PostgreSQL Essential Reference is a reference book for developers and system administrators who are already familiar with SQL database concepts but that need clear and concise documentation that is specific to PostgreSQL.
The book is divided into 3 parts; Basic SQL Reference, PostgreSQL specifics, and PostgreSQL administration. On a whole, it provides a command, the syntax, available options, description, and example code. Readers will be able to easily utilize the code and concepts into their use f the product.
An added advantage to this book is that provides all reference material in two ways; alphabetically and by task. This is important because readers of the book will be looking for this information by both methods.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 28 Ratings

Hardcopy of on-line docs - 2003-06-30
Reviewer Rating:
There's very little in the way of new information in this book; it's essentially a hard-copy of the on-line reference manual. Some people will find that valuable, but others won't. Buyer beware.

= * * * * - 2002-08-12
Reviewer Rating:
This is a reference book. As of mid 2002, I do not see any other book which is comparable. This is not a book for teaching SQL or relational databases. This is a book which explains the aspects of PostgreSQL which are distinct to PostgreSQL, and gives brief detailed descriptions of the interfaces presented to users and developers working with PostgreSQL.

For what it is, I think this book is pretty good. It would agree that it is a relatively thin layer on top of the PostgreSQL documentation; it does not have nearly the supplementary information that I would expect from, say, an O'Reilly "PostgreSQL in a nutshell", but alas there is no such book yet (Practical PostgreSQL is good but not comparable).

Sum profreading mite be a good idea... - 2003-09-26
Reviewer Rating:
As an experienced programmer learning postgresQL, I have not been at all impressed by the number of typos in this book, averaging at least one on each of the pages I have looked at in detail (at least the ones that are not just a virtual cut-and-paste of the online documentation), e.g:

eg. pg 245 - should be two single quote characters with raise notice, not one double quote
pg 246 - should be returns not return
pg 247 - need an extra end if with the else if, or to use elsif
... etc.

All seemingly trivial, but could waste lots of time for a novice programmer without ready access to the online documentation. The online documentation at postgresql.com is free and to me seems clear and largely free of typos. It seems to be a book one pays for needs to improve on this to be worth the money, whereas the mistakes in this book make it actually worse. Shame, as they may have crept in at the publishing stage and not be the author's fault.

Lacked research - 2002-07-31
Reviewer Rating:
Flipping through the book in a shop, rather than buying and reading it cover to cover, revealing some woeful inadequecies.

Most significantly, the section on PL/perl is laughable. The sheer number of mistakes in that part are enough to warrant removal of that bit, and replacing with a new part rather than just fixing the errors.

On the basis of that spot analysis, I cannot recommend the book since if they didn't even check that such a simple thing was correct, then how could the rest of the book have fared?

Mixed blessings. - 2005-09-20
Reviewer Rating:
Personally I found this book to be a reasonably handy reference to the basic syntax of PostgreSQL. I agree that it largely duplicates information online, but some of us like to look these things up in an actual book. Section IV on programming with PostgreSQL is a complete loss.

Don't buy the book if you're interested in stored procedures (functions) or client side programming. Do buy it if you want a handy syntax reference.

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