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diff --git a/doc/manual/intro.html b/doc/manual/intro.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..cf7b75af57b --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/manual/intro.html @@ -0,0 +1,201 @@ +<HTML> +<HEAD> + <TITLE>The POSTGRES95 User Manual - Introduction</TITLE> +</HEAD> + +<BODY> +<font size=-1> +<A HREF="pg95user.html">[ TOC ]</A> +[ Previous ] +<A HREF="architec.html">[ Next ]</A> +</font> +<HR> +<H1>1. INTRODUCTION</H1> +<HR> + This document is the user manual for the + <A HREF="http://s2k-ftp.cs.berkeley.edu:8000/postgres95/"><B>POSTGRES95</B></A> + database management system developed at the University + of California at Berkeley. <B>POSTGRES95</B> is based on + <A HREF="http://s2k-ftp.CS.Berkeley.EDU:8000/postgres/postgres.html"> + <B>POSTGRES release 4.2</B></A>. The POSTGRES project, + led by Professor Michael Stonebraker, has been sponsored by the + Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the + Army Research Office (ARO), the National Science + Foundation (NSF), and ESL, Inc. +<H2>1.1. What is POSTGRES?</H2> + Traditional relational database management systems + (DBMSs) support a data model consisting of a collection + of named relations, containing attributes of a specific + type. In current commercial systems, possible types + include floating point numbers, integers, character + strings, money, and dates. It is commonly recognized + that this model is inadequate for future data + processing applications. + The relational model successfully replaced previous + models in part because of its "Spartan simplicity". + However, as mentioned, this simplicity often makes the + implementation of certain applications very difficult + to implement. POSTGRES offers substantial additional + power by incorporating the following four additional + basic constructs in such a way that users can easily + extend the system: +<p> +<PRE> classes + inheritance + types + functions +</PRE><p> + In addition, POSTGRES supports a powerful production + rule system. + +<H2><A NAME="a-short-history-of-the-postgres-project">1.2. A Short History of the POSTGRES Project</A></H2> + Implementation of the POSTGRES DBMS began in 1986. The + initial concepts for the system were presented in + <A HREF="refs.html#STON86">[STON86]</A> and the definition of the initial data model + appeared in <A HREF="refs.html#ROW87">[ROWE87]</A>. The design of the rule system at + that time was described in <A HREF="refs.html#STON87a">[STON87a]</A>. The rationale + and architecture of the storage manager were detailed + in <A HREF="refs.html#STON87b">[STON87b]</A>. + POSTGRES has undergone several major releases since + then. The first "demoware" system became operational + in 1987 and was shown at the 1988 <B>ACM-SIGMOD</B> + Conference. We released Version 1, described in <A HREF="refs.html#STON90a">[STON90a]</A>, + to a few external users in June 1989. In response to a + critique of the first rule system <A HREF="refs.html#STON89">[STON89]</A>, the rule + system was redesigned <A HREF="refs.html#STON90">[STON90b]</A> and Version 2 was + released in June 1990 with the new rule system. + Version 3 appeared in 1991 and added support for multiple + storage managers, an improved query executor, and a + rewritten rewrite rule system. For the most part, + releases since then have focused on portability and + reliability. + POSTGRES has been used to implement many different + research and production applications. These include: a + financial data analysis system, a jet engine + performance monitoring package, an asteroid tracking + database, a medical information database, and several + geographic information systems. POSTGRES has also been + used as an educational tool at several universities. + Finally, <A HREF="http://www.illustra.com/">Illustra Information Technologies</A> picked up + the code and commercialized it. + POSTGRES became the primary data manager for the + <A HREF="http://www.sdsc.edu/0/Parts_Collabs/S2K/s2k_home.html">Sequoia 2000</A> scientific computing project in late 1992. + Furthermore, the size of the external user community + nearly doubled during 1993. It became increasingly + obvious that maintenance of the prototype code and + support was taking up large amounts of time that should + have been devoted to database research. In an effort + to reduce this support burden, the project officially + ended with <B>Version 4.2</B>. + +<H2><A NAME="what-is-postgres95">1.3. What is <B>POSTGRES95</B>?