I'm going to guess that the answer is "no" based on the below error message (and this Google result), but is there anyway to perform a cross-database query using PostgreSQL?
databaseA=# select * from databaseB.public.someTableName;
ERROR: cross-database references are not implemented:
"databaseB.public.someTableName"
I'm working with some data that is partitioned across two databases although data is really shared between the two (userid columns in one database come from the users table in the other database). I have no idea why these are two separate databases instead of schema, but c'est la vie...
Note: As the original asker implied, if you are setting up two databases on the same machine you probably want to make two schemas instead - in that case you don't need anything special to query across them.
postgres_fdw
Use postgres_fdw (foreign data wrapper) to connect to tables in any Postgres database - local or remote.
Note that there are foreign data wrappers for other popular data sources. At this time, only postgres_fdw and file_fdw are part of the official Postgres distribution.
For Postgres versions before 9.3
Versions this old are no longer supported, but if you need to do this in a pre-2013 Postgres installation, there is a function called dblink.
I've never used it, but it is maintained and distributed with the rest of PostgreSQL. If you're using the version of PostgreSQL that came with your Linux distro, you might need to install a package called postgresql-contrib.
dblink() -- executes a query in a remote database
dblink executes a query (usually a SELECT, but it can be any SQL
statement that returns rows) in a remote database.
When two text arguments are given, the first one is first looked up as
a persistent connection's name; if found, the command is executed on
that connection. If not found, the first argument is treated as a
connection info string as for dblink_connect, and the indicated
connection is made just for the duration of this command.
one of the good example:
SELECT *
FROM table1 tb1
LEFT JOIN (
SELECT *
FROM dblink('dbname=db2','SELECT id, code FROM table2')
AS tb2(id int, code text);
) AS tb2 ON tb2.column = tb1.column;
Note: I am giving this information for future reference. Reference
I have run into this before an came to the same conclusion about cross database queries as you. What I ended up doing was using schemas to divide the table space that way I could keep the tables grouped but still query them all.
Just to add a bit more information.
There is no way to query a database other than the current one. Because PostgreSQL loads database-specific system catalogs, it is uncertain how a cross-database query should even behave.
contrib/dblink allows cross-database queries using function calls. Of course, a client can also make simultaneous connections to different databases and merge the results on the client side.
PostgreSQL FAQ
Yes, you can by using DBlink (postgresql only) and DBI-Link (allows foreign cross database queriers) and TDS_LInk which allows queries to be run against MS SQL server.
I have used DB-Link and TDS-link before with great success.
I have checked and tried to create a foreign key relationships between 2 tables in 2 different databases using both dblink and postgres_fdw but with no result.
Having read the other peoples feedback on this, for example here and here and in some other sources it looks like there is no way to do that currently:
The dblink and postgres_fdw indeed enable one to connect to and query tables in other databases, which is not possible with the standard Postgres, but they do not allow to establish foreign key relationships between tables in different databases.
If performance is important and most queries are read-only, I would suggest to replicate data over to another database. While this seems like unneeded duplication of data, it might help if indexes are required.
This can be done with simple on insert triggers which in turn call dblink to update another copy. There are also full-blown replication options (like Slony) but that's off-topic.
see https://www.cybertec-postgresql.com/en/joining-data-from-multiple-postgres-databases/ [published 2017]
These days you also have the option to use https://prestodb.io/
You can run SQL on that PrestoDB node and it will distribute the SQL query as required. It can connect to the same node twice for different databases, or it might be connecting to different nodes on different hosts.
It does not support:
DELETE
ALTER TABLE
CREATE TABLE (CREATE TABLE AS is supported)
GRANT
REVOKE
SHOW GRANTS
SHOW ROLES
SHOW ROLE GRANTS
So you should only use it for SELECT and JOIN needs. Connect directly to each database for the above needs. (It looks like you can also INSERT or UPDATE which is nice)
Client applications connect to PrestoDB primarily using JDBC, but other types of connection are possible including a Tableu compatible web API
This is an open source tool governed by the Linux Foundation and Presto Foundation.
The founding members of the Presto Foundation are: Facebook, Uber,
Twitter, and Alibaba.
The current members are: Facebook, Uber, Twitter, Alibaba, Alluxio,
Ahana, Upsolver, and Intel.
