Posted On: Sep 10, 2023

Trusted Language Extensions for PostgreSQL now supports building your own custom data types and is available on Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) for PostgreSQL. You can now use Trusted Language Extensions for PostgreSQL to create a new base (or scalar) data type, specify how it is stored, and define functions that support SQL and index operations for this new data type.

Custom data types are helpful when extending PostgreSQL to support functional domains where a built-in type such as number or text can’t provide sufficient search semantics. For example, an Amazon Web Services resource can be uniquely identified by an Amazon Resource Name (ARN). You can build an ARN custom data type to store and compare ARNs from your application, and leverage PostgreSQL functionality such as indexes to accelerate searches. 

Trusted Language Extensions for PostgreSQL (pg_tle) is an open source development kit to help you build extensions written in a trusted language that run safely on PostgreSQL. Support for custom data types included with the PostgreSQL extension pg_tle v1.1.1 is available on database instances in Amazon RDS running PostgreSQL 15.4 and higher, 14.9 and higher, and 13.12 and higher in Amazon Web Services China (Beijing) Region, operated by Sinnet and Amazon Web Services China (Ningxia) Region, operated by NWCD.

You can get started by launching a new Amazon RDS DB instance directly from the Amazon RDS Management Console. See Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL Pricing for pricing details and regional availability. To learn more about Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL, see the Amazon RDS User Guide.You can learn more about how you can build your own custom data types in the Database Blog.