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The easy way to show how to use PL/Perl is to create a very simple function; one that would be a lot harder to do otherwise. Suppose that you want to test if a given piece of text is a palindrome (a word that reads the same backwards as forwards), disregarding white space and the case of the letters. Here's a piece of SQL to define the function:

Triggers can be extremely useful. Users of PostgreSQL and commercial high-end database systems have long used them to solve all sorts of problems that otherwise the client might have to handle (and often unreliably). One common use is for auditing changes. The audit.sql file accompanying this article contains an example of an account transaction table with an attached trigger that logs every change to the table.

In the previous part (Part 1 – How To) we covered the use of key-value tables in a database design.

In the following part (Part 2 – Model Benefits and Drawbacks) we'll cover the benefits and drawbacks of using key-value tables in database design.

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Now the officers, through their union, are suing the city, charging that the police procedures at their demonstrations — many of them routinely used at war protests, antipoverty marches and mass bike rides — were so heavy-handed and intimidating that their First Amendment rights were violated.

... police officers in disguise have taken part in demonstrations, an approach the Police Department says it used before receiving the expanded powers; other officers have made hundreds of hours of videotapes of people involved in protests and rallies, very few of whom were charged with breaking any law

The dozen people who submitted affidavits said the interrogations went far beyond basics. Among the questions, they said, was whether the country would be better off if Al Gore had been elected, whether they hated President Bush, whether they belonged to other antiwar groups, what schools they attended, and whether they were politically active. The police denied asking those questions.

Tables existed in HTML for one reason: To display tabular data. But then border="0" made it possible for designers to have a grid upon which to lay out images and text. Still the most dominant means of designing visually rich Web sites, the use of tables is now actually interfering with building a better, more accessible, flexible, and functional Web. Find out where the problems stem from, and learn solutions to create transitional or completely table-less layout.