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I know that packages postgresql-9.1, postgresql-9.2 etc., are packages for Postgresql database versions 9.1 and 9.2 and so on.

What I don't know is what the package postgresql is for? Does installing this package install whatever is the latest version in the current release in the distribution? If yes or not, what is its purpose?

The closest questions I could find here is this one, Why do package names contain version numbers? and it doesn't answer my question appropriately.

Community
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Animesh
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1 Answers1

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The one without the version number is just a placeholder package that has a dependency on the currently supported version.

From http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/all/postgresql/filelist, the file list is just:

/usr/share/doc/postgresql/README
/usr/share/doc/postgresql/changelog.Debian.gz
/usr/share/doc/postgresql/copyright

From: http://packages.debian.org/stable/database/postgresql

This package always depends on the currently supported PostgreSQL database server version.

In other words, if you want the latest supported version, you just install "postgresql", and it will pull in the actual package for the currently supported version of the server.

ckhan
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