In case someone needs a more involved example on how to do cross-database queries, here's an example that cleans up the databasechangeloglock table on every database that has it:
CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS dblink;
DO
$$
DECLARE database_name TEXT;
DECLARE conn_template TEXT;
DECLARE conn_string TEXT;
DECLARE table_exists Boolean;
BEGIN
conn_template = 'user=myuser password=mypass dbname=';
FOR database_name IN
SELECT datname FROM pg_database
WHERE datistemplate = false
LOOP
conn_string = conn_template || database_name;
table_exists = (select table_exists_ from dblink(conn_string, '(select Count(*) > 0 from information_schema.tables where table_name = ''databasechangeloglock'')') as (table_exists_ Boolean));
IF table_exists THEN
perform dblink_exec(conn_string, 'delete from databasechangeloglock');
END IF;
END LOOP;
END
$$
Related
I'm going to guess that the answer is "no" based on the below error message (and this Google result), but is there anyway to perform a cross-database query using PostgreSQL?
databaseA=# select * from databaseB.public.someTableName;
ERROR: cross-database references are not implemented:
"databaseB.public.someTableName"
I'm working with some data that is partitioned across two databases although data is really shared between the two (userid columns in one database come from the users table in the other database). I have no idea why these are two separate databases instead of schema, but c'est la vie...
Note: As the original asker implied, if you are setting up two databases on the same machine you probably want to make two schemas instead - in that case you don't need anything special to query across them.
postgres_fdw
Use postgres_fdw (foreign data wrapper) to connect to tables in any Postgres database - local or remote.
Note that there are foreign data wrappers for other popular data sources. At this time, only postgres_fdw and file_fdw are part of the official Postgres distribution.
For Postgres versions before 9.3
Versions this old are no longer supported, but if you need to do this in a pre-2013 Postgres installation, there is a function called dblink.
I've never used it, but it is maintained and distributed with the rest of PostgreSQL. If you're using the version of PostgreSQL that came with your Linux distro, you might need to install a package called postgresql-contrib.
dblink() -- executes a query in a remote database
dblink executes a query (usually a SELECT, but it can be any SQL
statement that returns rows) in a remote database.
When two text arguments are given, the first one is first looked up as
a persistent connection's name; if found, the command is executed on
that connection. If not found, the first argument is treated as a
connection info string as for dblink_connect, and the indicated
connection is made just for the duration of this command.
one of the good example:
SELECT *
FROM table1 tb1
LEFT JOIN (
SELECT *
FROM dblink('dbname=db2','SELECT id, code FROM table2')
AS tb2(id int, code text);
) AS tb2 ON tb2.column = tb1.column;
Note: I am giving this information for future reference. Reference
I have run into this before an came to the same conclusion about cross database queries as you. What I ended up doing was using schemas to divide the table space that way I could keep the tables grouped but still query them all.
Just to add a bit more information.
There is no way to query a database other than the current one. Because PostgreSQL loads database-specific system catalogs, it is uncertain how a cross-database query should even behave.
contrib/dblink allows cross-database queries using function calls. Of course, a client can also make simultaneous connections to different databases and merge the results on the client side.
PostgreSQL FAQ
Yes, you can by using DBlink (postgresql only) and DBI-Link (allows foreign cross database queriers) and TDS_LInk which allows queries to be run against MS SQL server.
I have used DB-Link and TDS-link before with great success.
I have checked and tried to create a foreign key relationships between 2 tables in 2 different databases using both dblink and postgres_fdw but with no result.
Having read the other peoples feedback on this, for example here and here and in some other sources it looks like there is no way to do that currently:
The dblink and postgres_fdw indeed enable one to connect to and query tables in other databases, which is not possible with the standard Postgres, but they do not allow to establish foreign key relationships between tables in different databases.
If performance is important and most queries are read-only, I would suggest to replicate data over to another database. While this seems like unneeded duplication of data, it might help if indexes are required.
This can be done with simple on insert triggers which in turn call dblink to update another copy. There are also full-blown replication options (like Slony) but that's off-topic.
see https://www.cybertec-postgresql.com/en/joining-data-from-multiple-postgres-databases/ [published 2017]
These days you also have the option to use https://prestodb.io/
You can run SQL on that PrestoDB node and it will distribute the SQL query as required. It can connect to the same node twice for different databases, or it might be connecting to different nodes on different hosts.
It does not support:
DELETE
ALTER TABLE
CREATE TABLE (CREATE TABLE AS is supported)
GRANT
REVOKE
SHOW GRANTS
SHOW ROLES
SHOW ROLE GRANTS
So you should only use it for SELECT and JOIN needs. Connect directly to each database for the above needs. (It looks like you can also INSERT or UPDATE which is nice)
Client applications connect to PrestoDB primarily using JDBC, but other types of connection are possible including a Tableu compatible web API
This is an open source tool governed by the Linux Foundation and Presto Foundation.
