diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/src/sgml/Makefile | 14 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/src/sgml/filelist.sgml | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/src/sgml/generate_history.pl | 58 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/src/sgml/release-7.4.sgml | 3975 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/src/sgml/release-8.0.sgml | 4561 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/src/sgml/release-8.1.sgml | 4318 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/src/sgml/release-8.2.sgml | 4802 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/src/sgml/release-8.3.sgml | 4481 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/src/sgml/release-8.4.sgml | 3208 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/src/sgml/release-old.sgml | 6657 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/src/sgml/release.sgml | 32003 |
11 files changed, 32090 insertions, 31998 deletions
diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/Makefile b/doc/src/sgml/Makefile index a61d541a4c9..82aacfe38c4 100644 --- a/doc/src/sgml/Makefile +++ b/doc/src/sgml/Makefile @@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ # # PostgreSQL documentation makefile # -# $PostgreSQL: pgsql/doc/src/sgml/Makefile,v 1.114 2008/12/11 07:34:07 petere Exp $ +# $PostgreSQL: pgsql/doc/src/sgml/Makefile,v 1.115 2009/05/02 20:17:19 tgl Exp $ # #---------------------------------------------------------------------------- @@ -173,13 +173,13 @@ JADE.tex.call = $(JADE) $(JADEFLAGS) $(SGMLINCLUDE) $(CATALOG) -d $(srcdir)/styl # PostScript from TeX postgres.ps: $(error Invalid target; use postgres-A4.ps or postgres-US.ps as targets) - + %.ps: %.dvi dvips -o $@ $< postgres.pdf: $(error Invalid target; use postgres-A4.pdf or postgres-US.pdf as targets) - + %.pdf: %.tex-pdf @rm -f $*.aux $*.log $*.out # multiple runs are necessary to create proper intra-document links @@ -208,12 +208,8 @@ INSTALL HISTORY regress_README: % : %.html INSTALL.html: standalone-install.sgml installation.sgml version.sgml $(JADE.text) -V nochunks standalone-install.sgml installation.sgml >$@ -# remove links to main documentation -HISTORY.html: release.sgml - ( echo '<!doctype appendix PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V4.2//EN">'; \ - cat $< ) | \ - $(PERL) -p -0 -e 's/<link\s+linkend[^>]*>//g' | \ - $(PERL) -p -e 's/<\/link>//g' >tempfile_HISTORY.sgml +HISTORY.html: generate_history.pl $(wildcard $(srcdir)/release*.sgml) + $(PERL) $< "$(srcdir)" release.sgml >tempfile_HISTORY.sgml $(JADE.text) -V nochunks tempfile_HISTORY.sgml >$@ rm tempfile_HISTORY.sgml diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/filelist.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/filelist.sgml index 591f1e86da5..385b8815f30 100644 --- a/doc/src/sgml/filelist.sgml +++ b/doc/src/sgml/filelist.sgml @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -<!-- $PostgreSQL: pgsql/doc/src/sgml/filelist.sgml,v 1.60 2009/03/25 23:20:01 tgl Exp $ --> +<!-- $PostgreSQL: pgsql/doc/src/sgml/filelist.sgml,v 1.61 2009/05/02 20:17:19 tgl Exp $ --> <!entity history SYSTEM "history.sgml"> <!entity info SYSTEM "info.sgml"> @@ -138,7 +138,16 @@ <!entity errcodes SYSTEM "errcodes.sgml"> <!entity features SYSTEM "features.sgml"> <!entity keywords SYSTEM "keywords.sgml"> + <!entity release SYSTEM "release.sgml"> +<!entity release-8.4 SYSTEM "release-8.4.sgml"> +<!entity release-8.3 SYSTEM "release-8.3.sgml"> +<!entity release-8.2 SYSTEM "release-8.2.sgml"> +<!entity release-8.1 SYSTEM "release-8.1.sgml"> +<!entity release-8.0 SYSTEM "release-8.0.sgml"> +<!entity release-7.4 SYSTEM "release-7.4.sgml"> +<!entity release-old SYSTEM "release-old.sgml"> + <!entity acronyms SYSTEM "acronyms.sgml"> <!entity features-supported SYSTEM "features-supported.sgml"> diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/generate_history.pl b/doc/src/sgml/generate_history.pl new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..20f3d0e87c9 --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/src/sgml/generate_history.pl @@ -0,0 +1,58 @@ +#! /usr/bin/perl -w + +# generate_history.pl -- flatten release notes for use as HISTORY file +# +# Usage: generate_history.pl srcdir release.sgml >output.sgml +# +# The main point of this script is to strip out <link> references, which +# generally point into the rest of the documentation and so can't be used +# in a standalone build of the release notes. To make sure this is done +# everywhere, we have to fold in the sub-files of the release notes. +# +# $PostgreSQL: pgsql/doc/src/sgml/generate_history.pl,v 1.1 2009/05/02 20:17:19 tgl Exp $ + +use strict; + +my($srcdir) = shift; +defined($srcdir) || die "$0: missing required argument: srcdir\n"; +my($infile) = shift; +defined($infile) || die "$0: missing required argument: inputfile\n"; + +# Emit DOCTYPE header so that the output is a self-contained SGML document +print "<!DOCTYPE appendix PUBLIC \"-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V4.2//EN\">\n"; + +process_file($infile); + +exit 0; + +sub process_file { + my($filename) = @_; + + local *FILE; # need a local filehandle so we can recurse + + my($f) = $srcdir . '/' . $filename; + open(FILE, $f) || die "could not read $f: $!\n"; + + while (<FILE>) { + # Recursively expand sub-files of the release notes + if (m/^&(release-.*);$/) { + process_file($1 . ".sgml"); + next; + } + + # Remove <link ...> tags, which might span multiple lines + while (m/<link/) { + if (s/<link\s+linkend[^>]*>//) { + next; + } + # incomplete tag, so slurp another line + $_ .= <FILE>; + } + + # Remove </link> too + s|</link>||g; + + print; + } + close(FILE); +} diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/release-7.4.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/release-7.4.sgml new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..7fa8ee7a907 --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/src/sgml/release-7.4.sgml @@ -0,0 +1,3975 @@ +<!-- $PostgreSQL: pgsql/doc/src/sgml/release-7.4.sgml,v 1.1 2009/05/02 20:17:19 tgl Exp $ --> +<!-- See header comment in release.sgml about typical markup --> + + <sect1 id="release-7-4-25"> + <title>Release 7.4.25</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2009-03-16</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.24. + For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-7-4">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.4.25</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.11, + see the release notes for 7.4.11. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent error recursion crashes when encoding conversion fails (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This change extends fixes made in the last two minor releases for + related failure scenarios. The previous fixes were narrowly tailored + for the original problem reports, but we have now recognized that + <emphasis>any</> error thrown by an encoding conversion function could + potentially lead to infinite recursion while trying to report the + error. The solution therefore is to disable translation and encoding + conversion and report the plain-ASCII form of any error message, + if we find we have gotten into a recursive error reporting situation. + (CVE-2009-0922) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Disallow <command>CREATE CONVERSION</> with the wrong encodings + for the specified conversion function (Heikki) + </para> + + <para> + This prevents one possible scenario for encoding conversion failure. + The previous change is a backstop to guard against other kinds of + failures in the same area. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix core dump when <function>to_char()</> is given format codes that + are inappropriate for the type of the data argument (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>MUST</> (Mauritius Island Summer Time) to the default list + of known timezone abbreviations (Xavier Bugaud) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-4-24"> + <title>Release 7.4.24</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2009-02-02</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.23. + For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-7-4">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.4.24</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.11, + see the release notes for 7.4.11. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve handling of URLs in <function>headline()</> function (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve handling of overlength headlines in <function>headline()</> + function (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent possible Assert failure or misconversion if an encoding + conversion is created with the wrong conversion function for the + specified pair of encodings (Tom, Heikki) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Avoid unnecessary locking of small tables in <command>VACUUM</> + (Heikki) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix uninitialized variables in <filename>contrib/tsearch2</>'s + <function>get_covers()</> function (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix bug in <function>to_char()</>'s handling of <literal>TH</> + format codes (Andreas Scherbaum) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make all documentation reference <literal>pgsql-bugs</> and/or + <literal>pgsql-hackers</> as appropriate, instead of the + now-decommissioned <literal>pgsql-ports</> and <literal>pgsql-patches</> + mailing lists (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-4-23"> + <title>Release 7.4.23</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2008-11-03</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.22. + For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-7-4">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.4.23</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.11, + see the release notes for 7.4.11. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix backend crash when the client encoding cannot represent a localized + error message (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + We have addressed similar issues before, but it would still fail if + the <quote>character has no equivalent</> message itself couldn't + be converted. The fix is to disable localization and send the plain + ASCII error message when we detect such a situation. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix incorrect tsearch2 headline generation when single query + item matches first word of text (Sushant Sinha) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix improper display of fractional seconds in interval values when + using a non-ISO datestyle in an <option>--enable-integer-datetimes</> + build (Ron Mayer) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Ensure <function>SPI_getvalue</> and <function>SPI_getbinval</> + behave correctly when the passed tuple and tuple descriptor have + different numbers of columns (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This situation is normal when a table has had columns added or removed, + but these two functions didn't handle it properly. + The only likely consequence is an incorrect error indication. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>ecpg</>'s parsing of <command>CREATE USER</> (Michael) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-4-22"> + <title>Release 7.4.22</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2008-09-22</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.21. + For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-7-4">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.4.22</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.11, + see the release notes for 7.4.11. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix datetime input functions to correctly detect integer overflow when + running on a 64-bit platform (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve performance of writing very long log messages to syslog (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix bug in backwards scanning of a cursor on a <literal>SELECT DISTINCT + ON</> query (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix planner to estimate that <literal>GROUP BY</> expressions yielding + boolean results always result in two groups, regardless of the + expressions' contents (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This is very substantially more accurate than the regular <literal>GROUP + BY</> estimate for certain boolean tests like <replaceable>col</> + <literal>IS NULL</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve <application>pg_dump</> and <application>pg_restore</>'s + error reporting after failure to send a SQL command (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-4-21"> + <title>Release 7.4.21</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2008-06-12</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains one serious bug fix over 7.4.20. + For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-7-4">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.4.21</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.11, + see the release notes for 7.4.11. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <function>pg_get_ruledef()</> parenthesize negative constants (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Before this fix, a negative constant in a view or rule might be dumped + as, say, <literal>-42::integer</>, which is subtly incorrect: it should + be <literal>(-42)::integer</> due to operator precedence rules. + Usually this would make little difference, but it could interact with + another recent patch to cause + <productname>PostgreSQL</> to reject what had been a valid + <command>SELECT DISTINCT</> view query. Since this could result in + <application>pg_dump</> output failing to reload, it is being treated + as a high-priority fix. The only released versions in which dump + output is actually incorrect are 8.3.1 and 8.2.7. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-4-20"> + <title>Release 7.4.20</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>never released</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.19. + For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-7-4">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.4.20</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.11, + see the release notes for 7.4.11. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix conversions between ISO-8859-5 and other encodings to handle + Cyrillic <quote>Yo</> characters (<literal>e</> and <literal>E</> with + two dots) (Sergey Burladyan) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix a few datatype input functions + that were allowing unused bytes in their results to contain + uninitialized, unpredictable values (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This could lead to failures in which two apparently identical literal + values were not seen as equal, resulting in the parser complaining + about unmatched <literal>ORDER BY</> and <literal>DISTINCT</> + expressions. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix a corner case in regular-expression substring matching + (<literal>substring(<replaceable>string</> from + <replaceable>pattern</>)</literal>) (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The problem occurs when there is a match to the pattern overall but + the user has specified a parenthesized subexpression and that + subexpression hasn't got a match. An example is + <literal>substring('foo' from 'foo(bar)?')</>. + This should return NULL, since <literal>(bar)</> isn't matched, but + it was mistakenly returning the whole-pattern match instead (ie, + <literal>foo</>). + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix incorrect result from <application>ecpg</>'s + <function>PGTYPEStimestamp_sub()</> function (Michael) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <literal>DatumGetBool</> macro to not fail with <application>gcc</> + 4.3 (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This problem affects <quote>old style</> (V0) C functions that + return boolean. The fix is already in 8.3, but the need to + back-patch it was not realized at the time. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix longstanding <command>LISTEN</>/<command>NOTIFY</> + race condition (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + In rare cases a session that had just executed a + <command>LISTEN</> might not get a notification, even though + one would be expected because the concurrent transaction executing + <command>NOTIFY</> was observed to commit later. + </para> + + <para> + A side effect of the fix is that a transaction that has executed + a not-yet-committed <command>LISTEN</> command will not see any + row in <structname>pg_listener</> for the <command>LISTEN</>, + should it choose to look; formerly it would have. This behavior + was never documented one way or the other, but it is possible that + some applications depend on the old behavior. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix display of constant expressions in <literal>ORDER BY</> + and <literal>GROUP BY</> (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + An explictly casted constant would be shown incorrectly. This could + for example lead to corruption of a view definition during + dump and reload. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>libpq</> to handle NOTICE messages correctly + during COPY OUT (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This failure has only been observed to occur when a user-defined + datatype's output routine issues a NOTICE, but there is no + guarantee it couldn't happen due to other causes. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-4-19"> + <title>Release 7.4.19</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2008-01-07</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.18, + including fixes for significant security issues. + For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-7-4">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.4.19</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.11, see the release + notes for 7.4.11. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent functions in indexes from executing with the privileges of + the user running <command>VACUUM</>, <command>ANALYZE</>, etc (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Functions used in index expressions and partial-index + predicates are evaluated whenever a new table entry is made. It has + long been understood that this poses a risk of trojan-horse code + execution if one modifies a table owned by an untrustworthy user. + (Note that triggers, defaults, check constraints, etc. pose the + same type of risk.) But functions in indexes pose extra danger + because they will be executed by routine maintenance operations + such as <command>VACUUM FULL</>, which are commonly performed + automatically under a superuser account. For example, a nefarious user + can execute code with superuser privileges by setting up a + trojan-horse index definition and waiting for the next routine vacuum. + The fix arranges for standard maintenance operations + (including <command>VACUUM</>, <command>ANALYZE</>, <command>REINDEX</>, + and <command>CLUSTER</>) to execute as the table owner rather than + the calling user, using the same privilege-switching mechanism already + used for <literal>SECURITY DEFINER</> functions. To prevent bypassing + this security measure, execution of <command>SET SESSION + AUTHORIZATION</> and <command>SET ROLE</> is now forbidden within a + <literal>SECURITY DEFINER</> context. (CVE-2007-6600) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Repair assorted bugs in the regular-expression package (Tom, Will Drewry) + </para> + + <para> + Suitably crafted regular-expression patterns could cause crashes, + infinite or near-infinite looping, and/or massive memory consumption, + all of which pose denial-of-service hazards for applications that + accept regex search patterns from untrustworthy sources. + (CVE-2007-4769, CVE-2007-4772, CVE-2007-6067) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Require non-superusers who use <filename>/contrib/dblink</> to use only + password authentication, as a security measure (Joe) + </para> + + <para> + The fix that appeared for this in 7.4.18 was incomplete, as it plugged + the hole for only some <filename>dblink</> functions. (CVE-2007-6601, + CVE-2007-3278) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix planner failure in some cases of <literal>WHERE false AND var IN + (SELECT ...)</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix potential crash in <function>translate()</> when using a multibyte + database encoding (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix PL/Python to not crash on long exception messages (Alvaro) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <application>ecpg</> parser fixes (Michael) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <filename>contrib/tablefunc</>'s <function>crosstab()</> handle + NULL rowid as a category in its own right, rather than crashing (Joe) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <type>tsvector</> and <type>tsquery</> output routines to + escape backslashes correctly (Teodor, Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix crash of <function>to_tsvector()</> on huge input strings (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Require a specific version of <productname>Autoconf</> to be used + when re-generating the <command>configure</> script (Peter) + </para> + + <para> + This affects developers and packagers only. The change was made + to prevent accidental use of untested combinations of + <productname>Autoconf</> and <productname>PostgreSQL</> versions. + You can remove the version check if you really want to use a + different <productname>Autoconf</> version, but it's + your responsibility whether the result works or not. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-4-18"> + <title>Release 7.4.18</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2007-09-17</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains fixes from 7.4.17. + For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-7-4">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.4.18</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.11, see the release + notes for 7.4.11. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent index corruption when a transaction inserts rows and + then aborts close to the end of a concurrent <command>VACUUM</> + on the same table (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>CREATE DOMAIN ... DEFAULT NULL</> work properly (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix excessive logging of <acronym>SSL</> error messages (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix crash when <varname>log_min_error_statement</> logging runs out + of memory (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent <command>CLUSTER</> from failing + due to attempting to process temporary tables of other sessions (Alvaro) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Require non-superusers who use <filename>/contrib/dblink</> to use only + password authentication, as a security measure (Joe) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-4-17"> + <title>Release 7.4.17</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2007-04-23</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains fixes from 7.4.16, + including a security fix. + For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-7-4">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.4.17</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.11, see the release + notes for 7.4.11. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support explicit placement of the temporary-table schema within + <varname>search_path</>, and disable searching it for functions + and operators (Tom) + </para> + <para> + This is needed to allow a security-definer function to set a + truly secure value of <varname>search_path</>. Without it, + an unprivileged SQL user can use temporary objects to execute code + with the privileges of the security-definer function (CVE-2007-2138). + See <command>CREATE FUNCTION</> for more information. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <filename>/contrib/tsearch2</> crash fixes (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix potential-data-corruption bug in how <command>VACUUM FULL</> handles + <command>UPDATE</> chains (Tom, Pavan Deolasee) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix PANIC during enlargement of a hash index (bug introduced in 7.4.15) + (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-4-16"> + <title>Release 7.4.16</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2007-02-05</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.15, including + a security fix. + For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-7-4">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.4.16</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.11, see the release + notes for 7.4.11. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove security vulnerability that allowed connected users + to read backend memory (Tom) + </para> + <para> + The vulnerability involves suppressing the normal check that a SQL + function returns the data type it's declared to, or changing the + data type of a table column used in a SQL function (CVE-2007-0555). + This error can easily be exploited to cause a backend crash, and in + principle might be used to read database content that the user + should not be able to access. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix rare bug wherein btree index page splits could fail + due to choosing an infeasible split point (Heikki Linnakangas) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix for rare Assert() crash triggered by <literal>UNION</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Tighten security of multi-byte character processing for UTF8 sequences + over three bytes long (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-4-15"> + <title>Release 7.4.15</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2007-01-08</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.14. + For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-7-4">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.4.15</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.11, see the release + notes for 7.4.11. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve handling of <function>getaddrinfo()</> on AIX (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This fixes a problem with starting the statistics collector, + among other things. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <quote>failed to re-find parent key</> errors in + <command>VACUUM</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix bugs affecting multi-gigabyte hash indexes (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix error when constructing an <literal>ARRAY[]</> made up of multiple + empty elements (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <function>to_number()</> and <function>to_char(numeric)</> + are now <literal>STABLE</>, not <literal>IMMUTABLE</>, for + new <application>initdb</> installs (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This is because <varname>lc_numeric</> can potentially + change the output of these functions. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve index usage of regular expressions that use parentheses (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This improves <application>psql</> <literal>\d</> performance also. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-4-14"> + <title>Release 7.4.14</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2006-10-16</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.13. + For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-7-4">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.4.14</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.11, see the release + notes for 7.4.11. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Fix core dump when an untyped literal is taken as +ANYARRAY</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <function>string_to_array()</> to handle overlapping + matches for the separator string</para> +<para>For example, <literal>string_to_array('123xx456xxx789', 'xx')</>. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix corner cases in pattern matching for + <application>psql</>'s <literal>\d</> commands</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix index-corrupting bugs in /contrib/ltree + (Teodor)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix backslash escaping in /contrib/dbmirror</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Adjust regression tests for recent changes in US DST laws +</para> </listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-4-13"> + <title>Release 7.4.13</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2006-05-23</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.12, + including patches for extremely serious security issues. + For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-7-4">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.4.13</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.11, see the release + notes for 7.4.11. + </para> + + <para> + Full security against the SQL-injection attacks described in + CVE-2006-2313 and CVE-2006-2314 might require changes in application + code. If you have applications that embed untrustworthy strings + into SQL commands, you should examine them as soon as possible to + ensure that they are using recommended escaping techniques. In + most cases, applications should be using subroutines provided by + libraries or drivers (such as <application>libpq</>'s + <function>PQescapeStringConn()</>) to perform string escaping, + rather than relying on <foreignphrase>ad hoc</> code to do it. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Change the server to reject invalidly-encoded multibyte +characters in all cases (Tatsuo, Tom)</para> +<para>While <productname>PostgreSQL</> has been moving in this direction for +some time, the checks are now applied uniformly to all encodings and all +textual input, and are now always errors not merely warnings. This change +defends against SQL-injection attacks of the type described in CVE-2006-2313. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Reject unsafe uses of <literal>\'</> in string literals</para> +<para>As a server-side defense against SQL-injection attacks of the type +described in CVE-2006-2314, the server now only accepts <literal>''</> and not +<literal>\'</> as a representation of ASCII single quote in SQL string +literals. By default, <literal>\'</> is rejected only when +<varname>client_encoding</> is set to a client-only encoding (SJIS, BIG5, GBK, +GB18030, or UHC), which is the scenario in which SQL injection is possible. +A new configuration parameter <varname>backslash_quote</> is available to +adjust this behavior when needed. Note that full security against +CVE-2006-2314 might require client-side changes; the purpose of +<varname>backslash_quote</> is in part to make it obvious that insecure +clients are insecure. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Modify <application>libpq</>'s string-escaping routines to be +aware of encoding considerations and +<varname>standard_conforming_strings</></para> +<para>This fixes <application>libpq</>-using applications for the security +issues described in CVE-2006-2313 and CVE-2006-2314, and also future-proofs +them against the planned changeover to SQL-standard string literal syntax. +Applications that use multiple <productname>PostgreSQL</> connections +concurrently should migrate to <function>PQescapeStringConn()</> and +<function>PQescapeByteaConn()</> to ensure that escaping is done correctly +for the settings in use in each database connection. Applications that +do string escaping <quote>by hand</> should be modified to rely on library +routines instead. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix some incorrect encoding conversion functions</para> +<para><function>win1251_to_iso</>, <function>alt_to_iso</>, +<function>euc_tw_to_big5</>, <function>euc_tw_to_mic</>, +<function>mic_to_euc_tw</> were all broken to varying +extents. