intro.sgml
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上传日期:2007-01-07
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- <chapter id="intro">
- <title>Introduction</title>
- <para>
- This document is the user manual for the
- <ulink url="http://postgresql.org/"><productname>PostgreSQL</productname></ulink>
- database management system, originally developed at the University
- of California at Berkeley.
- <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> is based on
- <ulink url="http://s2k-ftp.CS.Berkeley.EDU:8000/postgres/postgres.html">
- <productname>Postgres release 4.2</productname></ulink>.
- The <productname>Postgres</productname> project,
- led by Professor Michael Stonebraker, was sponsored by the
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (<acronym>DARPA</acronym>), the
- Army Research Office (<acronym>ARO</acronym>), the National Science
- Foundation (<acronym>NSF</acronym>), and ESL, Inc.
- </para>
- <sect1>
- <title> What is <productname>Postgres</productname>?</title>
- <para>
- 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.
- <productname>Postgres</productname> offers substantial additional
- power by incorporating the following four additional
- basic concepts in such a way that users can easily
- extend the system:
- <simplelist>
- <member>classes</member>
- <member>inheritance</member>
- <member>types</member>
- <member>functions</member>
- </simplelist>
- </para>
- <para>
- Other features provide additional power and flexibility:
- <simplelist>
- <member>constraints</member>
- <member>triggers</member>
- <member>rules</member>
- <member>transaction integrity</member>
- </simplelist>
- </para>
- <para>
- These features put <productname>Postgres</productname> into the category of databases
- referred to as <firstterm>object-relational</firstterm>. Note that this is distinct
- from those referred to as <firstterm>object-oriented</firstterm>, which in general
- are not as well suited to supporting the traditional relational database languages.
- So, although <productname>Postgres</productname> has some object-oriented features,
- it is firmly in the relational database world. In fact, some commercial databases
- have recently incorporated features pioneered by <productname>Postgres</productname>.
- </para>
- </sect1>
- &history;
- &about;
- &info;
- ¬ation;
- &y2k;
- &legal;
- </chapter>
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