---
title: "Postgres 12 Beta 4 released"
publication: "Postgres Weekly"
issue: 323
published_at: "2019-09-18"
canonical_url: "https://postgresweekly.com/issues/323"
---

The latest Postgres news, articles, tools, and projects.       

#323 — September 18, 2019 

[Read on the Web](https://postgresweekly.com/issues/323)   

Postgres Weekly 

[![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60/v1568756467/fv8rfbpbbhgwybpch7eh.png)](https://www.cybertec-postgresql.com/en/tracking-view-dependencies-in-postgresql/)   

[Tracking View Dependencies in Postgres](https://www.cybertec-postgresql.com/en/tracking-view-dependencies-in-postgresql/) — When you create complex structures involving tables, views, triggers, functions, etc. that rely upon each other, you create dependencies. Here’s an exploration of _view_ dependencies and how to keep track of what views depend upon what other objects. 

Laurenz Albe   

[PostgreSQL 12 Beta 4 Released](https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/1972/) — Contains previews of all features that will be available in the final release of Postgres 12 and is “likely the final beta release” prior to a release candidate. As always, the beta [release notes](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/12/release-12.html) may be useful, as may Postgres’s [How to Beta Test](https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/HowToBetaTest) docs. 

PostgreSQL Global Development Group   [![\](https://copm.s3.amazonaws.com/3dbfebad.png)](https://resources.2ndquadrant.com/webinar-new-features-in-postgresql-12) 

[Learn PG 12 Features from Core Team Member](https://resources.2ndquadrant.com/webinar-new-features-in-postgresql-12) — Join the free PostgreSQL webinar: New Features in PostgreSQL 12 with Peter Eisentraut and get an insider’s look into the upcoming PG 12 release. 

2ndQuadrant PostgreSQL Webinars sponsor   

[Postgres Cheat Sheet](https://postgrescheatsheet.com/) — Basically 15 pages of quick solutions or approaches for a variety of Postgres-related tasks, from working with functions and users to constraints and interrogating tables. 

Timescale   

[Can You Gain Performance using Pgpool-II as a Load Balancer?](https://www.highgo.ca/2019/09/06/can-you-gain-performance-with-pgpool-ii-as-a-load-balancer/) — Spoiler: With a small number of clients, no. At much larger scale, yes. But, as always, it is worth running your own tests. 

Muhammad Usama   

[Partitioning is Faster in Postgres 12](https://www.2ndquadrant.com/en/blog/postgresql-12-partitioning/) — Many improvements have been made to partitioning in PostgreSQL 12. Here’s some benchmark results so you can see what’s been done. 

David Rowley   

[Using `DISTINCT ON` in Non-Postgres Databases](https://blog.jooq.org/2019/09/09/using-distinct-on-in-non-postgresql-databases/) — We wrote about `DISTINCT ON`, a neat feature for selecting the first rows that distinctly match a variety of conditions, in our tip in [issue 321](https://postgresweekly.com/issues/321). But what if you want to get a similar outcome on other database systems? 

Lukas Eder   

[Why Use TimescaleDB Over Relational Databases?](https://docs.timescale.com/latest/introduction/timescaledb-vs-postgres) — The interesting thing is that while TimescaleDB is a time series database, it _is_ built as an extension on _top_ of a relational database, Postgres! 

TimescaleDB   

[strongDM Makes Managing DB Access a Breeze](https://strongdm.com/postgres-weekly/) — Splunk's CISO says "strongDM lets you see what happened, replay & analyze incidents. You can't get that anywhere else." 

strongDM sponsor   

[Installing Postgres 12 Beta/RC on RHEL, CentOS or Fedora](https://people.planetpostgresql.org/devrim/index.php?/archives/101-Installing-PostgreSQL-12-betaRC-on-RHELCentOSFedora.html#installpg12) — How to get testing the next version of Postgres on Red Hat flavored Linux distros. 

Devrim Gunduz   

[The Data Loading Performance of Postgres and TimescaleDB](http://blog.coelho.net/database/2019/09/13/postgresql-vs-timescaledb-data-loading-performance.html) — An experiment in testing the performance when loading a _lot_ of data (over a billion rows) into Postgres and TimescaleDB running on EC2 instances. 

Fabien Coelho   

[Postgres Pager pspg 2.0.2 Released](http://okbob.blogspot.com/2019/09/pspg-201-released.html) — We featured [pspg](https://github.com/okbob/pspg) two weeks ago, but its creator has since released two point releases that introduce sorting capabilities for all columns displayed. 

Pavel Stěhule   

[PL/Proxy 2.9: Function-Based Sharding for Postgres](https://fluca1978.github.io/2019/09/16/PLPROXY12.html) — If you’re not familiar with the project, there’s [more info on its homepage](https://plproxy.github.io/), but PL/Proxy was originally developed at Skype to help scale Postgres via sharding. 

Luca Ferrari      supported by [![GitPrime\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/v1554813939/kwagarrsergds4sxgjr9.png)](https://resources.gitprime.com/books/20-patterns/?utm_source=nl%28pgw%29&utm_medium=email-nl&utm_campaign=nl%28pgw%29)  

💡**Trick of the Week** 

The enigmatic `TABLE` command 

One of the fun things about doing these tips is I get to discover interesting quirks and tidbits that I'd never seen before. The `TABLE` SQL command is the latest example. I've looked through the SQL spec, the Postgres source code, and I'm simply unable to track it down.. but it works! 

Given a simple schema:  

CREATE TABLE x (id int);
 INSERT INTO x VALUES (10),(20),(30);   

`TABLE` lets you quickly see the entire table:  

TABLE x;
 
 id
 ----
 10
 20
 30   

It's a bit naive and it doesn't support `WHERE` or `GROUP` clauses, but it _does_ support `ORDER`, `LIMIT`, and `OFFSET`. 

The main use case, in my opinion? If you want to rapidly look into a table while in psql or a similar tool, `TABLE table-name` is shorter and less awkward to type than `SELECT * FROM table-name;`.. and it's something fun to show off to anyone else who doesn't know about it 😄 

If you do have any documentation or reference for this command though, get in touch. I'm intrigued where it comes from. 

This week's trick is sponsored by _[GitPrime](https://resources.gitprime.com/books/20-patterns/?utm_source=nl%28pgw%29&utm_medium=email-nl&utm_campaign=nl%28pgw%29)_. Get your copy of their new field guide '[20 Patterns to Watch for in Engineering Teams](https://resources.gitprime.com/books/20-patterns/?utm_source=nl%28pgw%29&utm_medium=email-nl&utm_campaign=nl%28pgw%29)', filled with actionable insights to help debug your development process with data.      

🗓**Upcoming Events** 

- [PostgresConf South Africa 2019](https://postgresconf.org/conferences/SouthAfrica2019) (October 8-9 in Johannesburg) — An opportunity for the database administration and developer community who use Postgres to get to know each other.
- [PostgreSQL Conference Europe 2019](https://2019.pgconf.eu/) (October 15-18 in Milan, Italy)
- [pgDay Santiago](https://www.pgday.cl/2019/) (October 29 in Santiago, Chile)
- [PG Down Under 2019](https://pgdu.org/) (November 15 in Sydney, Australia) — The second outing for this annual, Australian Postgres conference. The CFP is now open.          

Curated by [Cooperpress](https://cooperpress.com/), [Peter Cooper](https://twitter.com/peterc), and [Craig Kerstiens](https://twitter.com/craigkerstiens). 

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