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Clean up stray remaining uses of <literal>\'</> in strings +(Bruce, Jan)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix bug that sometimes caused OR'd index scans to +miss rows they should have returned</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix WAL replay for case where a btree index has been +truncated</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix <literal>SIMILAR TO</> for patterns involving +<literal>|</> (Tom)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix server to use custom DH SSL parameters correctly (Michael +Fuhr)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix for Bonjour on Intel Macs (Ashley Clark)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix various minor memory leaks</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-4-12"> + <title>Release 7.4.12</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2006-02-14</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.11. + For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-7-4">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.4.12</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.11, see the release + notes for 7.4.11. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> + +<listitem><para>Fix potential crash in <command>SET +SESSION AUTHORIZATION</> (CVE-2006-0553)</para> +<para>An unprivileged user could crash the server process, resulting in +momentary denial of service to other users, if the server has been compiled +with Asserts enabled (which is not the default). +Thanks to Akio Ishida for reporting this problem. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix bug with row visibility logic in self-inserted +rows (Tom)</para> +<para>Under rare circumstances a row inserted by the current command +could be seen as already valid, when it should not be. Repairs bug +created in 7.4.9 and 7.3.11 releases. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix race condition that could lead to <quote>file already +exists</> errors during pg_clog file creation +(Tom)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Properly check <literal>DOMAIN</> constraints for +<literal>UNKNOWN</> parameters in prepared statements +(Neil)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix to allow restoring dumps that have cross-schema +references to custom operators (Tom)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Portability fix for testing presence of <function>finite</> +and <function>isinf</> during configure (Tom)</para></listitem> + +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-4-11"> + <title>Release 7.4.11</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2006-01-09</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.10. + For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-7-4">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.4.11</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.8, see the release + notes for 7.4.8. + Also, you might need to <command>REINDEX</> indexes on textual + columns after updating, if you are affected by the locale or + <application>plperl</> issues described below. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> + +<listitem><para>Fix for protocol-level Describe messages issued +outside a transaction or in a failed transaction (Tom)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix character string comparison for locales that consider +different character combinations as equal, such as Hungarian (Tom)</para> +<para>This might require <command>REINDEX</> to fix existing indexes on +textual columns.</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Set locale environment variables during postmaster startup +to ensure that <application>plperl</> won't change the locale later</para> +<para>This fixes a problem that occurred if the <application>postmaster</> was +started with environment variables specifying a different locale than what +<application>initdb</> had been told. Under these conditions, any use of +<application>plperl</> was likely to lead to corrupt indexes. You might need +<command>REINDEX</> to fix existing indexes on +textual columns if this has happened to you.</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix longstanding bug in strpos() and regular expression +handling in certain rarely used Asian multi-byte character sets (Tatsuo) +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix bug in <filename>/contrib/pgcrypto</> gen_salt, +which caused it not to use all available salt space for MD5 and +XDES algorithms (Marko Kreen, Solar Designer)</para> +<para>Salts for Blowfish and standard DES are unaffected.</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix <filename>/contrib/dblink</> to throw an error, +rather than crashing, when the number of columns specified is different from +what's actually returned by the query (Joe)</para></listitem> + +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-4-10"> + <title>Release 7.4.10</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2005-12-12</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.9. + For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-7-4">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.4.10</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.8, see the release + notes for 7.4.8. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> + +<listitem><para>Fix race condition in transaction log management</para> +<para>There was a narrow window in which an I/O operation could be initiated +for the wrong page, leading to an Assert failure or data +corruption.</para> +</listitem> + +<listitem><para>Prevent failure if client sends Bind protocol message +when current transaction is already aborted</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para><filename>/contrib/ltree</> fixes (Teodor)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>AIX and HPUX compile fixes (Tom)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix longstanding planning error for outer joins</para> +<para>This bug sometimes caused a bogus error <quote>RIGHT JOIN is +only supported with merge-joinable join conditions</>.</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Prevent core dump in <application>pg_autovacuum</> when a +table has been dropped</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-4-9"> + <title>Release 7.4.9</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2005-10-04</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.8. + For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-7-4">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.4.9</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.8, see the release + notes for 7.4.8. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Fix error that allowed <command>VACUUM</> to remove +<literal>ctid</> chains too soon, and add more checking in code that follows +<literal>ctid</> links</para> +<para>This fixes a long-standing problem that could cause crashes in very rare +circumstances.</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <type>CHAR()</> to properly pad spaces to the specified +length when using a multiple-byte character set (Yoshiyuki Asaba)</para> +<para>In prior releases, the padding of <type>CHAR()</> was incorrect +because it only padded to the specified number of bytes without +considering how many characters were stored.</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix the sense of the test for read-only transaction +in <command>COPY</></para> +<para>The code formerly prohibited <command>COPY TO</>, where it should +prohibit <command>COPY FROM</>. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix planning problem with outer-join ON clauses that reference +only the inner-side relation</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Further fixes for <literal>x FULL JOIN y ON true</> corner +cases</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make <function>array_in</> and <function>array_recv</> more +paranoid about validating their OID parameter</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix missing rows in queries like <literal>UPDATE a=... WHERE +a...</> with GiST index on column <literal>a</></para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve robustness of datetime parsing</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve checking for partially-written WAL +pages</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve robustness of signal handling when SSL is +enabled</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Don't try to open more than <literal>max_files_per_process</> +files during postmaster startup</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Various memory leakage fixes</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Various portability improvements</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix PL/PgSQL to handle <literal>var := var</> correctly when +the variable is of pass-by-reference type</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Update <filename>contrib/tsearch2</> to use current Snowball +code</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-4-8"> + <title>Release 7.4.8</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2005-05-09</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.7, including several + security-related issues. + For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-7-4">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.4.8</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. However, + it is one possible way of handling two significant security problems + that have been found in the initial contents of 7.4.X system + catalogs. A dump/initdb/reload sequence using 7.4.8's initdb will + automatically correct these problems. + </para> + + <para> + The larger security problem is that the built-in character set encoding + conversion functions can be invoked from SQL commands by unprivileged + users, but the functions were not designed for such use and are not + secure against malicious choices of arguments. The fix involves changing + the declared parameter list of these functions so that they can no longer + be invoked from SQL commands. (This does not affect their normal use + by the encoding conversion machinery.) + </para> + + <para> + The lesser problem is that the <filename>contrib/tsearch2</> module + creates several functions that are misdeclared to return + <type>internal</> when they do not accept <type>internal</> arguments. + This breaks type safety for all functions using <type>internal</> + arguments. + </para> + + <para> + It is strongly recommended that all installations repair these errors, + either by initdb or by following the manual repair procedures given + below. The errors at least allow unprivileged database users to crash + their server process, and might allow unprivileged users to gain the + privileges of a database superuser. + </para> + + <para> + If you wish not to do an initdb, perform the following procedures instead. + As the database superuser, do: + +<programlisting> +BEGIN; +UPDATE pg_proc SET proargtypes[3] = 'internal'::regtype +WHERE pronamespace = 11 AND pronargs = 5 + AND proargtypes[2] = 'cstring'::regtype; +-- The command should report having updated 90 rows; +-- if not, rollback and investigate instead of committing! +COMMIT; +</programlisting> + + Next, if you have installed <filename>contrib/tsearch2</>, do: + +<programlisting> +BEGIN; +UPDATE pg_proc SET proargtypes[0] = 'internal'::regtype +WHERE oid IN ( + 'dex_init(text)'::regprocedure, + 'snb_en_init(text)'::regprocedure, + 'snb_ru_init(text)'::regprocedure, + 'spell_init(text)'::regprocedure, + 'syn_init(text)'::regprocedure +); +-- The command should report having updated 5 rows; +-- if not, rollback and investigate instead of committing! +COMMIT; +</programlisting> + + If this command fails with a message like <quote>function + "dex_init(text)" does not exist</>, then either <filename>tsearch2</> + is not installed in this database, or you already did the update. + </para> + + <para> + The above procedures must be carried out in <emphasis>each</> database + of an installation, including <literal>template1</>, and ideally + including <literal>template0</> as well. If you do not fix the + template databases then any subsequently created databases will contain + the same errors. <literal>template1</> can be fixed in the same way + as any other database, but fixing <literal>template0</> requires + additional steps. First, from any database issue: +<programlisting> +UPDATE pg_database SET datallowconn = true WHERE datname = 'template0'; +</programlisting> + Next connect to <literal>template0</> and perform the above repair + procedures. Finally, do: +<programlisting> +-- re-freeze template0: +VACUUM FREEZE; +-- and protect it against future alterations: +UPDATE pg_database SET datallowconn = false WHERE datname = 'template0'; +</programlisting> + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Change encoding function signature to prevent +misuse</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Change <filename>contrib/tsearch2</> to avoid unsafe use of +<type>INTERNAL</> function results</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Repair ancient race condition that allowed a transaction to be +seen as committed for some purposes (eg SELECT FOR UPDATE) slightly sooner +than for other purposes</para> +<para>This is an extremely serious bug since it could lead to apparent +data inconsistencies being briefly visible to applications.</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Repair race condition between relation extension and +VACUUM</para> +<para>This could theoretically have caused loss of a page's worth of +freshly-inserted data, although the scenario seems of very low probability. +There are no known cases of it having caused more than an Assert failure. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix comparisons of <type>TIME WITH TIME ZONE</> values</para> +<para> +The comparison code was wrong in the case where the +<literal>--enable-integer-datetimes</> configuration switch had been used. +NOTE: if you have an index on a <type>TIME WITH TIME ZONE</> column, +it will need to be <command>REINDEX</>ed after installing this update, because +the fix corrects the sort order of column values. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <function>EXTRACT(EPOCH)</> for +<type>TIME WITH TIME ZONE</> values</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix mis-display of negative fractional seconds in +<type>INTERVAL</> values</para> +<para> +This error only occurred when the +<literal>--enable-integer-datetimes</> configuration switch had been used. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Ensure operations done during backend shutdown are counted by +statistics collector</para> +<para> +This is expected to resolve reports of <application>pg_autovacuum</> +not vacuuming the system catalogs often enough — it was not being +told about catalog deletions caused by temporary table removal during +backend exit. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Additional buffer overrun checks in plpgsql +(Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix pg_dump to dump trigger names containing <literal>%</> +correctly (Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <filename>contrib/pgcrypto</> for newer OpenSSL builds +(Marko Kreen)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Still more 64-bit fixes for +<filename>contrib/intagg</></para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent incorrect optimization of functions returning +<type>RECORD</></para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent <function>to_char(interval)</> from dumping core for +month-related formats</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent crash on <literal>COALESCE(NULL,NULL)</></para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <function>array_map</> to call PL functions correctly</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix permission checking in <command>ALTER DATABASE RENAME</></para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <command>ALTER LANGUAGE RENAME</></para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make <function>RemoveFromWaitQueue</> clean up after itself</para> +<para> +This fixes a lock management error that would only be visible if a transaction +was kicked out of a wait for a lock (typically by query cancel) and then the +holder of the lock released it within a very narrow window. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix problem with untyped parameter appearing in +<command>INSERT ... SELECT</></para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <command>CLUSTER</> failure after +<command>ALTER TABLE SET WITHOUT OIDS</></para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-4-7"> + <title>Release 7.4.7</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2005-01-31</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.6, including several + security-related issues. + For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-7-4">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.4.7</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Disallow <command>LOAD</> to non-superusers</para> +<para> +On platforms that will automatically execute initialization functions of a +shared library (this includes at least Windows and ELF-based Unixen), +<command>LOAD</> can be used to make the server execute arbitrary code. +Thanks to NGS Software for reporting this.</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Check that creator of an aggregate function has the right to +execute the specified transition functions</para> +<para> +This oversight made it possible to bypass denial of EXECUTE +permission on a function.</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix security and 64-bit issues in +contrib/intagg</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add needed STRICT marking to some contrib functions (Kris +Jurka)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Avoid buffer overrun when plpgsql cursor declaration has too +many parameters (Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix planning error for FULL and RIGHT outer joins</para> +<para> +The result of the join was mistakenly supposed to be sorted the same as the +left input. This could not only deliver mis-sorted output to the user, but +in case of nested merge joins could give outright wrong answers. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix plperl for quote marks in tuple fields</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix display of negative intervals in SQL and GERMAN +datestyles</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make age(timestamptz) do calculation in local timezone not +GMT</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-4-6"> + <title>Release 7.4.6</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2004-10-22</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.5. + For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-7-4">. + </para> + + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.4.6</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Repair possible failure to update hint bits on disk</para> +<para> +Under rare circumstances this oversight could lead to +<quote>could not access transaction status</> failures, which qualifies +it as a potential-data-loss bug. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Ensure that hashed outer join does not miss tuples</para> +<para> +Very large left joins using a hash join plan could fail to output unmatched +left-side rows given just the right data distribution. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Disallow running <application>pg_ctl</> as root</para> +<para> +This is to guard against any possible security issues. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Avoid using temp files in <filename>/tmp</> in <command>make_oidjoins_check</command></para> +<para> +This has been reported as a security issue, though it's hardly worthy of +concern since there is no reason for non-developers to use this script anyway. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent forced backend shutdown from re-emitting prior command +result</para> +<para> +In rare cases, a client might think that its last command had succeeded when +it really had been aborted by forced database shutdown. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Repair bug in <function>pg_stat_get_backend_idset</function></para> +<para> +This could lead to misbehavior in some of the system-statistics views. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix small memory leak in postmaster</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <quote>expected both swapped tables to have TOAST +tables</> bug</para> +<para> +This could arise in cases such as CLUSTER after ALTER TABLE DROP COLUMN. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent <literal>pg_ctl restart</> from adding <literal>-D</> multiple times</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix problem with NULL values in GiST indexes</para></listitem> +<listitem><para><literal>::</> is no longer interpreted as a variable in an +ECPG prepare statement</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-4-5"> + <title>Release 7.4.5</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2004-08-18</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains one serious bug fix over 7.4.4. + For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-7-4">. + </para> + + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.4.5</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Repair possible crash during concurrent B-tree index insertions</para> +<para> +This patch fixes a rare case in which concurrent insertions into a B-tree index +could result in a server panic. No permanent damage would result, but it's +still worth a re-release. The bug does not exist in pre-7.4 releases. +</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-4-4"> + <title>Release 7.4.4</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2004-08-16</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.3. + For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-7-4">. + </para> + + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.4.4</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Prevent possible loss of committed transactions during crash</para> +<para> +Due to insufficient interlocking between transaction commit and checkpointing, +it was possible for transactions committed just before the most recent +checkpoint to be lost, in whole or in part, following a database crash and +restart. This is a serious bug that has existed +since <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> 7.1. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Check HAVING restriction before evaluating result list of an +aggregate plan</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Avoid crash when session's current user ID is deleted</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix hashed crosstab for zero-rows case (Joe)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Force cache update after renaming a column in a foreign key</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Pretty-print UNION queries correctly</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make psql handle <literal>\r\n</> newlines properly in COPY IN</para></listitem> +<listitem><para><application>pg_dump</> handled ACLs with grant options incorrectly</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix thread support for OS X and Solaris</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Updated JDBC driver (build 215) with various fixes</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>ECPG fixes</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Translation updates (various contributors)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-4-3"> + <title>Release 7.4.3</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2004-06-14</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.2. + For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-7-4">. + </para> + + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.4.3</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Fix temporary memory leak when using non-hashed aggregates (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>ECPG fixes, including some for Informix compatibility (Michael)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fixes for compiling with thread-safety, particularly Solaris (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix error in COPY IN termination when using the old network protocol (ljb)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Several important fixes in pg_autovacuum, including fixes for +large tables, unsigned oids, stability, temp tables, and debug mode +(Matthew T. O'Connor)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix problem with reading tar-format dumps on NetBSD and BSD/OS (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Several JDBC fixes</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix ALTER SEQUENCE RESTART where last_value equals the restart value (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Repair failure to recalculate nested sub-selects (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix problems with non-constant expressions in LIMIT/OFFSET</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Support FULL JOIN with no join clause, such as X FULL JOIN Y ON TRUE (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix another zero-column table bug (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve handling of non-qualified identifiers in GROUP BY clauses in sub-selects (Tom)</para> +<para> +Select-list aliases within the sub-select will now take precedence over +names from outer query levels. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Do not generate <quote>NATURAL CROSS JOIN</> when decompiling rules (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add checks for invalid field length in binary COPY (Tom)</para> +<para> + This fixes a difficult-to-exploit security hole. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Avoid locking conflict between <command>ANALYZE</command> and <command>LISTEN</command>/<command>NOTIFY</command></para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Numerous translation updates (various contributors)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-4-2"> + <title>Release 7.4.2</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2004-03-08</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.1. + For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-7-4">. + </para> + + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.4.2</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. However, + it might be advisable as the easiest method of incorporating fixes for + two errors that have been found in the initial contents of 7.4.X system + catalogs. A dump/initdb/reload sequence using 7.4.2's initdb will + automatically correct these problems. + </para> + + <para> + The more severe of the two errors is that data type <type>anyarray</> + has the wrong alignment label; this is a problem because the + <structname>pg_statistic</> system catalog uses <type>anyarray</> + columns. The mislabeling can cause planner misestimations and even + crashes when planning queries that involve <literal>WHERE</> clauses on + double-aligned columns (such as <type>float8</> and <type>timestamp</>). + It is strongly recommended that all installations repair this error, + either by initdb or by following the manual repair procedure given + below. + </para> + + <para> + The lesser error is that the system view <structname>pg_settings</> + ought to be marked as having public update access, to allow + <literal>UPDATE pg_settings</> to be used as a substitute for + <command>SET</>. This can also be fixed either by initdb or manually, + but it is not necessary to fix unless you want to use <literal>UPDATE + pg_settings</>. + </para> + + <para> + If you wish not to do an initdb, the following procedure will work + for fixing <structname>pg_statistic</>. As the database superuser, + do: + +<programlisting> +-- clear out old data in pg_statistic: +DELETE FROM pg_statistic; +VACUUM pg_statistic; +-- this should update 1 row: +UPDATE pg_type SET typalign = 'd' WHERE oid = 2277; +-- this should update 6 rows: +UPDATE pg_attribute SET attalign = 'd' WHERE atttypid = 2277; +-- +-- At this point you MUST start a fresh backend to avoid a crash! +-- +-- repopulate pg_statistic: +ANALYZE; +</programlisting> + + This can be done in a live database, but beware that all backends + running in the altered database must be restarted before it is safe to + repopulate <structname>pg_statistic</>. + </para> + + <para> + To repair the <structname>pg_settings</> error, simply do: +<programlisting> +GRANT SELECT, UPDATE ON pg_settings TO PUBLIC; +</programlisting> + </para> + + <para> + The above procedures must be carried out in <emphasis>each</> database + of an installation, including <literal>template1</>, and ideally + including <literal>template0</> as well. If you do not fix the + template databases then any subsequently created databases will contain + the same errors. <literal>template1</> can be fixed in the same way + as any other database, but fixing <literal>template0</> requires + additional steps. First, from any database issue: +<programlisting> +UPDATE pg_database SET datallowconn = true WHERE datname = 'template0'; +</programlisting> + Next connect to <literal>template0</> and perform the above repair + procedures. Finally, do: +<programlisting> +-- re-freeze template0: +VACUUM FREEZE; +-- and protect it against future alterations: +UPDATE pg_database SET datallowconn = false WHERE datname = 'template0'; +</programlisting> + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<para> + Release 7.4.2 incorporates all the fixes included in release 7.3.6, + plus the following fixes: +</para> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Fix <structname>pg_statistics</> alignment bug that could crash optimizer</para> +<para>See above for details about this problem.</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow non-super users to update <structname>pg_settings</></para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix several optimizer bugs, most of which led to +<quote>variable not found in subplan target lists</> errors</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Avoid out-of-memory failure during startup of large multiple +index scan</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix multibyte problem that could lead to <quote>out of +memory</> error during <command>COPY IN</></para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix problems with <command>SELECT INTO</> / <command>CREATE +TABLE AS</> from tables without OIDs</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix problems with <filename>alter_table</> regression test +during parallel testing</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix problems with hitting open file limit, especially on OS X (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Partial fix for Turkish-locale issues</para> +<para>initdb will succeed now in Turkish locale, but there are still some +inconveniences associated with the <literal>i/I</> problem.</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make pg_dump set client encoding on restore</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Other minor pg_dump fixes</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow ecpg to again use C keywords as column names (Michael)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Added ecpg <literal>WHENEVER NOT_FOUND</> to +<literal>SELECT/INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE</> (Michael)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix ecpg crash for queries calling set-returning functions (Michael)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Various other ecpg fixes (Michael)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fixes for Borland compiler</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Thread build improvements (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Various other build fixes</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Various JDBC fixes</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-4-1"> + <title>Release 7.4.1</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2003-12-22</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4. + For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-7-4">. + </para> + + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.4.1</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those + running 7.4. + </para> + + <para> + If you want to install the fixes in the information schema + you need to reload it into the database. + This is either accomplished by initializing a new cluster + by running <command>initdb</command>, or by running the following + sequence of SQL commands in each database (ideally including + <literal>template1</literal>) as a superuser in + <application>psql</application>, after installing the new release: +<programlisting> +DROP SCHEMA information_schema CASCADE; +\i /usr/local/pgsql/share/information_schema.sql +</programlisting> + Substitute your installation path in the second command. