PostgreSQL EXTENSION Management

PostgreSQL EXTENSION Management is a SQL statement in the PostgreSQL Specific category. PostgreSQL extensions add functionality: pgcrypto (encryption), postgis (geospatial), pg_trgm (text search), etc. The syntax is CREATE EXTENSION [IF NOT EXISTS] extension_name;. It returns extension management. A typical example: -- List installed extensions: SELECT * FROM pg_extension; -- Common extensions: CREATE EXTENSION pgcrypto; -- Hash, encrypt, gen_random_uuid CREATE EXTENSION postgis; -- Spatial/GIS data CREATE EXTENSION pg_trgm; -- Trigram text search CREATE EXTENSION unaccent; -- Accent-insensitive text CREATE EXTENSION tablefunc; -- Crosstab (PIVOT) CREATE EXTENSION pg_stat_statements; -- Query performance stats CREATE EXTENSION hstore; -- Key-value store CREATE EXTENSION pg_partman; -- Partition management -- Drop: DROP EXTENSION IF EXISTS hstore; A close relative is SERIAL, which postgreSQL auto-increment type. Creates an INTEGER column with a sequence. Equivalent to AUTO_INCREMENT in MySQL. A close relative is RETURNING, which postgreSQL extension that returns values from INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE statements (like OUTPUT in SQL Server).