The founding members of the Presto Foundation are: Facebook, Uber,
Twitter, and Alibaba.
The current members are: Facebook, Uber, Twitter, Alibaba, Alluxio,
Ahana, Upsolver, and Intel.
In case someone needs a more involved example on how to do cross-database queries, here's an example that cleans up the databasechangeloglock table on every database that has it:
CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS dblink;
DO
$$
DECLARE database_name TEXT;
DECLARE conn_template TEXT;
DECLARE conn_string TEXT;
DECLARE table_exists Boolean;
BEGIN
conn_template = 'user=myuser password=mypass dbname=';
FOR database_name IN
SELECT datname FROM pg_database
WHERE datistemplate = false
LOOP
conn_string = conn_template || database_name;
table_exists = (select table_exists_ from dblink(conn_string, '(select Count(*) > 0 from information_schema.tables where table_name = ''databasechangeloglock'')') as (table_exists_ Boolean));
IF table_exists THEN
perform dblink_exec(conn_string, 'delete from databasechangeloglock');
END IF;
END LOOP;
END
$$
I have a Rails 3.2 multi-tenant subdomain based app which I'm trying to migrate over to PostgreSQL's schemas (each account getting its own schema -- right now all of the accounts use the same tables).
So, I'm thinking I need to:
Create a new DB
Create a schema for each Account (its id) and the tables under them
Grab all the data that belongs to each account and insert it into the new DB under the schema of said account
Does that sound correct? If so, what's a good way of doing that? Should I write a ruby script that uses ActiveRecord, plucks the data, then inserts it (pretty inefficient, but should get the job done) into the new DB? Or does Postgres provide good tools for doing such a thing?
EDIT:
As Craig recommended, I created schemas in the existing DB. I then looped through all of the Accounts in a Rake task, copying the data over with something like:
Account.all.each do |account|
PgTools.set_search_path account.id, false
sql = %{INSERT INTO tags SELECT DISTINCT "tags".* FROM "tags" INNER JOIN "taggings" ON "tags"."id" = "taggings"."tag_id" WHERE "taggings"."tagger_id" = #{admin.id} AND "taggings"."tagger_type" = 'User'}
ActiveRecord::Base.connection.execute sql
#more such commands
end
I'd do the conversion with SQL personally.
Create the new schemas in the same database as the current one for easy migration, because you can't easily query across databases with PostgreSQL.
Migrate the data using appropriate INSERT INTO ... SELECT queries. To do it without having to disable any foreign keys, you should build a dependency graph of your data. Copy the data into tables that depend on nothing first, then tables that depend on them, and so on.
You'll need to repeat this for each customer schema, so consider creating a PL/PgSQL function that uses EXECUTE ... dynamic SQL to:
Create the schema for a customer
Create the tables within the schema
Copy data in the correct order by looping over a hard-coded array of table names, doing:
EXECUTE `'INSERT INTO '||quote_ident(newschema)||'.'||quote_ident(tablename)||' SELECT * FROM oldschema.'||quote_ident(tablename)||' WHERE customer_id = '||quote_literal(customer_id)'||;'
where newschema, tablename and customer_id are PL/PgSQL variables.
You can then invoke that function from SQL. While you could do just select convert_customer(c.id) FROM customer GROUP BY c.id, I'd probably do it from an external control script just so each customer's work got done and committed individually, avoiding the need to start again from scratch if the second-to-last customer conversion fails.
For bonus crazy points it's even possible to define triggers on the main customer schema's tables that replicate changes to already-migrated customers over to the copy of their data in the new schema, so they can keep using the system during the migration. I'd avoid that unless the migration was just too big to do without downtime, as it'd be a nightmare to test and you'd still need the triggers to throw an error on access by customer id x while the migration of x's data was actually in-progress, so it wouldn't be fully transparent.
If you're using different login users for different customers (strongly recommended) your function can also:
REVOKE rights on the schema from public
GRANT limited rights on the schema to the user(s) or role(s) who'll be using it
REVOKE rights on public from each table created
GRANT the desired limited rights on each table to the user(s) and role(s)
GRANT on any sequences used by those tables. This is required even if the sequence is created by a SERIAL pseudo-column.
That way all your permissions are consistent and you don't need to go and change them later. Remember that your webapp should never log in as a superuser.
