postgres-core-api-surface

Quick Reference :

PostgreSQL's command surface splits into four orthogonal layers and one out-of-band tool channel :

• DDL : CREATE / ALTER / DROP / TRUNCATE for schema objects (tables, indexes, views, roles, types, functions, policies, publications, subscriptions).
• DML : SELECT / INSERT / UPDATE / DELETE / MERGE (v15+) / COPY for data.
• DCL : GRANT / REVOKE / ALTER DEFAULT PRIVILEGES for access control.
• TCL : BEGIN / COMMIT / ROLLBACK / SAVEPOINT / RELEASE / ROLLBACK TO / SET TRANSACTION for transaction boundaries.
• psql meta-commands : backslash commands (\d, \dt, \df, \du, \timing, \watch, \copy, \i, \e, \!) drive the database operationally.

When you need to introspect the live database, prefer pg_catalog over information_schema : pg_catalog is faster, version-stable for PostgreSQL features, and exposes PostgreSQL-specific columns (pg_class.reltuples, pg_attribute.attnotnull). Use information_schema only when portability across SQL engines is a hard requirement.

When To Use This Skill :