</A></H2> + <B>POSTGRES95</B> is a derivative of the last official release + of POSTGRES (version 4.2). The code is now completely + ANSI C and the code size has been trimmed by 25%. There + are a lot of internal changes that improve performance + and code maintainability. <B>POSTGRES95</B> runs about 30-50% + faster on the Wisconsin Benchmark compared to v4.2. + Apart from bug fixes, these are the major enhancements: +<UL> + <LI>The query language <B>POSTQUEL</B> has been replaced with + <B>SQL</B> (implemented in the server). We do not support + subqueries (which can be imitated with user defined + <B>SQL</B> functions) at the moment. Aggregates have been + re-implemented. We also added support for <B>GROUP BY</B>. + The <B>libpq</B> interface is still available for <B>C</B> + programs. + <LI>In addition to the monitor program, we provide a new + program (<B>psql</B>) which supports <B>GNU</B> <B>readline</B>. + <LI>We added a new front-end library, <B>libpgtcl</B>, that + supports <B>Tcl</B>-based clients. A sample shell, + pgtclsh, provides new Tcl commands to interface <B>tcl</B> + programs with the <B>POSTGRES95</B> backend. + <LI>The large object interface has been overhauled. We + kept Inversion large objects as the only mechanism + for storing large objects. (This is not to be + confused with the Inversion file system which has been + removed.) + <LI>The instance-level rule system has been removed. + <LI>Rules are still available as rewrite rules. + <LI>A short tutorial introducing regular <B>SQL</B> features as + well as those of ours is distributed with the source + code. + <LI><B>GNU</B> make (instead of <B>BSD</B> make) is used for the + build. Also, <B>POSTGRES95</B> can be compiled with an + unpatched <B>gcc</B> (data alignment of doubles has been + fixed). +</UL> +<p> +<H2><A NAME="about-this-release">1.4. About This Release</A></H2> + <B>POSTGRES95</B> is available free of charge. This manual + describes version 1.0 of <B>POSTGRES95</B>. The authors have + compiled and tested <B>POSTGRES95</B> on the following + platforms: +<p> +<center> +<table border=4> + <tr> + <th>Architecture</th> + <th>Processor</th> + <th>Operating System</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>DECstation 3000</td> + <td>Alpha AXP</td> + <td>OSF/1 2.1, 3.0, 3.2</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>DECstation 5000</td> + <td>MIPS</td> + <td>ULTRIX 4.4</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Sun4</td> + <td>SPARC</td> + <td>SunOS 4.1.3, 4.1.3_U1; Solaris 2.4</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>H-P 9000/700 and 800</td> + <td>PA-RISC</td> + <td>HP-UX 9.00, 9.01, 9.03</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Intel</td> + <td>X86</td> + <td>Linux 1.2.8, ELF</td> +</table> +</center> +<p> +<H2><A NAME="outline-of-this-manual">1.5. Outline of This Manual</A></H2> + From now on, We will use POSTGRES to mean <B>POSTGRES95</B>. + The first part of this manual goes over some basic sys- + tem concepts and procedures for starting the POSTGRES + system. We then turn to a tutorial overview of the + POSTGRES data model and SQL query language, introducing + a few of its advanced features. Next, we explain the + POSTGRES approach to extensibility and describe how + users can extend POSTGRES by adding user-defined types, + operators, aggregates, and both query language and pro- + gramming language functions. After an extremely brief + overview of the POSTGRES rule system, the manual + concludes with a detailed appendix that discusses some of + the more involved and operating system-specific + procedures involved in extending the system. +<HR> +<B>UNIX</B> is a trademark of X/Open, Ltd. Sun4, SPARC, SunOS +and Solaris are trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. DEC, +DECstation, Alpha AXP and ULTRIX are trademarks of Digital +Equipment Corp. PA-RISC and HP-UX are trademarks of +Hewlett-Packard Co. OSF/1 is a trademark of the Open +Software Foundation.<p> + + We assume proficiency with UNIX and C programming. + +<HR> +<font size=-1> +<A HREF="pg95user.html">[ TOC ]</A> +[ Previous ] +<A HREF="architec.html">[ Next ]</A> +</font> +</BODY> +</HTML> |