Chapter 57. Writing A Foreign Data Wrapper
Table of Contents
- 57.1. Foreign Data Wrapper Functions
- 57.2. Foreign Data Wrapper Callback Routines
- 
    - 57.2.1. FDW Routines For Scanning Foreign Tables
- 57.2.2. FDW Routines For Scanning Foreign Joins
- 57.2.3. FDW Routines For Planning Post-Scan/Join Processing
- 57.2.4. FDW Routines For Updating Foreign Tables
- 57.2.5. FDW Routines For Row Locking
- 
      
       
        57.2.6. FDW Routines for
        EXPLAIN
- 
      
       
        57.2.7. FDW Routines for
        ANALYZE
- 
      
       
        57.2.8. FDW Routines For
        IMPORT FOREIGN SCHEMA
- 57.2.9. FDW Routines for Parallel Execution
- 57.2.10. FDW Routines For reparameterization of paths
 
- 57.3. Foreign Data Wrapper Helper Functions
- 57.4. Foreign Data Wrapper Query Planning
- 57.5. Row Locking in Foreign Data Wrappers
All operations on a foreign table are handled through its foreign data wrapper, which consists of a set of functions that the core server calls. The foreign data wrapper is responsible for fetching data from the remote data source and returning it to the PostgreSQL executor. If updating foreign tables is to be supported, the wrapper must handle that, too. This chapter outlines how to write a new foreign data wrapper.
  The foreign data wrappers included in the standard distribution are good
    references when trying to write your own.  Look into the
  
   contrib
  
  subdirectory of the source tree.
    The
  
   
    CREATE FOREIGN DATA WRAPPER
   
  
  reference page also has
    some useful details.
 
Note
The SQL standard specifies an interface for writing foreign data wrappers. However, PostgreSQL does not implement that API, because the effort to accommodate it into PostgreSQL would be large, and the standard API hasn't gained wide adoption anyway.