--- title: "A better way to search the Postgres docs" publication: "Postgres Weekly" issue: 575 published_at: "2024-10-30" canonical_url: "https://postgresweekly.com/issues/575" --- Plus date binning, events news, and a 'weirdly picked' query plan. | #​575 — October 30, 2024 [Web Version](https://postgresweekly.com/issues/575) 📝 If you wondered where last week's issue was, don't worry, you didn't miss anything, we had a week off. We're now here every Wednesday until the Christmas break. __ _Peter Cooper, your editor_ Together with [![pgAnalyze\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/c_fill,g_auto,e_trim,w_350,h_100/e_make_transparent/co_white,e_outline:7/lhwcvgc1asd4fzaahty4.png)](https://events.zoom.us/ev/ApbJR2G425JREX5RY0tXPfOpswNrI39-sSvOOTH9CgccsUQqdS5X~AvXjKNVKV8159RmMDbizV40EIicyICz6-aNIFLBRdArsLkedMKYjwRMryi1hH1WLQoyPfnMpMRsWm--o3nVMSokG1w) Postgres Weekly [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60,q_auto/azjqecondybgqptdvink.jpg)](https://pgdoc.link/) [pgdoc.link: A New Way to Search Postgres Documentation](https://pgdoc.link/) — Hubert [has been looking for a way](https://www.depesz.com/2024/10/29/new-way-to-search-postgresql-documentation/) to work around inconsistencies in looking up Postgres docs – this is the result. If there’s a single, canonical document for what you search for, you’re taken _straight_ to it, otherwise you get a page helping you resolve the ambiguity (e.g. [*_connections](https://pgdoc.link/?q=*_connections)). This is a neat idea. Hubert 'depesz' Lubaczewski [4 Ways to Create Date Bins in Postgres](https://www.crunchydata.com/blog/4-ways-to-create-date-bins-in-postgres-interval-date_trunc-extract-and-to_char) — When you need to generate a report or otherwise bundle up data within certain ‘bins’ of dates (e.g. a full month, quarter, or year) Postgres offers several ways to do it. Christopher looks at `INTERVAL`, `date_trunc`, `extract` and `to_char`, each of which has its pros and cons. Christopher Winslett [![\](https://copm.s3.amazonaws.com/34bff519.png)](https://events.zoom.us/ev/ApbJR2G425JREX5RY0tXPfOpswNrI39-sSvOOTH9CgccsUQqdS5X~AvXjKNVKV8159RmMDbizV40EIicyICz6-aNIFLBRdArsLkedMKYjwRMryi1hH1WLQoyPfnMpMRsWm--o3nVMSokG1w) [How to Compare Postgres EXPLAIN Plans & Tune Slow Queries](https://events.zoom.us/ev/ApbJR2G425JREX5RY0tXPfOpswNrI39-sSvOOTH9CgccsUQqdS5X~AvXjKNVKV8159RmMDbizV40EIicyICz6-aNIFLBRdArsLkedMKYjwRMryi1hH1WLQoyPfnMpMRsWm--o3nVMSokG1w) — Are slow Postgres queries impacting your app performance? Join this webinar to learn how to diagnose and tune them effectively. We'll use pganalyze to walk through how to compare plans & debug common scenarios like inefficient nested loops & missing indexes. pganalyze sponsor [Case Study of Optimizing a 'Weirdly Picked' Bad Plan](https://www.depesz.com/2024/10/28/case-study-optimization-of-weirdly-picked-bad-plan/) — _“We recently hit an interesting case where planner picked wrong plan. Kinda. And figured it could be used to show how to deal with such cases.”_ Hubert depesz Lubaczewski **QUICK BITS:** - △ Prisma is the latest player in the rapidly growing Postgres service ecosystem with [the launch of Prisma Postgres](https://www.prisma.io/blog/announcing-prisma-postgres-early-access), a new pay-as-you-go platform. - 🌐 [PostGIS Day 2024](https://www.crunchydata.com/community/events/postgis-day-2024) is a free, online event taking place on November 21 and its schedule is now live. - 📄 **PDF:** [A Deep Dive into Statistics](https://www.postgresql.eu/events/pgconfeu2024/sessions/session/5747/slides/559/postgres_statistics_presentation.pdf) – a slidedeck of a talk given by Louise Leinweber at PG Conf EU. It's a thorough deck and there's plenty to learn from the slides alone _(but we'll link to the video too, once it's live)._ - 🇨🇿 [Prague PostgreSQL Developer Day 2025](https://p2d2.cz/) is taking place next January in Prague, Czechia. [A call for papers](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1jm13YksXYUiM3dlwGjHPWMQwVGro4tQxrFYVoOP9PK8/viewform?edit_requested=true) is open until November 23. - 🇺🇸 [Postgres Conference 2025](https://postgresconf.org/conferences/postgresconf_global_2025) is a four day event taking place next March in Orlando, Florida. Its call for papers is open until January 27. - [David E. Wheeler shares some