PostgreSQL Basic Building Blocks

In this chapter, we'll build a PostgreSQL database, and explore the basic building blocks of PostgreSQL. The conceptual model of a car web portal, which was presented in Chapter 1, Relational Databases, will be translated into a physical model. Also, some data-modeling techniques, such as surrogate keys, will be discussed briefly and some coding best practices will be presented.

We'll also take a look at the hierarchy of the database objects in PostgreSQL. This will help you to understand how to configure the database cluster and tune its settings. More detailed information will be presented to show the usage of template databases, user databases, roles, tablespaces, schemas, configuration settings, and tables. We will cover the following topics in this chapter:

• Database coding
• PostgreSQL object hierarchy
• PostgreSQL database components
• Native PostgreSQL data types
• The car web portal database