2 2.3. Creating a New Table #
4 You can create a new table by specifying the table name, along with all
5 column names and their types:
8 temp_lo int, -- low temperature
9 temp_hi int, -- high temperature
10 prcp real, -- precipitation
14 You can enter this into psql with the line breaks. psql will recognize
15 that the command is not terminated until the semicolon.
17 White space (i.e., spaces, tabs, and newlines) can be used freely in
18 SQL commands. That means you can type the command aligned differently
19 than above, or even all on one line. Two dashes (“--”) introduce
20 comments. Whatever follows them is ignored up to the end of the line.
21 SQL is case-insensitive about key words and identifiers, except when
22 identifiers are double-quoted to preserve the case (not done above).
24 varchar(80) specifies a data type that can store arbitrary character
25 strings up to 80 characters in length. int is the normal integer type.
26 real is a type for storing single precision floating-point numbers.
27 date should be self-explanatory. (Yes, the column of type date is also
28 named date. This might be convenient or confusing — you choose.)
30 PostgreSQL supports the standard SQL types int, smallint, real, double
31 precision, char(N), varchar(N), date, time, timestamp, and interval, as
32 well as other types of general utility and a rich set of geometric
33 types. PostgreSQL can be customized with an arbitrary number of
34 user-defined data types. Consequently, type names are not key words in
35 the syntax, except where required to support special cases in the SQL
38 The second example will store cities and their associated geographical
45 The point type is an example of a PostgreSQL-specific data type.
47 Finally, it should be mentioned that if you don't need a table any
48 longer or want to recreate it differently you can remove it using the