  The Canadian Rockies.                  |
| A Astounding Epistle of a Database      |
|  Administrator And a Explorer who       |
|  must Find a Car in Ancient China       |
+-----------------------------------------+

Numeric data types

SELECT 
    payment_id 
FROM payment 
LIMIT 5

+-------------+
| payment_id  |
|-------------|
| 1           |
| 2           |
| 3           |
| 4           |
| 5           |
+-------------+

SELECT 
    amount
FROM payment 
LIMIT 5

+--------+
| amount |
|--------|
| 2.99   |
| 0.99   |
| 5.99   |
| 0.99   |
| 9.99   |
+--------+

Determining data types from existing tables

SELECT 
    title, 
    description, 
    special_features 
FROM FILM 
LIMIT 5

+---------------+------------------+------------------------------+
| title         |  description     | special_features             |
|---------------|------------------|------------------------------|
| ACADEMY D...  | A Epic...        | {Deleted Scenes,Behi...}     |
| ACE GOLD...   | A Astound..      | {Trailers,Deleted Scenes}    |
| AFFAIR PR...  | A Fanciful,..    | {Commentaries,Behind the...} |
+---------------+------------------+------------------------------+

Determining data types from existing tables

SELECT
    column_name, 
    data_type
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS 
WHERE column_name in ('title','description','special_features')
  AND table_name ='film';

+------------------+-------------------+
| column_name      | data_type         |
|------------------|-------------------|
| title            | character varying |
| description      | text              |
| special_features | ARRAY             |
+------------------+-------------------+

Let's practice!

Functions for Manipulating Data in PostgreSQL