--- title: "Unfeathering one's nest with UNNEST" publication: "Postgres Weekly" issue: 482 published_at: "2022-11-23" canonical_url: "https://postgresweekly.com/issues/482" --- Plus Citus Con's CFP opens, RDS gets upgrades, and we say hi to Tobias. | #​482 — November 23, 2022 [Web Version](https://postgresweekly.com/issues/482) Together with [![Crunchydata\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/c_fill,g_auto,w_430,h_100/e_make_transparent/co_white,e_outline:7/xyflkz7n00elwtgja9ne.png)](https://www.crunchybridge.com/start/?utm_source=cppg-prim-1123) Postgres Weekly [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60,q_auto/ft757nhafdgrjrs3vwxn.jpg)](https://www.postgresonline.com/journal/index.php?/archives/406-VARIADIC-Unnest.html#variadicunnest) [The Power of Variadic Unnesting](https://www.postgresonline.com/journal/index.php?/archives/406-VARIADIC-Unnest.html#variadicunnest) — There’s no obvious "big news" this week, so let’s go with _“neat Postgres feature!”_ (that dates from Postgres 9.4, no less). This is a look at how `string_to_array` and the `UNNEST` table function can help to normalize messy data (from a spreadsheet in this case). As the author says: _“I can’t do anything this sweet in other databases I have used.”_ Leo Hsu and Regina Obe [Timescale's 'Bottomless' Object Storage Layer on Top of S3](https://www.timescale.com/blog/expanding-the-boundaries-of-postgresql-announcing-a-bottomless-consumption-based-object-storage-layer-built-on-amazon-s3/) — Timescale continues to innovate with its cloud service, this time with a (private beta only, for now) object storage mechanism built on Amazon S3. The idea is data can be tiered across disk and S3 while keeping the access transparent. Mike Freedman (Timescale) [![\](https://copm.s3.amazonaws.com/6d65bde3.png)](https://www.crunchybridge.com/start/?utm_source=cppg-prim-1123) [We’re All About Great Support](https://www.crunchybridge.com/start/?utm_source=cppg-prim-1123) — _“I’m learning so much about @PostgreSQL from the @crunchydata support tickets I’ve filed. They know their Postgres, that is for sure!”_ - @frigidcode Crunchy Bridge sponsor [A Serverless Architecture for Analyzing Postgres Logs with_pgBadger_](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/database/a-serverless-architecture-for-analyzing-postgresql-logs-with-pgbadger/) — [pgBadger](https://pgbadger.darold.net/) is a log analysis tool (written in Perl) that produces [reports](https://pgbadger.darold.net/examples/sample.html) showing statistics about database traffic, locks, slowest queries, and more. This post focuses on deploying it in a serverless architecture where AWS RDS sends logs to S3, through SQS and AWS Lambda, then to pgBadger which outputs its reports to S3 again… whew! Sarabu, Dave, and Townsend (AWS) [A Query Boost by Using `ANY` Instead of `IN`?](https://www.crunchydata.com/blog/postgres-query-boost-using-any-instead-of-in) — Matt makes a case for using `= ANY(array)` (or `SOME`) in more cases where you might otherwise use `IN(list)`. Matt Hudson **IN BRIEF:** - Last week Amazon Aurora upgraded, now it's RDS's turn as [RDS gains support for new versions of Postgres](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2022/11/amazon-rds-postgresql-new-minor-versions/), namely 14.5, 13.8, 12.12, 11.17, and 10.22. PostGIS gets updated to 3.1.7 too. - This week's _PostgreSQL Person of the Week_ [is Tobias Bussmann](https://postgresql.life/post/tobias_bussmann/) – he works for the _Swiss Academy of Sciences_ and does most of his Postgres work in his spare time but has a lot of wisdom to impart. He's a Postgres Weekly reader too – hi Tobias! - 📅 The [CFP for Citus Con 2023](https://www.citusdata.com/cituscon/2023/cfp/) is now open. It takes place online in April 2023 – you have until February 5 to submit a talk proposal. - 📅 [Prague PostgreSQL Developer Day 2023](https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/prague-postgresql-developer-day-2023-call-for-papers-sponsors-2541/) is also looking for speakers. It takes place on January 31-February 1, 2023. - Timescale has [benchmarked its Timescale Cloud vs Amazon RDS](https://www.timescale.com/blog/timescale-cloud-vs-amazon-rds-postgresql-up-to-350-times-faster-queries-44-faster-ingest-95-storage-savings-for-time-series-data/) – _spoiler: people (usually) don't post benchmark results where they lose_ :-) [Do Different Equality Predicates Make a Difference?](https://dev.to/yugabyte/postgresql-do-different-equality-predicates-make-a-difference-1c7) — Namely, `IN` vs `=`. Spoiler: No, for Postgres 13, at least. But it’s always worth checking due to behavior differences between databases. Frits Hoogland [Using Emacs as an Editor in `psql`](https://fluca1978.github.io/2022/11/16/psqlEmacsClient.html) — By way of `emacsclient` Luca Ferrari 🛠 Code and Tools [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60/dnhui7eyawfeqk0l5vwn.jpg)](https://explain.dalibo.com/) [The Dalibo Postgres Execution Plan Visualizer](https://explain.dalibo.com/) — Give this `EXPLAIN ANALYZE`'s output and take a better view over what Postgres plans to do with your query. This has been around a while and continues to see frequent updates, including this very week. [It's open source](https://github.com/dalibo/pev2) if you want to use it locally or within an app. Dalibo [Squeal: A 'Deep Embedding' of SQL in Haskell](https://github.com/morphismtech/squeal) — Essentially a client library that brings SQL concepts and types natively into Haskell so you can put together queries as _functionally_ as possible. Morphism Tech [Dynaboard: The Pro-Code Web App Builder Made for Developers](https://dynaboard.com/?utm_source=cooperpress&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=procode-q42022) Dynaboard sponsor - [h3-pg](https://github.com/zachasme/h3-pg) ↳ Bindings to Uber's H3 hexagonal geospatial indexing system. - [pg_wait_sampling](https://github.com/postgrespro/pg_wait_sampling) ↳ Sampling based statistics of wait events. - [pg-boss 8.2](https://github.com/timgit/pg-boss) ↳ Node.js job queuing atop Postgres. - [Antares 0.6](https://github.com/antares-sql/antares) ↳ Modern, cross-platform database client app. - [postgres-copy 1.7](https://github.com/diogob/postgres-copy) ↳ Postgres `COPY` support in Ruby on Rails' Active Record models. - [pgAdmin 4 v6.16](https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/pgadmin-4-v616-released-2548/) **Got a new email?** You can [change your address here](https://postgresweekly.com/edit_subscription/*|UID|*). --- **Bored of us?** [Click here to stop getting Postgres Weekly](https://postgresweekly.com/leave/*|UID|*). --- **Got a link for us?** Reply and tell us. 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