PostgreSQL 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/SQL99 language support, transaction integrity and type extensibility. PostgreSQL is an open source descendant of this original Berkeley code. PostgreSQL database is Open Source product and available without cost. To use PostgreSQL support, you need PostgreSQL 6.5 or later. PostgreSQL 7.0 or later to enable all PostgreSQL module feature. PostgreSQL supports many character encoding including multibyte character encoding. The current version and more information about PostgreSQL is available at &url.pgsql;. In order to enable PostgreSQL support, --with-pgsql[=DIR] is required when you compile PHP. If shared object module is available, PostgreSQL module may be loaded using extension directive in &php.ini; or dl function. Supported ini directives are described in php.ini-dist which comes with source distribution. Using the PostgreSQL module with PHP 4.0.6 is not recommended due to a bug in the notice message handling code. Use 4.1.0 or later. PostgreSQL function names will be changed in 4.2.0 release to confirm to current coding standards. Most of new names will have additional underscores, e.g. pg_lo_open(). Some functions are renamed to different name for consistency. e.g. pg_exec() to pg_query(). Older names can be used in 4.2.0 and a few releases from 4.2.0, but they may be deleted in the future. Old name New name pg_exec pg_query pg_getlastoid pg_last_oid pg_cmdtuples pg_affected_rows pg_numrows pg_num_rows pg_numfields pg_num_fields pg_fieldname pg_field_name pg_fieldsize pg_field_size pg_fieldnum pg_field_num pg_fieldprtlen pg_field_prtlen pg_fieldisnull pg_field_is_null pg_freeresult pg_free_result pg_result pg_fetch_result pg_loreadall pg_lo_read_all pg_locreate pg_lo_create pg_lounlink pg_lo_unlink pg_loopen pg_lo_open pg_loclose pg_lo_close pg_loread pg_lo_read pg_lowrite pg_lo_write pg_loimport pg_lo_import pg_loexport pg_lo_export The old pg_connect/pg_pconnect syntax will be deprecated to support asynchronous connections in the future. Please use a connection string for pg_connect and pg_pconnect. Not all functions are supported by all builds. It depends on your libpq (The PostgreSQL C Client interface) version and how libpq is compiled. If there is missing function, libpq does not support the feature required for the function. It is also important that you use newer libpq than PostgreSQL Server to be connected. If you use libpq older than PostgreSQL Server expects, you may have problems. Since version 6.3 (03/02/1998) PostgreSQL uses unix domain sockets by default. TCP port will NOT be opened by default. 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". 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.php on line 20. postmaster -i & pg_connect("host=localhost dbname=MyDbName"); OK A connection to PostgreSQL server can be established with the following value pairs set in the command string: $conn = pg_connect("host=myHost port=myPort tty=myTTY options=myOptions dbname=myDB user=myUser password=myPassword "); The previous syntax of: $conn = pg_connect ("host", "port", "options", "tty", "dbname") has been deprecated. Environmental variables affect PostgreSQL server/client behavior. For example, PostgreSQL module will lookup PGHOST environment variable when the hostname is omitted in the connection string. Supported environment variables are different from version to version. Refer to PostgreSQL Programmer's Manual (libpq - Environment Variables) for details. Make sure you set environment variables for appropriate user. Use $_ENV or getenv to check which environment variables are available to the current process. Starting with PostgreSQL 7.1.0, you can store up to 1GB into a field of type text. In older versions, this was limited to the block size (default was 8KB, maximum was 32KB, defined at compile time) To use the large object (lo) interface, it is required to enclose large object functions within a transaction block. A transaction block starts with a SQL statement 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. ]]> You should not close the connection to the PostgreSQL server before closing the large object. &reference.pgsql.functions;