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I need support for the uuid library in my Postgres server (a 64-bit Amazon Linux AMI). I've installed the uuid and uuid-pgsql packages. Is it possible to load the library without restarting the Postgres server?

PostgreSQL version is 8.4.11.

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Have you read and followed the instructions in the PostgreSQL manual? –  voretaq7 Jun 15 '12 at 15:11
@voretaq7 actually I'm on 8.4, so I don't think I have CREATE EXTENSION. This is the closest I've found, but suggest I have to restart the server anyway: stackoverflow.com/questions/1564056/… –  Adam Sharp Jun 18 '12 at 6:24
Indeed, CREATE EXTENSION is a 9.x (I believe 9.0) feature. (You should probably include your Postgres version in your question - absent any version-specific clues folks generally tend to assume "the latest stable release" :-) –  voretaq7 Jun 18 '12 at 19:24
@voretaq7 thanks, info added. –  Adam Sharp Jun 18 '12 at 23:38
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On 8.4.x you should be able to activate the extension once installed by simply loading the SQL file that came with it (the extensions are basically collections of C functions and other goodies - Postgres loads that stuff dynamically). The stack overflow question you linked to talks about how to go about this (it's discussed in the manual waaaaay in the back in Appendix F - "Additional Supplied Modules"

On 9.1 (I had the wrong version in my comment) and later this functionality has been subsumed by the CREATE EXTENSION/ALTER EXTENSION SQL commands -- Module installation is essentially the same, only instead of having to load the SQL file manually the necessary changes are handled for you by Postgres when you run CREATE EXTENSION.

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