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Fixed bug in <command>CREATE SCHEMA</command> parsing in ECPG (Michael)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix compile error when <option>--enable-thread-safety</option> and <option>--with-perl</option> are used together (Peter)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for subqueries that used hash joins (Tom)</para> +<para> + Certain subqueries that used hash joins would crash because of + improperly shared structures. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix free space map compaction bug (Tom)</para> +<para> + This fixes a bug where compaction of the free space map could lead + to a database server shutdown. +</para> +</listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for Borland compiler build of libpq (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <function>netmask()</function> and <function>hostmask()</function> to return the maximum-length masklen (Tom)</para> +<para> + Fix these functions to return values consistent with pre-7.4 + releases. +</para> +</listitem> +<listitem><para>Several <filename>contrib/pg_autovacuum</filename> fixes</para> +<para> + Fixes include improper variable initialization, missing vacuum after + <command>TRUNCATE</command>, and duration computation overflow for long vacuums. +</para> +</listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow compile of <filename>contrib/cube</filename> under Cygwin (Jason Tishler)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix Solaris use of password file when no passwords are defined (Tom)</para> +<para> + Fix crash on Solaris caused by use of any type of password + authentication when no passwords were defined. +</para> +</listitem> +<listitem><para>JDBC fix for thread problems, other fixes</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for <type>bytea</type> index lookups (Joe)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix information schema for bit data types (Peter)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Force zero_damaged_pages to be on during recovery from WAL</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent some obscure cases of <quote>variable not in subplan target lists</quote></para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make <function>PQescapeBytea</function> and <function>byteaout</function> consistent with each other (Joe)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Escape <type>bytea</type> output for bytes > 0x7e(Joe)</para> +<para> + If different client encodings are used for <type>bytea</type> output and input, it + is possible for <type>bytea</type> values to be corrupted by the differing + encodings. This fix escapes all bytes that might be affected. +</para> +</listitem> +<listitem><para>Added missing <function>SPI_finish()</function> calls to dblink's <function>get_tuple_of_interest()</function> (Joe)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New Czech FAQ</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix information schema view <literal>constraint_column_usage</literal> for foreign keys (Peter)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>ECPG fixes (Michael)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix bug with multiple <literal>IN</literal> subqueries and joins in the subqueries (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow <literal>COUNT('x')</literal> to work (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Install ECPG include files for Informix compatibility into separate directory (Peter)</para> +<para> + Some names of ECPG include files for Informix compatibility conflicted with operating system include files. + By installing them in their own directory, name conflicts have been reduced. +</para> +</listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix SSL memory leak (Neil)</para> +<para> + This release fixes a bug in 7.4 where SSL didn't free all memory it allocated. +</para> +</listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent <filename>pg_service.conf</filename> from using service name as default dbname (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix local ident authentication on FreeBSD (Tom)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> +</sect1> + +<sect1 id="release-7-4"> + <title>Release 7.4</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2003-11-17</simpara> + </note> + + <sect2> + <title>Overview</title> + + <para> + Major changes in this release: + </para> + + <variablelist> + <varlistentry> + <term> + <literal>IN</literal> / <literal>NOT IN</literal> subqueries are + now much more efficient + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + In previous releases, <literal>IN</literal>/<literal>NOT + IN</literal> subqueries were joined to the upper query by + sequentially scanning the subquery looking for a match. The + 7.4 code uses the same sophisticated techniques used by + ordinary joins and so is much faster. An + <literal>IN</literal> will now usually be as fast as or faster + than an equivalent <literal>EXISTS</literal> subquery; this + reverses the conventional wisdom that applied to previous + releases. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Improved <literal>GROUP BY</literal> processing by using hash buckets + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + In previous releases, rows to be grouped had to be sorted + first. The 7.4 code can do <literal>GROUP BY</literal> + without sorting, by accumulating results into a hash table + with one entry per group. It will still use the sort + technique, however, if the hash table is estimated to be too + large to fit in <varname>sort_mem</>. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + New multikey hash join capability + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + In previous releases, hash joins could only occur on single + keys. This release allows multicolumn hash joins. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Queries using the explicit <literal>JOIN</literal> syntax are + now better optimized + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prior releases evaluated queries using the explicit + <literal>JOIN</literal> syntax only in the order implied by + the syntax. 7.4 allows full optimization of these queries, + meaning the optimizer considers all possible join orderings + and chooses the most efficient. Outer joins, however, must + still follow the declared ordering. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Faster and more powerful regular expression code + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + The entire regular expression module has been replaced with a + new version by Henry Spencer, originally written for Tcl. The + code greatly improves performance and supports several flavors + of regular expressions. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Function-inlining for simple SQL functions + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + Simple SQL functions can now be inlined by including their SQL + in the main query. This improves performance by eliminating + per-call overhead. That means simple SQL functions now + behave like macros. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Full support for IPv6 connections and IPv6 address data types + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + Previous releases allowed only IPv4 connections, and the IP + data types only supported IPv4 addresses. This release adds + full IPv6 support in both of these areas. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Major improvements in SSL performance and reliability + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + Several people very familiar with the SSL API have overhauled + our SSL code to improve SSL key negotiation and error + recovery. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Make free space map efficiently reuse empty index pages, + and other free space management improvements + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + In previous releases, B-tree index pages that were left empty + because of deleted rows could only be reused by rows with + index values similar to the rows originally indexed on that + page. In 7.4, <command>VACUUM</command> records empty index + pages and allows them to be reused for any future index rows. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + SQL-standard information schema + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + The information schema provides a standardized and stable way + to access information about the schema objects defined in a + database. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Cursors conform more closely to the SQL standard + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + The commands <command>FETCH</command> and + <command>MOVE</command> have been overhauled to conform more + closely to the SQL standard. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Cursors can exist outside transactions + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + These cursors are also called holdable cursors. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + New client-to-server protocol + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + The new protocol adds error codes, more status information, + faster startup, better support for binary data transmission, + parameter values separated from SQL commands, prepared + statements available at the protocol level, and cleaner + recovery from <command>COPY</command> failures. The older + protocol is still supported by both server and clients. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + <application>libpq</application> and + <application>ECPG</application> applications are now fully + thread-safe + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + While previous <application>libpq</application> releases + already supported threads, this release improves thread safety + by fixing some non-thread-safe code that was used during + database connection startup. The <command>configure</command> + option <option>--enable-thread-safety</option> must be used to + enable this feature. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + New version of full-text indexing + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + A new full-text indexing suite is available in + <filename>contrib/tsearch2</filename>. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + New autovacuum tool + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + The new autovacuum tool in + <filename>contrib/autovacuum</filename> monitors the database + statistics tables for + <command>INSERT</command>/<command>UPDATE</command>/<command>DELETE</command> + activity and automatically vacuums tables when needed. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Array handling has been improved and moved into the server core + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + Many array limitations have been removed, and arrays behave + more like fully-supported data types. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + </variablelist> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.4</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore using <application>pg_dump</application> is + required for those wishing to migrate data from any previous + release. + </para> + + <para> + Observe the following incompatibilities: + </para> + + <itemizedlist> + <listitem> + <para> + The server-side autocommit setting was removed and + reimplemented in client applications and languages. + Server-side autocommit was causing too many problems with + languages and applications that wanted to control their own + autocommit behavior, so autocommit was removed from the server + and added to individual client APIs as appropriate. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Error message wording has changed substantially in this + release. Significant effort was invested to make the messages + more consistent and user-oriented. If your applications try to + detect different error conditions by parsing the error message, + you are strongly encouraged to use the new error code facility instead. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Inner joins using the explicit <literal>JOIN</literal> syntax + might behave differently because they are now better + optimized. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + A number of server configuration parameters have been renamed + for clarity, primarily those related to + logging. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <literal>FETCH 0</literal> or <literal>MOVE 0</literal> now + does nothing. In prior releases, <literal>FETCH 0</literal> + would fetch all remaining rows, and <literal>MOVE 0</literal> + would move to the end of the cursor. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <command>FETCH</command> and <command>MOVE</command> now return + the actual number of rows fetched/moved, or zero if at the + beginning/end of the cursor. Prior releases would return the + row count passed to the command, not the number of rows + actually fetched or moved. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <command>COPY</command> now can process files that use + carriage-return or carriage-return/line-feed end-of-line + sequences. Literal carriage-returns and line-feeds are no + longer accepted in data values; use <literal>\r</literal> and + <literal>\n</literal> instead. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Trailing spaces are now trimmed when converting from type + <type>char(<replaceable>n</>)</type> to + <type>varchar(<replaceable>n</>)</type> or <type>text</type>. + This is what most people always expected to happen anyway. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + The data type <type>float(<replaceable>p</>)</type> now + measures <replaceable>p</> in binary digits, not decimal + digits. The new behavior follows the SQL standard. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Ambiguous date values now must match the ordering specified by + the <varname>datestyle</varname> setting. In prior releases, a + date specification of <literal>10/20/03</> was interpreted as a + date in October even if <varname>datestyle</> specified that + the day should be first. 7.4 will throw an error if a date + specification is invalid for the current setting of + <varname>datestyle</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + The functions <function>oidrand</function>, + <function>oidsrand</function>, and + <function>userfntest</function> have been removed. These + functions were determined to be no longer useful. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + String literals specifying time-varying date/time values, such + as <literal>'now'</literal> or <literal>'today'</literal> will + no longer work as expected in column default expressions; they + now cause the time of the table creation to be the default, not + the time of the insertion. Functions such as + <function>now()</>, <function>current_timestamp</>, or + <function>current_date</function> should be used instead. + </para> + + <para> + In previous releases, there was special code so that strings + such as <literal>'now'</literal> were interpreted at + <command>INSERT</> time and not at table creation time, but + this work around didn't cover all cases. Release 7.4 now + requires that defaults be defined properly using functions such + as <function>now()</> or <function>current_timestamp</>. These + will work in all situations. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + The dollar sign (<literal>$</>) is no longer allowed in + operator names. It can instead be a non-first character in + identifiers. This was done to improve compatibility with other + database systems, and to avoid syntax problems when parameter + placeholders (<literal>$<replaceable>n</></>) are written + adjacent to operators. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <para> + Below you will find a detailed account of the changes between + release 7.4 and the previous major release. + </para> + + <sect3> + <title>Server Operation Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + <listitem> + <para> + Allow IPv6 server connections (Nigel Kukard, Johan Jordaan, + Bruce, Tom, Kurt Roeckx, Andrew Dunstan) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix SSL to handle errors cleanly (Nathan Mueller) + </para> + <para> + In prior releases, certain SSL API error reports were not + handled correctly. This release fixes those problems. