Postgres OnLine Journal - postgresql versions

http extension for windows updated to include PostgreSQL18 64-bit

nospam@example.com (Leo Hsu and Regina Obe) — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 23:03:00 -0400

Updated October 16th, 2025 64-bit package for PostgreSQL 18 http extension v1.7.0 release.

For those folks on windows who want to do http gets and posts directly from your PostgreSQL server, we've made binaries for the http extension for PostgreSQL Windows.

These are designed to work with PostgreSQL EDB windows distributions.

If you have PostGIS already installed, many of these files you will also already have since things like the libcurl and PCRE are also packaged with PostGIS.

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Learning PostgreSQL from AI and JSON exploration: Part 2

nospam@example.com (Leo Hsu and Regina Obe) — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 02:05:00 -0400

This is the second part of the series I started on Learning PostgreSQL from AI and JSON exploration: Part 1. For this 2nd part, I decided to try gpt-oss the 14GB model which was just released in the past week. My first impression, "When will this ai shut up about its thinking process?". Phi4 on the other hand gave a bit of a narrative about how it came up with answers but it did not write a novel about it and it also seemed more personable, using "My and you" instead of a distanced "User wants to". However gpt-os did become less chatty with a bit of coaxing. So anyway personality wise I prefer phi4. That is not to say that Gpt-oss doesn't have some wow factor. It created perfect SQL each time. I did not need to correct it. One of the other neat features of this model which I haven't had time to explore is ability to have it do browser searches and other agentic like stuff.

Again for this size model, speed of answering with my crappy graphics card and processor was not bad, but it was noticeably slower than Phi4. Given the impressive accuracy, I didn't mind too much and I suspect can be improved by tweaking some of its settings.

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PG 17 new random functions

nospam@example.com (Leo Hsu and Regina Obe) — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 22:45:00 -0500

Have you ever wanted to get a random integer between 1 and 10 and been a little annoyed the slightly cryptic code you had to write in PostgreSQL? PostgreSQL 17 random functions make that simpler. Sometimes it's the small changes that bring the most joy.

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PostgreSQL 17 64-bit for Windows FDWs

nospam@example.com (Leo Hsu and Regina Obe) — Mon, 23 Dec 2024 03:50:00 -0500

We are pleased to provide binaries for file_textarray_fdw and odbc_fdw for PostgreSQL 17 Windows 64-bit.

To use these, copy the files into your PostgreSQL 17 Windows 64-bit install folders in same named folders and then run CREATE EXTENSION as usual in the databases of your choice. More details in the packaged README.txt

These were compiled against PostgreSQL 17.2 using msys2 / mingw64 and tested against PostgreSQL 17.2 EDB windows distribution.

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PostgreSQL 16 64-bit for Windows FDWs

nospam@example.com (Leo Hsu and Regina Obe) — Sun, 03 Sep 2023 00:13:00 -0400

We are pleased to provide binaries for file_textarray_fdw and odbc_fdw for PostgreSQL 16 Windows 64-bit.

To use these, copy the files into your PostgreSQL 16 Windows 64-bit install folders in same named folders and then run CREATE EXTENSION as usual in the databases of your choice. More details in the packaged README.txt

These were compiled against PostgreSQL 16rc1, but should work fine against EDB PostgreSQL 16beta3.

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VARIADIC Unnest

nospam@example.com (Leo Hsu and Regina Obe) — Wed, 23 Nov 2022 00:26:00 -0500

PostgreSQL keeps on adding new great stuff. It's hard to remember all the good stuff that has been added over the years. One of the neat ones from the past is the variadic Unnest function which I believe was introduced in PostgreSQL 9.4. It's rare that I ever had to use it, but today I was handed some data where this function was just literally what the doctor ordered. I can't do anything this sweet in other databases I have used.

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PostgreSQL 15 64-bit for Windows FDWs

nospam@example.com (Leo Hsu and Regina Obe) — Fri, 28 Oct 2022 22:44:00 -0400

We are pleased to provide binaries for file_textarray_fdw and odbc_fdw for PostgreSQL 15 Windows 64-bit.

To use these, copy the files into your PostgreSQL 15 Windows 64-bit install folders in same named folders and then run CREATE EXTENSION as usual in the databases of your choice. More details in the packaged README.txt

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Multirange types in PostgreSQL 14

nospam@example.com (Leo Hsu and Regina Obe) — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 22:18:00 -0400

One of the features we are most excited about in recently released PostgreSQL 14 is the introduction of Multirange types. In a nutshell Multirange types are sets of non-overlapping ranges. Unlike array of ranges, they prevent overlaps and thus allow you to effectively model ranges with gaps.

