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Hasta la vista, SQL_ASCII
Converting the encoding of your production database from SQL_ASCII to UTF8 can be a tricky challenge if you cannot accept any down time. The method presented here scans through all rows with...
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Add indexes without slowing down writes
I find myself facing a particular dilemma quite often. Should I keep this rarely used index or drop it to enhance write performance? If the index isn’t used at all, it’s no problem, just drop it, but...
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Call PostgreSQL functions via HTTP JSON-RPC
Everytime I deploy a new stored procedure, it bothers me I have to update the middle-layer to allow my front-end code to use the function. My middle-layer between the front-end code and the database...
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Deploying PostgreSQL Stored Procedures
When you mention stored procedures, I see horror and disgust in the eyes of many developers. “Stored Procedures are like crack, they are addictive and harmful.” I agree they are addictive, but harmful?...
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PostgreSQL 9.3devel – plpgsql_check_function
One of the biggest incompatibility issues between 9.x and 8.4 is the new behavior of PL/pgSQL functions where parameter names are in conflict with columns. In 8.4, PL/pgSQL silently use the value of...
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Foreign Key Locks
In August 2010, I sent an email to pghackers reporting a strange deadlock problem. I couldn’t understand how it was possible you could get a deadlock by updating the very same row again later in the...
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Production upgrade from 8.4 to 9.1
At Wednesday, 2012-08-15 05:00 am, the work began. Four hours of downtime later at 09:00 am the upgrade was complete. Two brand new identical HP DL380 Gen8 servers with 400GB SSD-disks and 192GB RAM...
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Announcing the pci-blackbox: PCI-DSS compliant system with 3-D Secure...
The pci-blackbox aims to simplify the process of becoming PCI-DSS compliant, by handling card data in an isolated system, physically and logically separated from the rest of the system. The idea comes...
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Will PostgreSQL 9.5 Bring Back Moore’s Law?
I just watched a presentation from Mar 11, 2012, where Paul Graham / YCombinator is giving away seven billion dollar startup ideas: A New Search Engine Replace Email Replace Universities Internet Drama...
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Secure deployment of PostgreSQL functions
Two people might be simultaneously modifying the same database function. To protect against this scenario, I created a little tool to stage the source code of all functions in pg_proc and the...
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Securing PostgreSQL using hostssl cert clientcert=1
This is not the first time I’ve struggled getting SSL certificate validation to work, so I thought this time I better write down how I did to avoid future time-waste. For security and convenience...
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PL/pgSQL #1 annoyance
I cannot count the number of times I’ve written the same stupid code, just to do something as simple as making sure the UPDATE updates exactly one row. Last time I complained about this in public was...
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::xml madness
Nobody likes XML, except masochists and Microsoft consultants who charge by the hour. Sometimes you are forced to deal with XML anyway, such as parsing the response from external APIs. Parsing XML is...
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Fun with pg_catalog.pg_depend
Learning PostgreSQL and SQL in general probably begins with the concept of TABLES. Then probably VIEWS, INDEXES and maybe TRIGGERS. Some users might not ever go any further, which is sad, because there...
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Inofficial PgParty Stockholm
Friday the 28th of June we will be celebrating the awesomeness of PostgreSQL and having the pleasure of welcoming everyone who can exploit the guest list and manage to INSERT their name into it. This...
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PostgreSQL 9.3devel – plpgsql_check_function
One of the biggest incompatibility issues between 9.x and 8.4 is the new behavior of PL/pgSQL functions where parameter names are in conflict with columns. In 8.4, PL/pgSQL silently use the value of...
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SET search_path for all SECURITY DEFINER functions
As pointed out by Peter Eisentraut in a blog post named Schema Search Paths Considered Pain in the Butt, you need to make sure the search_path is explicitly set for all SECURITY DEFINER functions in...
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Garbage Collection of Unused PostgreSQL Tables and Columns
Over the last five years, our database at Trustly have kept growing in number of tables, columns and functions, where some of the tables and columns aren’t being used by any database functions any...
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psql \watch 1400000000 epoch time countdown counter
SET TIMEZONE TO 'UTC'; \t \a \pset fieldsep ' ' SELECT (('epoch'::timestamptz + 14*10^8 * '1 s'::interval)-now())::interval(0), (14*10^8-extract(epoch from now()))::int, extract(epoch from now())::int...
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“How we use PostgreSQL at Trustly” at PGConf.EU
Slides from my talk, How we use PostgreSQL at Trustly, are now available.
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