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + SSL protocol security and performance improvements (Sean Chittenden) + </para> + <para> + SSL key renegotiation was happening too frequently, causing poor + SSL performance. Also, initial key handling was improved. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Print lock information when a deadlock is detected (Tom) + </para> + <para> + This allows easier debugging of deadlock situations. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update <filename>/tmp</filename> socket modification times + regularly to avoid their removal (Tom) + </para> + <para> + This should help prevent <filename>/tmp</filename> directory + cleaner administration scripts from removing server socket + files. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem><para>Enable PAM for Mac OS X (Aaron Hillegass)</para></listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Make B-tree indexes fully WAL-safe (Tom)</para> + <para> + In prior releases, under certain rare cases, a server crash + could cause B-tree indexes to become corrupt. This release + removes those last few rare cases. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem><para>Allow B-tree index compaction and empty page reuse (Tom)</para></listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix inconsistent index lookups during split of first root page (Tom) + </para> + <para> + In prior releases, when a single-page index split into two + pages, there was a brief period when another database session + could miss seeing an index entry. This release fixes that rare + failure case. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem><para>Improve free space map allocation logic (Tom)</para></listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Preserve free space information between server restarts (Tom)</para> + <para> + In prior releases, the free space map was not saved when the + postmaster was stopped, so newly started servers had no free + space information. This release saves the free space map, and + reloads it when the server is restarted. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem><para>Add start time to <literal>pg_stat_activity</literal> (Neil)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>New code to detect corrupt disk pages; erase with <varname>zero_damaged_pages</varname> (Tom)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>New client/server protocol: faster, no username length limit, allow clean exit from <command>COPY</command> (Tom)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Add transaction status, table ID, column ID to client/server protocol (Tom)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Add binary I/O to client/server protocol (Tom)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Remove autocommit server setting; move to client applications (Tom)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>New error message wording, error codes, and three levels of error detail (Tom, Joe, Peter)</para></listitem> + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Performance Improvements</title> + + <itemizedlist> + <listitem><para>Add hashing for <literal>GROUP BY</literal> aggregates (Tom)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Make nested-loop joins be smarter about multicolumn indexes (Tom)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Allow multikey hash joins (Tom)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Improve constant folding (Tom)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Add ability to inline simple SQL functions (Tom)</para></listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Reduce memory usage for queries using complex functions (Tom)</para> + <para> + In prior releases, functions returning allocated memory would + not free it until the query completed. This release allows the + freeing of function-allocated memory when the function call + completes, reducing the total memory used by functions. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Improve GEQO optimizer performance (Tom)</para> + <para> + This release fixes several inefficiencies in the way the GEQO optimizer + manages potential query paths. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <literal>IN</>/<literal>NOT IN</> to be handled via hash + tables (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve <literal>NOT IN (<replaceable>subquery</>)</literal> + performance (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow most <literal>IN</literal> subqueries to be processed as + joins (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Pattern matching operations can use indexes regardless of + locale (Peter) + </para> + <para> + There is no way for non-ASCII locales to use the standard + indexes for <literal>LIKE</literal> comparisons. This release + adds a way to create a special index for + <literal>LIKE</literal>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Allow the postmaster to preload libraries using <varname>preload_libraries</varname> (Joe)</para> + <para> + For shared libraries that require a long time to load, this + option is available so the library can be preloaded in the + postmaster and inherited by all database sessions. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve optimizer cost computations, particularly for subqueries (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Avoid sort when subquery <literal>ORDER BY</literal> matches upper query (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Deduce that <literal>WHERE a.x = b.y AND b.y = 42</literal> also + means <literal>a.x = 42</literal> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow hash/merge joins on complex joins (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow hash joins for more data types (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow join optimization of explicit inner joins, disable with + <varname>join_collapse_limit</varname> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add parameter <varname>from_collapse_limit</varname> to control + conversion of subqueries to joins (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Use faster and more powerful regular expression code from Tcl + (Henry Spencer, Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Use bit-mapped relation sets in the optimizer (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Improve connection startup time (Tom)</para> + <para> + The new client/server protocol requires fewer network packets to + start a database session. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve trigger/constraint performance (Stephan) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve speed of <literal>col IN (const, const, const, ...)</literal> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix hash indexes which were broken in rare cases (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem><para>Improve hash index concurrency and speed (Tom)</para> + <para> + Prior releases suffered from poor hash index performance, + particularly for high concurrency situations. This release fixes + that, and the development group is interested in reports + comparing B-tree and hash index performance. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Align shared buffers on 32-byte boundary for copy speed improvement (Manfred Spraul)</para> + <para> + Certain CPU's perform faster data copies when addresses are + 32-byte aligned. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Data type <type>numeric</type> reimplemented for better performance (Tom)</para> + <para> + <type>numeric</type> used to be stored in base 100. The new code + uses base 10000, for significantly better performance. + </para> + </listitem> + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Server Configuration Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + <listitem> + <para>Rename server parameter <varname>server_min_messages</> to <varname>log_min_messages</> (Bruce)</para> + <para> + This was done so most parameters that control the server logs + begin with <literal>log_</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem><para>Rename <varname>show_*_stats</> to <varname>log_*_stats</> (Bruce)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Rename <varname>show_source_port</> to <varname>log_source_port</> (Bruce)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Rename <varname>hostname_lookup</> to <varname>log_hostname</> (Bruce)</para></listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Add <varname>checkpoint_warning</> to warn of excessive checkpointing (Bruce)</para> + <para> + In prior releases, it was difficult to determine if checkpoint + was happening too frequently. This feature adds a warning to the + server logs when excessive checkpointing happens. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem><para>New read-only server parameters for localization (Tom)</para></listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Change debug server log messages to output as <literal>DEBUG</> + rather than <literal>LOG</> (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Prevent server log variables from being turned off by non-superusers (Bruce)</para> + <para> + This is a security feature so non-superusers cannot disable + logging that was enabled by the administrator. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <varname>log_min_messages</>/<varname>client_min_messages</> now + controls <varname>debug_*</> output (Bruce) + </para> + <para> + This centralizes client debug information so all debug output + can be sent to either the client or server logs. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Add Mac OS X Rendezvous server support (Chris Campbell)</para> + <para> + This allows Mac OS X hosts to query the network for available + <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> servers. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add ability to print only slow statements using + <varname>log_min_duration_statement</varname> + (Christopher) + </para> + <para> + This is an often requested debugging feature that allows + administrators to see only slow queries in their server logs. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Allow <filename>pg_hba.conf</filename> to accept netmasks in CIDR format (Andrew Dunstan)</para> + <para> + This allows administrators to merge the host IP address and + netmask fields into a single CIDR field in <filename>pg_hba.conf</filename>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem><para>New read-only parameter <varname>is_superuser</varname> (Tom)</para></listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>New parameter <varname>log_error_verbosity</varname> to control error detail (Tom)</para> + <para> + This works with the new error reporting feature to supply + additional error information like hints, file names and line + numbers. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para><literal>postgres --describe-config</literal> now dumps server config variables (Aizaz Ahmed, Peter)</para> + <para> + This option is useful for administration tools that need to know + the configuration variable names and their minimums, maximums, + defaults, and descriptions. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add new columns in <literal>pg_settings</literal>: + <literal>context</>, <literal>type</>, <literal>source</>, + <literal>min_val</>, <literal>max_val</> (Joe) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make default <varname>shared_buffers</> 1000 and + <varname>max_connections</> 100, if possible (Tom) + </para> + <para> + Prior versions defaulted to 64 shared buffers so <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> + would start on even very old systems. This release tests the + amount of shared memory allowed by the platform and selects more + reasonable default values if possible. Of course, users are + still encouraged to evaluate their resource load and size + <varname>shared_buffers</varname> accordingly. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + New <filename>pg_hba.conf</filename> record type + <literal>hostnossl</> to prevent SSL connections (Jon + Jensen) + </para> + <para> + In prior releases, there was no way to prevent SSL connections + if both the client and server supported SSL. This option allows + that capability. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove parameter <varname>geqo_random_seed</varname> + (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add server parameter <varname>regex_flavor</varname> to control regular expression processing (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>pg_ctl</command> better handle nonstandard ports (Greg) + </para> + </listitem> + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Query Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + <listitem><para>New SQL-standard information schema (Peter)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Add read-only transactions (Peter)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Print key name and value in foreign-key violation messages (Dmitry Tkach)</para></listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Allow users to see their own queries in <literal>pg_stat_activity</literal> (Kevin Brown)</para> + <para> + In prior releases, only the superuser could see query strings + using <literal>pg_stat_activity</literal>. Now ordinary users + can see their own query strings. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Fix aggregates in subqueries to match SQL standard (Tom)</para> + <para> + The SQL standard says that an aggregate function appearing + within a nested subquery belongs to the outer query if its + argument contains only outer-query variables. Prior + <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> releases did not handle + this fine point correctly. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Add option to prevent auto-addition of tables referenced in query (Nigel J. Andrews)</para> + <para> + By default, tables mentioned in the query are automatically + added to the <literal>FROM</> clause if they are not already + there. This is compatible with historic + <productname>POSTGRES</productname> behavior but is contrary to + the SQL standard. This option allows selecting + standard-compatible behavior. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Allow <literal>UPDATE ... SET col = DEFAULT</literal> (Rod)</para> + <para> + This allows <command>UPDATE</command> to set a column to its + declared default value. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Allow expressions to be used in <literal>LIMIT</>/<literal>OFFSET</> (Tom)</para> + <para> + In prior releases, <literal>LIMIT</>/<literal>OFFSET</> could + only use constants, not expressions. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Implement <literal>CREATE TABLE AS EXECUTE</literal> (Neil, Peter)</para> + </listitem> + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Object Manipulation Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + <listitem> + <para>Make <command>CREATE SEQUENCE</command> grammar more conforming to SQL:2003 (Neil)</para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Add statement-level triggers (Neil)</para> + <para> + While this allows a trigger to fire at the end of a statement, + it does not allow the trigger to access all rows modified by the + statement. This capability is planned for a future release. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Add check constraints for domains (Rod)</para> + <para> + This greatly increases the usefulness of domains by allowing + them to use check constraints. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Add <command>ALTER DOMAIN</command> (Rod)</para> + <para> + This allows manipulation of existing domains. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Fix several zero-column table bugs (Tom)</para> + <para> + <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> supports zero-column tables. This fixes various bugs + that occur when using such tables. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Have <literal>ALTER TABLE ... ADD PRIMARY KEY</literal> add not-null constraint (Rod)</para> + <para> + In prior releases, <literal>ALTER TABLE ... ADD + PRIMARY</literal> would add a unique index, but not a not-null + constraint. That is fixed in this release. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem><para>Add <literal>ALTER TABLE ... WITHOUT OIDS</literal> (Rod)</para> + <para> + This allows control over whether new and updated rows will have + an OID column. This is most useful for saving storage space. