Objects in PostgreSQL

Question

PostgreSQL was the first database that introduced objects in relational systems (serialization)... and that is all what I know about objects and PostgreSQL. I have been doing some research, but frankly didn't find anything good. Is there any good articles/books about it?

Answer 1

I'm not sure what you mean with "introducing objects in relational systems". PostgreSQL indeed has custom types, but those are nothing like OOP.

AFAIK the only reason why PostgreSQL is sometimes called an "object-relational database" is because it supports table inheritance. However, the main use case of inheritance has actually been table partitioning; the performance limitations mean that it's not very useful for implementing "object inheritance" (The upcoming PostgreSQL 9.1 release will remove some of these limitations).

Bottom line: Nothing to see here, PostgreSQL is just another relational database.

Answer 2

The preface of the Postgres 7 documentation explains why they consider themselves as having pioneered object-relational concepts (in Postgres 8 and later, this got all rephrased/restructured/deleted). The history document gives more details.