Re: Trying to learn the PL/pgsql procedural language

On 10/26/2014 08:53 PM, David G Johnston wrote:
> John R. Sowden wrote
>> I have been a foxpro/dos programmer for my small business for about 35
>> years.  I use linux for all but database stuff.  For db I use
>> foxpro/dosemu.  It looks like pg is my best bet for linux/sql. After
>> reading an o'reilly book on pg (_practical postgresql_), not one word
>> was mentioned in the procedural language chapter about displaying text.
>>    I write complete applications (in foxpro), not just queries and forms.
>>
>> What am I missing here?  I am not interested in trying to learn C, C++,
>> Java, or Perl in order to read sql databases.
>
> Unlike FoxPro, PostgreSQL does not have any kind of user interface
> development layer built in.  PL/pgsql is intended to allow you to process
> data using procedural logic instead of just a sequence of SQL set-based
> statements.  There is no way to write an entire user application purely with
> PL/pgsql - the functions you write end up performing specific data
> manipulation tasks that are glued together by the caller using a more full
> featured programming language.
>
> The book you chose to read is 12 YEARS old; you will find much is not
> covered there (or is outright wrong) simply because things have changed
> considerably in that time period.
>
> You will have to choose a language to develop your application in and then
> use an appropriate database driver for that language to connect to your
> PostgreSQL instance.  It is quite probable you could even continue using
> Foxpro and simply connect to PostgreSQL via ODBC.
>
> I would suggest you first read large portions of the current documentation -
> you will find that few introductory books on PostgreSQL exist because the
> documentation itself is well written.  That is not to say that newer books
> targeting newcomers do not exist...
>
> David J.
>
>
>
>
> --
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> Sent from the PostgreSQL - novice mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
>
Thank you both for your response.  This does not sound good.  It looks
like I am going to have to find a linux language that I can embed sql
commands to talk to pg.

John