{"id":3595,"date":"2023-04-12T15:39:33","date_gmt":"2023-04-12T15:39:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quebit.com\/askquebit\/exploring-postgresql-with-pgadmin\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T18:09:34","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T18:09:34","slug":"exploring-postgresql-with-pgadmin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quebit.com\/askquebit\/exploring-postgresql-with-pgadmin\/","title":{"rendered":"How Do I Use pgAdmin to Explore and Manage PostgreSQL Databases?"},"content":{"rendered":"

PostgreSQL<\/strong> is a powerful, open-source<\/a> object-relational database system with 30+ years of active development that has earned it a formidable reputation for reliability, feature robustness, and performance. In this post I want to show how you can get started quickly with PostgreSQL by creating a sample database and running some simple queries against it using pgAdmin.<\/p>\n

PostgreSQL Sample Database<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like many database offerings, PostgreSQL provides a sample database named \u201cdvdrental\u201d\u00a0 which can be downloaded for free here<\/a>. Once you have downloaded the file, you\u2019ll need to unpack it into its .tar format:<\/p>\n

PostgreSQL Administration<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Since <\/em>pgAdmin<\/strong>\u00a0<\/a>is one of the most popular and feature rich open-source administration and development platforms for PostgreSQL, I\u2019ll use it to create and load the\u00a0PostgreSQL sample database\u00a0into the PostgreSQL database server (and then run some queries). \u00a0Assuming you have pgAdmin<\/a> installed and have logged in, you can right-click on Databases<\/strong> and then select Create<\/strong> and Database\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

If this is your first time using pgAdmin you may need to configure your binary paths. Binary paths specify the path\u00a0to the folder that contains the utility programs (pg_dump, pg_dumpall, pg_restore and psql) for monitored databases (it should be something like this:\u00a0C:Program FilesPostgreSQL9.6bin). pg_restore\u00a0 is\u00a0a utility for restoring a PostgreSQL database from an archive created by pg_dump and is required to setup the sample database. To review or edit the binary paths information you can select File<\/strong> and then Preferences<\/strong> from the pgAdmin main menu. Once you\u2019ve set your binary paths correctly, the next step is to provide the database name<\/em> (\u201cdvdrental\u201d), its owner<\/em> and a comment<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

When you click Save<\/strong> on the Create Database<\/strong> dialog, you should see the new database name referenced in the pgAdmin Object Browser Panel:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The next step is to restore the new database from the downloaded database file by right-clicking on the\u00a0(dvdrental)\u00a0<\/strong>database and then choosing\u00a0Restore\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Now on the Restore dialog<\/strong> select \u201ccustomer or tar<\/em>\u201d for the Format<\/strong> and enter the path to the sample database file (for example, mine is here:\u00a0c:PostgreSQLdvdrentaldvdrental.tar). You can enter \u201cpostgres\u201d as the Role.<\/strong> PostgreSQL – similar to most applications –\u00a0manages database access permissions using\u00a0the concept of \u201croles\u201d and the default role (unless altered) is the\u00a0postgres <\/strong>role.\u00a0 Once you are ready, click the\u00a0Restore<\/strong>\u00a0button:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

After clicking on Restore<\/strong>, the database restoration process will run and will show the following dialog once it completes:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

When the process completes (and you close the message dialog) you can open the\u00a0dvdrental\u00a0database from Object Browser Panel. Notice that the database Tables are listed under Schemaspublic:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A neat feature<\/em> of pgAdmin is when you click on a table name (for example the \u201cactor\u201d table) pgAdmin automatically generates the table ddl for the table:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

One of the most common database tasks is querying data from tables by using the\u00a0SELECT\u00a0statement. In addition to automatically generating table SQL, pgAdmin can also generate a basic select statement. For example, if you right-click on a table name, you can select Scripts<\/strong>, then SELECT script<\/strong> and pgAdmin will generate the full (listing all of the column names) table select statement. Pushing the \u201cPlay\u201d button runs the query:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Another Exercise<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rather than stopping with a simple select query, I want to do a little more. In an older post I wrote about using the OFFSET-FETCH filter SQL combination<\/a>. \u00a0An interesting \u201ctwist\u201d on FETCH is the WITH TIES<\/strong> clause. WITH TIES\u00a0allows you to return more<\/em> rows with values that match the last row in a limited result set.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look at an example.<\/p>\n

WITH TIES<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since we have plenty of sample data to work with in our PostgreSQL server, we can again use the pgAdmin query editor<\/a> to run the following query on the city table:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Notice that within the first 5 records returned from the table there are multiple records with the country_id of 2.<\/p>\n

Before moving on, its worth pointing out that the pgAdmin Query Tool<\/a> is a great, feature-rich \u201cenvironment\u201d \u201cbuilt-in\u201d to pgAdmin and allows you to execute SQL commands, review and even edit the generated result set. In this post I barely touched the surface on what you can do with the tool (so expect more posts soon!).<\/p>\n

Now back to the example, if you change the number of rows to FETCH to 3<\/em>, you will get the following result:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But if you add the WITH TIES<\/strong> clause, the query will look like this:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Running this<\/em> version of the query we will see a different result – in that it \u201cincludes the ties<\/em>\u201d (we actually get a 4th<\/sup> record):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In this example (using the city table) the WITH TIES might not make a lot of sense, however, suppose you wanted to reward your top three customers based upon the highest payment amount? If you run a similar query, this time on the payment table you would see the following result:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But if you again add the WITH TIES to this query, we\u2019ll see a better<\/em> result:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Now customer 343 \u201cmakes the cut\u201d and will receive a reward!<\/p>\n

Wrap up<\/strong><\/p>\n

pgAdmin supports all PostgreSQL features, from writing SQL queries to developing databases and is designed to query an active database (in real-time), allowing you to stay current with modifications and implementations. It\u2019s a tool that is well worth spending the time to become familiar with and I\u2019m sure it will be in some future posts!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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