
February 26, 2026: [PostgreSQL 18.3, 17.9, 16.13, 15.17, and 14.22 Released!](/about/news/postgresql-183-179-1613-1517-and-1422-released-3246/)

[Documentation](/docs/ "Documentation") → [PostgreSQL 18](/docs/18/index.html)

Supported Versions: [Current](/docs/current/acronyms.html "PostgreSQL 18 - Appendix L. Acronyms") ([18](/docs/18/acronyms.html "PostgreSQL 18 - Appendix L. Acronyms")) / [17](/docs/17/acronyms.html "PostgreSQL 17 - Appendix L. Acronyms") / [16](/docs/16/acronyms.html "PostgreSQL 16 - Appendix L. Acronyms") / [15](/docs/15/acronyms.html "PostgreSQL 15 - Appendix L. Acronyms") / [14](/docs/14/acronyms.html "PostgreSQL 14 - Appendix L. Acronyms")

Development Versions: [devel](/docs/devel/acronyms.html "PostgreSQL devel - Appendix L. Acronyms")

Unsupported versions: [13](/docs/13/acronyms.html "PostgreSQL 13 - Appendix L. Acronyms") / [12](/docs/12/acronyms.html "PostgreSQL 12 - Appendix L. Acronyms") / [11](/docs/11/acronyms.html "PostgreSQL 11 - Appendix L. Acronyms") / [10](/docs/10/acronyms.html "PostgreSQL 10 - Appendix L. Acronyms") / [9.6](/docs/9.6/acronyms.html "PostgreSQL 9.6 - Appendix L. Acronyms") / [9.5](/docs/9.5/acronyms.html "PostgreSQL 9.5 - Appendix L. Acronyms") / [9.4](/docs/9.4/acronyms.html "PostgreSQL 9.4 - Appendix L. Acronyms") / [9.3](/docs/9.3/acronyms.html "PostgreSQL 9.3 - Appendix L. Acronyms") / [9.2](/docs/9.2/acronyms.html "PostgreSQL 9.2 - Appendix L. Acronyms") / [9.1](/docs/9.1/acronyms.html "PostgreSQL 9.1 - Appendix L. Acronyms") / [9.0](/docs/9.0/acronyms.html "PostgreSQL 9.0 - Appendix L. Acronyms") / [8.4](/docs/8.4/acronyms.html "PostgreSQL 8.4 - Appendix L. Acronyms") / [8.3](/docs/8.3/acronyms.html "PostgreSQL 8.3 - Appendix L. Acronyms")

## Appendix L. Acronyms

This is a list of acronyms commonly used in the PostgreSQL documentation and in discussions about PostgreSQL.

AIO

[Asynchronous I/O](glossary.html#GLOSSARY-AIO "Asynchronous I/O")

ACL

[Access Control List](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Access-control_list)

AM

[Access Method](glossary.html#GLOSSARY-AM "Access Method")

ANSI

[American National Standards Institute](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_National_Standards_Institute)

API

[Application Programming Interface](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/API)

ASCII

[American Standard Code for Information Interchange](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII)

BKI

[Backend Interface](bki.html "Chapter 68. System Catalog Declarations and Initial Contents")

CA

[Certificate Authority](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_authority)

CIDR

[Classless Inter-Domain Routing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classless_Inter-Domain_Routing)

CPAN

[Comprehensive Perl Archive Network](https://www.cpan.org/)

CRL

[Certificate Revocation List](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_revocation_list)

CSV

[Comma Separated Values](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma-separated_values)

CTE

[Common Table Expression](queries-with.html "7.8. WITH Queries (Common Table Expressions)")

CVE

[Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures](https://cve.mitre.org/)

DBA

[Database Administrator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_administrator)

DBI

[Database Interface (Perl)](https://dbi.perl.org/)

DBMS

[Database Management System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database#Database_management_system)

DDL

[Data Definition Language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_definition_language), SQL commands such as `CREATE TABLE`, `ALTER USER`

DML

[Data Manipulation Language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_manipulation_language), SQL commands such as `INSERT`, `UPDATE`, `DELETE`

DST

[Daylight Saving Time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time)

ECPG

[Embedded C for PostgreSQL](ecpg.html "Chapter 34. ECPG — Embedded SQL in C")

ESQL

[Embedded SQL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embedded_SQL)

FAQ

[Frequently Asked Questions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAQ)

FSM

[Free Space Map](storage-fsm.html "66.3. Free Space Map")

GEQO

[Genetic Query Optimizer](geqo.html "Chapter 61. Genetic Query Optimizer")

GIN

[Generalized Inverted Index](gin.html "65.4. GIN Indexes")

GiST

[Generalized Search Tree](gist.html "65.2. GiST Indexes")

Git

[Git](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git)

GMT

[Greenwich Mean Time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwich_Mean_Time)

GSSAPI

[Generic Security Services Application Programming Interface](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_Security_Services_Application_Program_Interface)

