liveBook · Manning

Tsvector

tsvector is a PostgreSQL data type representing normalized searchable lexemes extracted from text, optionally including their positions.

How 2 Manning books explain it

Just Use Postgres!

A tsvector lexeme is a normalized term stored as an element of PostgreSQL's searchable text-vector representation.

How it is used
Uses normalized document terms as the stored representation for PostgreSQL full-text search, matching, ranking, and indexing.
How deep it goes
Explains normalization, positions, storage, weights, matching, ranking, and indexing, but does not detail internal index algorithms.
Examples
Demonstrates movie descriptions, generated columns, positional output, weighted title fields, ghost searches, and execution plans.
What you can do after
Build it from scratch by generating stored vectors, querying them with tsquery, ranking matches, and preparing them for indexing.

Read how Just Use Postgres! explains tsvector →

PostgreSQL Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

tsvector is a PostgreSQL data type representing normalized searchable text as a collection of lexemes and their positions.

How it is used
Deploys tsvector for PostgreSQL full-text search over document fields.
How deep it goes
Contrasts B-tree failures with a working GIN expression index and query plan, but does not detail tokenization internals.
Examples
Uses an arXiv JSON dataset, English title indexing, plainto_tsquery, EXPLAIN ANALYZE, and measured index sizes.
What you can do after
Apply it via PostgreSQL GIN indexes and diagnose full-text performance with EXPLAIN ANALYZE.

Read how PostgreSQL Mistakes and How to Avoid Them explains tsvector →

Related concepts

These guides are generated from the text of Manning books by Manning's knowledge graph and link to the sections they draw on. The full books are available on liveBook and at manning.com.