One of the use cases we have for them is modeling time. For example if you wanted to keep track of the cumulative periods and how many days someone is in a hospital, you could store this as a datemultirange type.

There are quite a few operators and functions available in PostgreSQL 14, but some glaring ones we'd need include aggregates such as a union aggregate. That currently doesn't exist. There are however your standard operators like + (union two ranges) and * for intersection, and - for difference as well as your common containment boolean operators.

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PostgreSQL 14 64-bit for Windows FDWs

nospam@example.com (Leo Hsu and Regina Obe) — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 22:15:00 -0400

We are pleased to provide binaries for file_textarray_fdw and odbc_fdw for PostgreSQL 14 Windows 64-bit.

To use these, copy the files into your PostgreSQL 14 Windows 64-bit install folders in same named folders and then run CREATE EXTENSION as usual in the databases of your choice. More details in the packaged README.txt

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PostgreSQL 13 64-bit for Windows FDWs

nospam@example.com (Leo Hsu and Regina Obe) — Sun, 07 Mar 2021 14:53:00 -0500

We are pleased to provide binaries for file_textarray_fdw and odbc_fdw for PostgreSQL 13 Windows 64-bit.

To use these, copy the files into your PostgreSQL 13 Windows 64-bit install folders in same named folders and then run CREATE EXTENSION as usual in the databases of your choice. More details in the packaged README.txt

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PostgreSQL 12 64-bit for Windows FDWs

nospam@example.com (Leo Hsu and Regina Obe) — Wed, 23 Oct 2019 19:55:00 -0400

We are pleased to provide binaries for file_textarray_fdw and odbc_fdw for PostgreSQL 12 Windows 64-bit.

To use these, copy the files into your PostgreSQL 12 Windows 64-bit install folders in same named folders and then run CREATE EXTENSION as usual in the databases of your choice. More details in the packaged README.txt

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PostgreSQL 11 64-bit Windows FDWs

nospam@example.com (Leo Hsu and Regina Obe) — Sat, 07 Sep 2019 23:28:00 -0400

We are pleased to provide binaries for file_textarray_fdw and odbc_fdw for PostgreSQL 11 Windows 64-bit.

To use these, copy the files into your PostgreSQL 11 Windows 64-bit install folders in same named folders and then run CREATE EXTENSION as usual in the databases of your choice. More details in the packaged README.txt

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Compiling http extension on ubuntu 18.04

nospam@example.com (Leo Hsu and Regina Obe) — Mon, 11 Feb 2019 03:31:00 -0500

We recently installed PostgreSQL 11 on an Ubuntu 18.04 using apt.postgresql.org. Many of our favorite extensions were already available via apt (postgis, ogr_fdw to name a few), but it didn't have the http extension we use a lot. The http extension is pretty handy for querying things like Salesforce and other web api based systems. We'll outline the basic compile and install steps. While it's specific to the http extension, the process is similar for any other extension you may need to compile.

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PostGIS 2.5.1 Bundle for Windows

nospam@example.com (Leo Hsu and Regina Obe) — Sun, 09 Dec 2018 19:18:00 -0500

PostGIS 2.5.1 was released on November 18th 2018 and I finished off packaging the PostGIS 2.5.1 windows builds and installers targeted for PostgreSQL EDB distribution this weekend and pushing them up to stackbuilder. This covers PostgreSQL 9.4-11 64-bit and PostgreSQL 95-10 (32bit).

Note that PostGIS 2.5 series will be the last of the PostGIS 2s. Goodbye PostGIS 2.* and start playing with the in-development version of PostGIS 3. Snapshot binaries for PostGIS 3.0 windows development are also available on the PostGIS windows download page. These should work for both BigSQL and EDB distributions.

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Using procedures for batch geocoding and other batch processing

nospam@example.com (Leo Hsu and Regina Obe) — Sun, 08 Jul 2018 01:40:00 -0400

One of the features we are looking forward to in upcoming PostgreSQL 11 is the introduction of procedures via the CREATE PROCEDURE ANSI-SQL construct. The major benefit that sets apart procedures from functions is that procedures are not wrapped in an outer transaction and can have COMMITs within them. This means it's not an all or nothing like it is with functions. Even if you stop a procedure in motion, whatever work has been done and committed is saved. In the case of functions, a stop or failure would roll-back all the work. It also means you can see work in progress of a stored procedure since the work will already have been committed. This is a huge benefit for batch processing. Batch processing covers a lot of use-cases of PostGIS users since a good chunk of PostGIS work involves doing some kind of batch processing of data you get from third-parties or machines.

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