[postgresql] PostgreSQL Exception Handling

I am new to PostgreSQL. Could anybody please correct this query.

BEGIN TRANSACTION;

BEGIN;
    CREATE TABLE "Logs"."Events"
    (
        EventId BIGSERIAL NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
        PrimaryKeyId bigint NOT NULL,
        EventDateTime date NOT NULL DEFAULT(now()),
        Action varchar(12) NOT NULL,
        UserId integer NOT NULL REFERENCES "Office"."Users"(UserId),
        PrincipalUserId varchar(50) NOT NULL DEFAULT(user)
    );

    CREATE TABLE "Logs"."EventDetails"
    (
        EventDetailId BIGSERIAL NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
        EventId bigint NOT NULL REFERENCES "Logs"."Events"(EventId),
        Resource varchar(64) NOT NULL,
        OldVal varchar(4000) NOT NULL,
        NewVal varchar(4000) NOT NULL
    );


    COMMIT TRANSACTION;
    RAISE NOTICE 'Task completed sucessfully.'
EXCEPTION;
    ROLLBACK TRANSACTION;
    RAISE ERROR @ErrorMessage, @LineNumber, @ErrorState --how to catch errors and display them????
END;

Questions:

1. How to print a message like 'PRINT' in T-SQL?
2. How to raise errors with exception information?

You could write this as a psql script, e.g.,

START TRANSACTION;
CREATE TABLE ...
CREATE TABLE ...
COMMIT;
\echo 'Task completed sucessfully.'

and run with

psql -f somefile.sql

Raising errors with parameters isn't possible in PostgreSQL directly. When porting such code, some people encode the necessary information in the error string and parse it out if necessary.

It all works a bit differently, so be prepared to relearn/rethink/rewrite a lot of things.

Just want to add my two cents on this old post:

In my opinion, almost all of relational database engines include a commit transaction execution automatically after execute a DDL command even when you have autocommit=false, So you don't need to start a transaction to avoid a potential truncated object creation because It is completely unnecessary.

Use the DO statement, a new option in version 9.0:

DO LANGUAGE plpgsql
$$
BEGIN
CREATE TABLE "Logs"."Events"
    (
        EventId BIGSERIAL NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
        PrimaryKeyId bigint NOT NULL,
        EventDateTime date NOT NULL DEFAULT(now()),
        Action varchar(12) NOT NULL,
        UserId integer NOT NULL REFERENCES "Office"."Users"(UserId),
        PrincipalUserId varchar(50) NOT NULL DEFAULT(user)
    );

    CREATE TABLE "Logs"."EventDetails"
    (
        EventDetailId BIGSERIAL NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
        EventId bigint NOT NULL REFERENCES "Logs"."Events"(EventId),
        Resource varchar(64) NOT NULL,
        OldVal varchar(4000) NOT NULL,
        NewVal varchar(4000) NOT NULL
    );

    RAISE NOTICE 'Task completed sucessfully.';    
END;
$$;