updates](https://justatheory.com/2024/10/pgconf-extension-summit-eu/) from last week's _PGConf EU_ and associated _Extension Ecosystem Summit_. [Speaking in Tongues: Postgres and Character Encodings](https://thebuild.com/blog/2024/10/27/speaking-in-tongues-postgresql-and-character-encodings/) — Character encodings may be the definitive ‘important but I don’t want to think about it’ topic when it comes to databases. Luckily, using UTF-8 gets you most of the way to a happy place. Christophe Pettus [Using CTID Based Pagination for Data Cleanups](https://www.shayon.dev/post/2024/303/using-ctid-based-pagination-for-data-cleanups-in-postgresql/) — The CTID field is unique for every row in a table but is no mere simple row ID. It’s a tuple that combines both physical page and row position information, and can help you process a table in predictable chunks based on physical storage. Shayon Mukherjee [How to Build an Image Search App with OpenAI CLIP, Postgres, and JavaScript](https://www.timescale.com/blog/how-to-build-an-image-search-application-with-openai-clip-postgresql-in-javascript/) — A tutorial that brings together a lot of ideas in one place. CLIP is used to turn images into text descriptions. Postgres is used as a vector database. JavaScript provides the glue for both the frontend (with React) and backend (Node.js). Haziqa Sajid [Request-Reply in Postgres](https://blog.sequinstream.com/request-reply-in-postgres/) — _“I wondered the other day if you could build a request-reply mechanism using plain Postgres components. Turns out, you can! Whether or not you should is left as a decision for the reader.”_ Anthony Accomazzo 📄 [The Future of Postgres? Extensions!](https://www.craigkerstiens.com/2024/10/18/the-future-of-postgres/) Craig Kerstiens 📄 [Vehicle Routing with PostGIS and Overture Data](https://www.crunchydata.com/blog/vehicle-routing-with-postgis-and-overture-data) Paul Ramsey 📰 Classifieds Trouble with indexing, data types, or stored procedures & functions? [Watch Redgate’s latest PG101 webinar episodes](https://rd.gt/3YAMBTt) to learn tips & tricks. --- [How Google handles authorization at scale](https://www.osohq.com/webinar-google-authorization-at-scale?utm_source=paid&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=zanzibar%20webinar&utm_content=postgres-weekly). A technical comparison of Google's Relationship-based authz system and Oso's Authz as a Service. 🛠 Code and Tools [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60,q_auto/lxmkxjtoljuznvddof7h.jpg)](https://pgversions.com/) [Postgres Version Report](https://pgversions.com/) — An online tool where you paste your Postgres server’s full version information and you get to where it stands in relation to Postgres’ release schedule, outstanding CVEs, bugs, and what improvements have been made in later versions. Neon [pg_duckdb: DuckDB-Powered Postgres for High Performance Analytics](https://github.com/duckdb/pg_duckdb) — An official Postgres extension (built in collaboration with Hydra and MotherDuck) that embeds [DuckDB](https://duckdb.org/)’s columnar-vectorized analytics engine and features into Postgres. DuckDB 💡 MotherDuck has [a really good blog post about the pg_duckdb release](https://motherduck.com/blog/pgduckdb-beta-release-duckdb-postgres/), what it enables, and how to use it. [pg_parquet: An Extension to Connect Postgres and Parquet](https://www.crunchydata.com/blog/pg_parquet-an-extension-to-connect-postgres-and-parquet) — A new open-source extension for working with Parquet files. It reads and writes parquet files to local disk (or S3) right from Postgres. [GitHub repo](https://github.com/CrunchyData/pg_parquet/). Craig Kerstiens - [pgroll 0.7](https://xata.io/blog/pgroll-0-7-0-update) – Zero-downtime schema migration tool for Postgres. - [pgenv 1.3.8](https://fluca1978.github.io/2024/10/17/pgenvPG17.html) – PostgreSQL binary manager. **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. We can't include everything but we'll look at anything you send. _Thanks!_ --- Published by Cooper Press Ltd. Fairfield Enterprise Centre, Louth, LN11 0LS, United Kingdom Postgres, PostgreSQL and the Slonik Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of the PostgreSQL Community Association of Canada. [Stop getting this newsletter](https://postgresweekly.com/leave/*|UID|*).