GUC

[Grand Unified Configuration](config-setting.html "19.1. Setting Parameters"), the PostgreSQL subsystem that handles server configuration

HBA

[Host-Based Authentication](auth-pg-hba-conf.html "20.1. The pg_hba.conf File")

HOT

[Heap-Only Tuples](storage-hot.html "66.7. Heap-Only Tuples (HOT)")

IEC

[International Electrotechnical Commission](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Electrotechnical_Commission)

IEEE

[Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers](https://standards.ieee.org/)

IPC

[Inter-Process Communication](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter-process_communication)

I/O

[Input/Output](glossary.html#GLOSSARY-IO "Input/Output")

ISO

[International Organization for Standardization](https://www.iso.org/home.html)

ISSN

[International Standard Serial Number](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISSN)

JDBC

[Java Database Connectivity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Database_Connectivity)

JIT

[Just-in-Time compilation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-in-time_compilation)

JSON

[JavaScript Object Notation](https://www.json.org)

LDAP

[Lightweight Directory Access Protocol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_Directory_Access_Protocol)

LSN

[](glossary.html#GLOSSARY-LOG-SEQUENCE-NUMBER)[Log Sequence Number](glossary.html#GLOSSARY-LOG-SEQUENCE-NUMBER "Log sequence number")

MCF

Most Common Frequency, that is the frequency associated with some Most Common Value

MCV

Most Common Value, one of the values appearing most often within a particular table column

MITM

[Man-in-the-middle attack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-in-the-middle_attack)

MSVC

[Microsoft Visual C](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Visual_C%2B%2B)

MVCC

[Multi-Version Concurrency Control](mvcc.html "Chapter 13. Concurrency Control")

NLS

[National Language Support](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalization_and_localization)

ODBC

[Open Database Connectivity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Database_Connectivity)

OID

[Object Identifier](datatype-oid.html "8.19. Object Identifier Types")

OLAP

[Online Analytical Processing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_analytical_processing)

OLTP

[Online Transaction Processing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_transaction_processing)

ORDBMS

[Object-Relational Database Management System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object%E2%80%93relational_database)

PAM

[Pluggable Authentication Modules](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluggable_authentication_module)

PGSQL

[PostgreSQL](index.html "PostgreSQL 18.3 Documentation")

PGXS

[PostgreSQL Extension System](extend-pgxs.html "36.18. Extension Building Infrastructure")

PID

[Process Identifier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_identifier)

PITR

[Point-In-Time Recovery](continuous-archiving.html "25.3. Continuous Archiving and Point-in-Time Recovery (PITR)") (Continuous Archiving)

PL

[Procedural Languages (server-side)](server-programming.html "Part V. Server Programming")

POSIX

[Portable Operating System Interface](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POSIX)

RDBMS

[Relational Database Management System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relational_database#RDBMS)

RFC

[Request For Comments](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Request_for_Comments)

SGML

[Standard Generalized Markup Language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Generalized_Markup_Language)

SNI

[Server Name Indication](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication), [RFC 6066](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6066#section-3)

SPI

[Server Programming Interface](spi.html "Chapter 45. Server Programming Interface")

SP-GiST

[Space-Partitioned Generalized Search Tree](spgist.html "65.3. SP-GiST Indexes")

SQL

[Structured Query Language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL)

SRF

[Set-Returning Function](xfunc-c.html#XFUNC-C-RETURN-SET "36.10.9. Returning Sets")

SSH

[Secure Shell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Shell)

SSL

[Secure Sockets Layer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Layer_Security#SSL_1.0,_2.0,_and_3.0)

SSPI

[Security Support Provider Interface](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa380493%28VS.85%29.aspx)

SYSV

[Unix System V](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIX_System_V)

TCP/IP

[Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) / Internet Protocol (IP)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_Control_Protocol)

TID

[Tuple Identifier](datatype-oid.html "8.19. Object Identifier Types")

TLS

[Transport Layer Security](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Layer_Security)

TOAST

[The Oversized-Attribute Storage Technique](storage-toast.html "66.2. TOAST")

TPC

[Transaction Processing Performance Council](http://www.tpc.org/)

URL

[Uniform Resource Locator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL)

UTC

[Coordinated Universal Time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinated_Universal_Time)

UTF

[Unicode Transformation Format](https://www.unicode.org/)

UTF8

[Eight-Bit Unicode Transformation Format](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-8)

UUID

[Universally Unique Identifier](datatype-uuid.html "8.12. UUID Type")

WAL

[Write-Ahead Log](wal.html "Chapter 28. Reliability and the Write-Ahead Log")

XID

[Transaction Identifier](datatype-oid.html "8.19. Object Identifier Types")

XML

[Extensible Markup Language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML)

## Submit correction

If you see anything in the documentation that is not correct, does not match your experience with the particular feature or requires further clarification, please use [this form](/account/comments/new/18/acronyms.html/) to report a documentation issue.
