Thread: Creating a Database Other Applications Can Use ?

I am writing an application that I wish to store data in a database.
 Recently coming over across from MS Windows and being so used to
creating apps that have access to a database file that one can actually
see - lets say it's called 'MyData.mdb' then writing code to access this
database.

Under Linux and PostgreSQL I expected to create a single database file
that I then would write code to access, but all I can see is a directory
that contains a couple more directories that have numbers as their names
and then contain many files that again are named by numeric values.

Do I still need to go that one step further and create a single database
file that my code would use ?

I heard that pg_dump may have created a file but again I can't seem to
find this file anywhere..... what am I doing wrong ?

Pete

Peter.....

> Under Linux and PostgreSQL I expected to create a single database file
> that I then would write code to access.....

You don't access the file, you access the postgresql server, it takes care
of storing the data transparently, some in memory, some on disk.  The
language I use to talk to the database server (the postmaster, I think
it's called) is perl or php, C is also common.  Each language has a
prewritten library of functions to insert, update, delete, etc., etc.

> I heard that pg_dump may have created a file but again I can't seem to
> find this file anywhere.....

Pg_dump dumps all the data out in ascii format as it stands at one point
in time, you use it for making a back up of the database or transporting
it to another database server.

brew