I've been told that RDBMS ( SQL Server in this case ) make use of the temporary database to perform its internal job, for instance when a SELECT count( column ) FROM foo query is performed.
What kind of queries / statements trigger the use of the temporary database?
background:
We are currently about to change the collation on our application database, but we have been told there might be problems if that database make use of the temporary database, because they will have different collation. The rationale is the temporary database is already being used by other applications.
So we want to identify what kind of queries may trigger temp db usage and see if they'll have any problem.
I've found this about when is the db used:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190768.aspx
I did a succesful migration from MySql to Sql Server using the migration tool.
Unfortunately for some reason it labels the tables database.DBO.tablename instead of just database.tablename
I have never used Sql Server so perhaps this is just the way they name their tables.
When I do:
SELECT TOP 1000 [rid]
,[filename]
,[qcname]
,[compound]
,[response]
,[isid]
,[isidresp]
,[finalconc]
,[rowid]
FROM [test].[calibration]
it does not work
But, when I do:
SELECT TOP 1000 [rid]
,[filename]
,[qcname]
,[compound]
,[response]
,[isid]
,[isidresp]
,[finalconc]
,[rowid]
FROM [test].[dbo].[calibration]
it works.
Does anyone know why it prefixes with DBO?
dbo is the standard database owner for anything you create (tables, stored procedures, etc,..), hence the migration tool automatically prefixing everything with it.
When you access something in Sql Server, such as a table called calibration, the following are functionally equivalent:
calibration
dbo.calibration
database_name.dbo.calibration
server_name.database_name.dbo.calibration
MySql doesn't, as far as I remember (we migrated a solution from MySql to SqlServer about 12 months ago using custom scripts executed by nant) support database owner's when referencing objects, hence you're probably not familiar with four part (server_name.database_name.owner_name.object_name) references.
Basically, if you want to specify the database you're accessing, you also need to specify the "owner" of the object. i.e, the following are functionally identical:
USE [master]
GO
SELECT * FROM [mydatabase].[dbo].[calibration]
USE [mydatabase]
GO
SELECT * FROM [calibration]
SqlServer uses an owner name when it references tables. In this case, dbo is the owner.
MySQL doesn't use owner for table names, which is why you didn't see those names before.
SQL Server has something called schemas, in this case the default schema is dbo but it could be anything you wanted. Schemas are used to logically group objects. So you can create a Employee schema and have all the Employee tables, views, procs and functions in there, this then also enables you to give certain users only access to certain schemas
Tell me your migration tool you have used, and let me know the version of from and to databases.
Regards
Eugene
You do have an issue here with the default schema, if it's set to 'dbo' for the user you logged in as you don't need to specify it. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms176060.aspx
If you create an Oracle dblink you cannot directly access LOB columns in the target tables.
For instance, you create a dblink with:
create database link TEST_LINK
connect to TARGETUSER IDENTIFIED BY password using 'DATABASESID';
After this you can do stuff like:
select column_a, column_b
from data_user.sample_table#TEST_LINK
Except if the column is a LOB, then you get the error:
ORA-22992: cannot use LOB locators selected from remote tables
This is a documented restriction.
The same page suggests you fetch the values into a local table, but that is... kind of messy:
CREATE TABLE tmp_hello
AS SELECT column_a
from data_user.sample_table#TEST_LINK
Any other ideas?
The best solution by using a query as below, where column_b is a BLOB:
SELECT (select column_b from sample_table#TEST_LINK) AS column_b FROM DUAL
Yeah, it is messy, I can't think of a way to avoid it though.
You could hide some of the messiness from the client by putting the temporary table creation in a stored procedure (and using "execute immediate" to create they table)
One thing you will need to watch out for is left over temporary tables (should something fail half way through a session, before you have had time to clean it up) - you could schedule an oracle job to periodically run and remove any left over tables.
For query data, the solution of user2015502 is the smartest. If you want to insert or update LOB's AT the remote database (insert into xxx#yyy ...) you can easily use dynamic SQL for that. See my solution here:
You could use materalized views to handle all the "cache" management. It´s not perfect but works in most cases :)
Do you have a specific scenario in mind?
For example, if the LOB holds files, and you are on a company intranet, perhaps you can write a stored procedure to extract the files to a known directory on the network and access them from there.
In this specific case can the only way the two systems can communicate is using the dblink.
Also, the table solution is not that terrible, it's just messy to have to "cache" the data on my side of the dblink.