PostgreSQL Features

 

List of PostgreSQL Features for quick review before interview

Source:https://www.postgresql.org/about/

Below is an inexhaustive list of various features found in PostgreSQL, with more being added in every major release:

• Data Types
  • Primitives: Integer, Numeric, String, Boolean
  • Structured: Date/Time, Array, Range, UUID
  • Document: JSON/JSONB, XML, Key-value (Hstore)
  • Geometry: Point, Line, Circle, Polygon
  • Customizations: Composite, Custom Types
• Data Integrity
  • UNIQUE, NOT NULL
  • Primary Keys
  • Foreign Keys
  • Exclusion Constraints
  • Explicit Locks, Advisory Locks
• Concurrency, Performance
  • Indexing: B-tree, Multicolumn, Expressions, Partial
  • Advanced Indexing: GiST, SP-Gist, KNN Gist, GIN, BRIN, Covering indexes, Bloom filters
  • Sophisticated query planner / optimizer, index-only scans, multicolumn statistics
  • Transactions, Nested Transactions (via savepoints)
  • Multi-Version concurrency Control (MVCC)
  • Parallelization of read queries and building B-tree indexes
  • Table partitioning
  • All transaction isolation levels defined in the SQL standard, including Serializable
  • Just-in-time (JIT) compilation of expressions
• Reliability, Disaster Recovery
  • Write-ahead Logging (WAL)
  • Replication: Asynchronous, Synchronous, Logical
  • Point-in-time-recovery (PITR), active standbys
  • Tablespaces
• Security
  • Authentication: GSSAPI, SSPI, LDAP, SCRAM-SHA-256, Certificate, and more
  • Robust access-control system
  • Column and row-level security
  • Multi-factor authentication with certificates and an additional method
• Extensibility
  • Stored functions and procedures
  • Procedural Languages: PL/PGSQL, Perl, Python (and many more)
  • SQL/JSON path expressions
  • Foreign data wrappers: connect to other databases or streams with a standard SQL interface
  • Customizable storage interface for tables
  • Many extensions that provide additional functionality, including PostGIS
• Internationalization, Text Search
  • Support for international character sets, e.g. through ICU collations
  • Case-insensitive and accent-insensitive collations
  • Full-text search

There are many more features that you can discover in the PostgreSQL documentation. Additionally, PostgreSQL is highly extensible: many features, such as indexes, have defined APIs so that you can build out with PostgreSQL to solve your challenges.