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>ALTER SEQUENCE</literal> to modify minimum, maximum, + increment, cache, cycle values (Rod) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Add <literal>ALTER TABLE ... CLUSTER ON</literal> (Alvaro Herrera)</para> + <para> + This command is used by <command>pg_dump</command> to record the + cluster column for each table previously clustered. This + information is used by database-wide cluster to cluster all + previously clustered tables. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem><para>Improve automatic type casting for domains (Rod, Tom)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Allow dollar signs in identifiers, except as first character (Tom)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Disallow dollar signs in operator names, so <literal>x=$1</> works (Tom)</para></listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow copying table schema using <literal>LIKE + <replaceable>subtable</replaceable></literal>, also SQL:2003 + feature <literal>INCLUDING DEFAULTS</literal> (Rod) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>WITH GRANT OPTION</literal> clause to + <command>GRANT</command> (Peter) + </para> + <para> + This enabled <command>GRANT</command> to give other users the + ability to grant privileges on a object. + </para> + </listitem> + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Utility Command Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + <listitem> + <para>Add <literal>ON COMMIT</literal> clause to <command>CREATE TABLE</command> for temporary tables (Gavin)</para> + <para> + This adds the ability for a table to be dropped or all rows + deleted on transaction commit. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Allow cursors outside transactions using <literal>WITH HOLD</literal> (Neil)</para> + <para> + In previous releases, cursors were removed at the end of the + transaction that created them. Cursors can now be created with + the <literal>WITH HOLD</literal> option, which allows them to + continue to be accessed after the creating transaction has + committed. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para><literal>FETCH 0</literal> and <literal>MOVE 0 </literal> now do nothing (Bruce)</para> + <para> + In previous releases, <literal>FETCH 0</literal> fetched all + remaining rows, and <literal>MOVE 0</literal> moved to the end + of the cursor. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Cause <command>FETCH</command> and <command>MOVE</command> to + return the number of rows fetched/moved, or zero if at the + beginning/end of cursor, per SQL standard (Bruce) + </para> + <para> + In prior releases, the row count returned by + <command>FETCH</command> and <command>MOVE</command> did not + accurately reflect the number of rows processed. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Properly handle <literal>SCROLL</literal> with cursors, or + report an error (Neil)</para> + <para> + Allowing random access (both forward and backward scrolling) to + some kinds of queries cannot be done without some additional + work. If <literal>SCROLL</literal> is specified when the cursor + is created, this additional work will be performed. Furthermore, + if the cursor has been created with <literal>NO SCROLL</literal>, + no random access is allowed. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Implement SQL-compatible options <literal>FIRST</>, + <literal>LAST</>, <literal>ABSOLUTE <replaceable>n</></>, + <literal>RELATIVE <replaceable>n</></> for + <command>FETCH</command> and <command>MOVE</command> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Allow <command>EXPLAIN</command> on <command>DECLARE CURSOR</command> (Tom)</para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Allow <command>CLUSTER</command> to use index marked as pre-clustered by default (Alvaro Herrera)</para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Allow <command>CLUSTER</command> to cluster all tables (Alvaro Herrera)</para> + <para> + This allows all previously clustered tables in a database to be + reclustered with a single command. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem><para>Prevent <command>CLUSTER</command> on partial indexes (Tom)</para></listitem> + + <listitem><para>Allow DOS and Mac line-endings in <command>COPY</> files (Bruce)</para></listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Disallow literal carriage return as a data value, + backslash-carriage-return and <literal>\r</> are still allowed + (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para><command>COPY</> changes (binary, <literal>\.</>) (Tom)</para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Recover from <command>COPY</command> failure cleanly (Tom)</para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Prevent possible memory leaks in <command>COPY</command> (Tom)</para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Make <command>TRUNCATE</command> transaction-safe (Rod)</para> + <para> + <command>TRUNCATE</command> can now be used inside a + transaction. If the transaction aborts, the changes made by the + <command>TRUNCATE</command> are automatically rolled back. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow prepare/bind of utility commands like + <command>FETCH</command> and <command>EXPLAIN</command> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Add <command>EXPLAIN EXECUTE</command> (Neil)</para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Improve <command>VACUUM</command> performance on indexes by reducing WAL traffic (Tom)</para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Functional indexes have been generalized into indexes on expressions (Tom)</para> + <para> + In prior releases, functional indexes only supported a simple + function applied to one or more column names. This release + allows any type of scalar expression. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Have <command>SHOW TRANSACTION ISOLATION</command> match input + to <command>SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION</command> + (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Have <command>COMMENT ON DATABASE</command> on nonlocal + database generate a warning, rather than an error (Rod) + </para> + + <para> + Database comments are stored in database-local tables so + comments on a database have to be stored in each database. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve reliability of <command>LISTEN</>/<command>NOTIFY</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Allow <command>REINDEX</command> to reliably reindex nonshared system catalog indexes (Tom)</para> + <para> + This allows system tables to be reindexed without the + requirement of a standalone session, which was necessary in + previous releases. The only tables that now require a standalone + session for reindexing are the global system tables + <literal>pg_database</>, <literal>pg_shadow</>, and + <literal>pg_group</>. + </para> + </listitem> + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Data Type and Function Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + <listitem> + <para> + New server parameter <varname>extra_float_digits</varname> to + control precision display of floating-point numbers (Pedro + Ferreira, Tom) + </para> + <para> + This controls output precision which was causing regression + testing problems. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem><para>Allow <literal>+1300</literal> as a numeric time-zone specifier, for FJST (Tom)</para></listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove rarely used functions <function>oidrand</>, + <function>oidsrand</>, and <function>userfntest</> functions + (Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Add <function>md5()</> function to main server, already in <filename>contrib/pgcrypto</filename> (Joe)</para> + <para> + An MD5 function was frequently requested. For more complex + encryption capabilities, use + <filename>contrib/pgcrypto</filename>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem><para>Increase date range of <type>timestamp</type> (John Cochran)</para></listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Change <literal>EXTRACT(EPOCH FROM timestamp)</literal> so + <type>timestamp without time zone</type> is assumed to be in + local time, not GMT (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem><para>Trap division by zero in case the operating system doesn't prevent it (Tom)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Change the <type>numeric</type> data type internally to base 10000 (Tom)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>New <function>hostmask()</function> function (Greg Wickham)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Fixes for <function>to_char()</function> and <function>to_timestamp()</function> (Karel)</para></listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow functions that can take any argument data type and return + any data type, using <type>anyelement</type> and + <type>anyarray</type> (Joe) + </para> + <para> + This allows the creation of functions that can work with any + data type. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Arrays can now be specified as <literal>ARRAY[1,2,3]</literal>, + <literal>ARRAY[['a','b'],['c','d']]</literal>, or + <literal>ARRAY[ARRAY[ARRAY[2]]]</literal> (Joe) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow proper comparisons for arrays, including <literal>ORDER + BY</literal> and <literal>DISTINCT</literal> support + (Joe) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem><para>Allow indexes on array columns (Joe)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Allow array concatenation with <literal>||</literal> (Joe)</para></listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <literal>WHERE</literal> qualification + <literal><replaceable>expr</> <replaceable>op</> ANY/SOME/ALL + (<replaceable>array_expr</>)</literal> (Joe) + </para> + <para> + This allows arrays to behave like a list of values, for purposes + like <literal>SELECT * FROM tab WHERE col IN + (array_val)</literal>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + New array functions <function>array_append</>, + <function>array_cat</>, <function>array_lower</>, + <function>array_prepend</>, <function>array_to_string</>, + <function>array_upper</>, <function>string_to_array</> (Joe) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem><para>Allow user defined aggregates to use polymorphic functions (Joe)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Allow assignments to empty arrays (Joe)</para></listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow 60 in seconds fields of <type>time</type>, + <type>timestamp</type>, and <type>interval</type> input values + (Tom) + </para> + <para> + Sixty-second values are needed for leap seconds. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem><para>Allow <type>cidr</type> data type to be cast to <type>text</type> (Tom)</para></listitem> + + <listitem><para>Disallow invalid time zone names in SET TIMEZONE</para></listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Trim trailing spaces when <type>char</type> is cast to + <type>varchar</> or <type>text</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <type>float(<replaceable>p</>)</> measure the precision + <replaceable>p</> in binary digits, not decimal digits + (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Add IPv6 support to the <type>inet</type> and <type>cidr</type> data types (Michael Graff)</para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Add <function>family()</function> function to report whether address is IPv4 or IPv6 (Michael Graff)</para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Have <literal>SHOW datestyle</literal> generate output similar + to that used by <literal>SET datestyle</literal> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <literal>EXTRACT(TIMEZONE)</literal> and <literal>SET/SHOW + TIME ZONE</literal> follow the SQL convention for the sign of + time zone offsets, i.e., positive is east from UTC (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Fix <literal>date_trunc('quarter', ...)</literal> (Böjthe Zoltán)</para> + <para> + Prior releases returned an incorrect value for this function call. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Make <function>initcap()</function> more compatible with Oracle (Mike Nolan)</para> + <para> + <function>initcap()</function> now uppercases a letter appearing + after any non-alphanumeric character, rather than only after + whitespace. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Allow only <varname>datestyle</varname> field order for date values not in ISO-8601 format (Greg)</para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add new <varname>datestyle</varname> values <literal>MDY</>, + <literal>DMY</>, and <literal>YMD</> to set input field order; + honor <literal>US</> and <literal>European</> for backward + compatibility (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + String literals like <literal>'now'</literal> or + <literal>'today'</literal> will no longer work as a column + default. Use functions such as <function>now()</function>, + <function>current_timestamp</function> instead. (change + required for prepared statements) (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Treat NaN as larger than any other value in <function>min()</>/<function>max()</> (Tom)</para> + <para> + NaN was already sorted after ordinary numeric values for most + purposes, but <function>min()</> and <function>max()</> didn't + get this right. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Prevent interval from suppressing <literal>:00</literal> + seconds display</para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + New functions <function>pg_get_triggerdef(prettyprint)</function> + and <function>pg_conversion_is_visible()</function> (Christopher) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Allow time to be specified as <literal>040506</> or <literal>0405</> (Tom)</para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Input date order must now be <literal>YYYY-MM-DD</literal> (with 4-digit year) or + match <varname>datestyle</varname> + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <function>pg_get_constraintdef</function> support + unique, primary-key, and check constraints (Christopher) + </para> + </listitem> + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Server-Side Language Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent PL/pgSQL crash when <literal>RETURN NEXT</literal> is + used on a zero-row record variable (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make PL/Python's <function>spi_execute</function> interface + handle null values properly (Andrew Bosma) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Allow PL/pgSQL to declare variables of composite types without <literal>%ROWTYPE</literal> (Tom)</para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Fix PL/Python's <function>_quote()</function> function to handle big integers</para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Make PL/Python an untrusted language, now called <literal>plpythonu</literal> (Kevin Jacobs, Tom)</para> + <para> + The Python language no longer supports a restricted execution + environment, so the trusted version of PL/Python was removed. If + this situation changes, a version of PL/Python that can be used + by non-superusers will be readded. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Allow polymorphic PL/pgSQL functions (Joe, Tom)</para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Allow polymorphic SQL functions (Joe)</para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improved compiled function caching mechanism in PL/pgSQL with + full support for polymorphism (Joe) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add new parameter <literal>$0</> in PL/pgSQL representing the + function's actual return type (Joe) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow PL/Tcl and PL/Python to use the same trigger on multiple tables (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fixed PL/Tcl's <function>spi_prepare</function> to accept fully + qualified type names in the parameter type list + (Jan) + </para> + </listitem> + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>psql Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + <listitem> + <para>Add <literal>\pset pager always</literal> to always use pager (Greg)</para> + <para> + This forces the pager to be used even if the number of rows is + less than the screen height. This is valuable for rows that + wrap across several screen rows. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem><para>Improve tab completion (Rod, Ross Reedstrom, Ian Barwick)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Reorder <literal>\?</> help into groupings (Harald Armin Massa, Bruce)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Add backslash commands for listing schemas, casts, and conversions (Christopher)</para></listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <command>\encoding</> now changes based on the server parameter + <varname>client_encoding</varname> (Tom) + </para> + <para> + In previous versions, <command>\encoding</command> was not aware + of encoding changes made using <literal>SET + client_encoding</literal>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Save editor buffer into readline history (Ross)</para> + <para> + When <command>\e</> is used to edit a query, the result is saved + in the readline history for retrieval using the up arrow. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem><para>Improve <command>\d</command> display (Christopher)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Enhance HTML mode to be more standards-conforming (Greg)</para></listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>New <command>\set AUTOCOMMIT off</command> capability (Tom)</para> + <para> + This takes the place of the removed server parameter <varname>autocommit</varname>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>New <command>\set VERBOSITY</command> to control error detail (Tom)</para> + <para> + This controls the new error reporting details. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem><para>New prompt escape sequence <literal>%x</literal> to show transaction status (Tom)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Long options for <application>psql</application> are now available on all platforms</para></listitem> + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>pg_dump Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + <listitem><para>Multiple pg_dump fixes, including tar format and large objects</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Allow pg_dump to dump specific schemas (Neil)</para></listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Make pg_dump preserve column storage characteristics (Christopher)</para> + <para> + This preserves <literal>ALTER TABLE ... SET STORAGE</literal> information. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem><para>Make pg_dump preserve <command>CLUSTER</command> characteristics (Christopher)</para></listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Have pg_dumpall use <command>GRANT</>/<command>REVOKE</> to dump database-level privileges (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow pg_dumpall to support the options <option>-a</>, + <option>-s</>, <option>-x</> of pg_dump (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem><para>Prevent pg_dump from lowercasing identifiers specified on the command line (Tom)</para></listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + pg_dump options <option>--use-set-session-authorization</option> + and <option>--no-reconnect</option> now do nothing, all dumps + use <command>SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION</command> + </para> + <para> + pg_dump no longer reconnects to switch users, but instead always + uses <command>SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION</command>. This will + reduce password prompting during restores. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Long options for <application>pg_dump</application> are now available on all platforms</para> + <para> + <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> now includes its own + long-option processing routines. + </para> + </listitem> + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>libpq Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + <listitem> + <para> + Add function <function>PQfreemem</function> for freeing memory on + Windows, suggested for <command>NOTIFY</command> (Bruce) + </para> + <para> + Windows requires that memory allocated in a library be freed by + a function in the same library, hence + <function>free()</function> doesn't work for freeing memory + allocated by libpq. <function>PQfreemem</function> is the proper + way to free libpq memory, especially on Windows, and is + recommended for other platforms as well. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Document service capability, and add sample file (Bruce)</para> + <para> + This allows clients to look up connection information in a + central file on the client machine. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <function>PQsetdbLogin</function> have the same defaults as + <function>PQconnectdb</function> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem><para>Allow libpq to cleanly fail when result sets are too large (Tom)</para></listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve performance of function <function>PQunescapeBytea</function> (Ben Lamb) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow thread-safe libpq with <filename>configure</filename> + option <option>--enable-thread-safety</option> (Lee Kindness, + Philip Yarra) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow function <function>pqInternalNotice</function> to accept a + format string and arguments instead of just a preformatted + message (Tom, Sean Chittenden) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Control SSL negotiation with <literal>sslmode</literal> values + <literal>disable</literal>, <literal>allow</literal>, + <literal>prefer</literal>, and <literal>require</literal> (Jon + Jensen) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Allow new error codes and levels of text (Tom)</para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Allow access to the underlying table and column of a query result (Tom)</para> + <para> + This is helpful for query-builder applications that want to know + the underlying table and column names associated with a specific + result set. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem><para>Allow access to the current transaction status (Tom)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Add ability to pass binary data directly to the server (Tom)</para></listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add function <function>PQexecPrepared</function> and + <function>PQsendQueryPrepared</function> functions which perform + bind/execute of previously prepared statements (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>JDBC Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + <listitem><para>Allow <function>setNull</function> on updateable result sets</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Allow <function>executeBatch</function> on a prepared statement (Barry)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Support SSL connections (Barry)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Handle schema names in result sets (Paul Sorenson)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Add refcursor support (Nic Ferrier)</para></listitem> + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Miscellaneous Interface Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + <listitem> + <para>Prevent possible memory leak or core dump during libpgtcl shutdown (Tom)</para> + </listitem> + <listitem> + <para>Add Informix compatibility to ECPG (Michael)</para> + <para> + This allows ECPG to process embedded C programs that were + written using certain Informix extensions. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Add type <type>decimal</type> to ECPG that is fixed length, for Informix (Michael)</para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow thread-safe embedded SQL programs with + <filename>configure</filename> option + <option>--enable-thread-safety</option> (Lee Kindness, Bruce) + </para> + <para> + This allows multiple threads to access the database at the same + time. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para>Moved Python client PyGreSQL to <ulink url="http://www.pygresql.org"></ulink> (Marc)</para> + </listitem> + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Source Code Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + <listitem><para>Prevent need for separate platform geometry regression result files (Tom)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Improved PPC locking primitive (Reinhard Max)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>New function <function>palloc0</function> to allocate and clear memory (Bruce)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Fix locking code for s390x CPU (64-bit) (Tom)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Allow OpenBSD to use local ident credentials (William Ahern)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Make query plan trees read-only to executor (Tom)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Add Darwin startup scripts (David Wheeler)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Allow libpq to compile with Borland C++ compiler (Lester Godwin, Karl Waclawek)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Use our own version of <function>getopt_long()</function> if needed (Peter)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Convert administration scripts to C (Peter)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para> Bison >= 1.85 is now required to build the <productname>PostgreSQL</> grammar, if building from CVS</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Merge documentation into one book (Peter)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Add Windows compatibility functions (Bruce)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Allow client interfaces to compile under MinGW (Bruce)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>New <function>ereport()</function> function for error reporting (Tom)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Support Intel compiler on Linux (Peter)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Improve Linux startup scripts (Slawomir Sudnik, Darko Prenosil)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Add support for AMD Opteron and Itanium (Jeffrey W. Baker, Bruce)</para></listitem> + <listitem> + <para>Remove <option>--enable-recode</option> option from <command>configure</command></para> + <para> + This was no longer needed now that we have <command>CREATE CONVERSION</command>. + </para> + </listitem> + <listitem> + <para>Generate a compile error if spinlock code is not found (Bruce)</para> + <para> + Platforms without spinlock code will now fail to compile, rather + than silently using semaphores. This failure can be disabled + with a new <command>configure</command> option. + </para> + </listitem> + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Contrib Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + <listitem><para>Change dbmirror license to BSD</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Improve earthdistance (Bruno Wolff III)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Portability improvements to pgcrypto (Marko Kreen)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Prevent crash in xml (John Gray, Michael Richards)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Update oracle</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Update mysql</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Update cube (Bruno Wolff III)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Update earthdistance to use cube (Bruno Wolff III)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Update btree_gist (Oleg)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>New tsearch2 full-text search module (Oleg, Teodor)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Add hash-based crosstab function to tablefuncs (Joe)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Add serial column to order <function>connectby()</> siblings in tablefuncs (Nabil Sayegh,Joe)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Add named persistent connections to dblink (Shridhar Daithanka)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>New pg_autovacuum allows automatic <command>VACUUM</command> (Matthew T. O'Connor)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Make pgbench honor environment variables <envar>PGHOST</>, <envar>PGPORT</>, <envar>PGUSER</> (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Improve intarray (Teodor Sigaev)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Improve pgstattuple (Rod)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Fix bug in <function>metaphone()</function> in fuzzystrmatch</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Improve adddepend (Rod)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Update spi/timetravel (Böjthe Zoltán)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Fix dbase <option>-s</> option and improve non-ASCII handling (Thomas Behr, Márcio Smiderle)</para></listitem> + <listitem><para>Remove array module because features now included by default (Joe)</para></listitem> + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + </sect2> +</sect1> diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/release-8.0.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/release-8.0.sgml new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..eca4ebdf5df --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/src/sgml/release-8.0.sgml @@ -0,0 +1,4561 @@ +<!-- $PostgreSQL: pgsql/doc/src/sgml/release-8.0.sgml,v 1.1 2009/05/02 20:17:19 tgl Exp $ --> +<!-- See header comment in release.sgml about typical markup --> + + <sect1 id="release-8-0-21"> + <title>Release 8.0.21</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2009-03-16</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.20. + For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-0">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.0.21</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, + see the release notes for 8.0.6. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent error recursion crashes when encoding conversion fails (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This change extends fixes made in the last two minor releases for + related failure scenarios. The previous fixes were narrowly tailored + for the original problem reports, but we have now recognized that + <emphasis>any</> error thrown by an encoding conversion function could + potentially lead to infinite recursion while trying to report the + error. The solution therefore is to disable translation and encoding + conversion and report the plain-ASCII form of any error message, + if we find we have gotten into a recursive error reporting situation. + (CVE-2009-0922) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Disallow <command>CREATE CONVERSION</> with the wrong encodings + for the specified conversion function (Heikki) + </para> + + <para> + This prevents one possible scenario for encoding conversion failure. + The previous change is a backstop to guard against other kinds of + failures in the same area. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix core dump when <function>to_char()</> is given format codes that + are inappropriate for the type of the data argument (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>MUST</> (Mauritius Island Summer Time) to the default list + of known timezone abbreviations (Xavier Bugaud) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-0-20"> + <title>Release 8.0.20</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2009-02-02</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.19. + For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-0">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.0.20</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, + see the release notes for 8.0.6. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve handling of URLs in <function>headline()</> function (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve handling of overlength headlines in <function>headline()</> + function (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent possible Assert failure or misconversion if an encoding + conversion is created with the wrong conversion function for the + specified pair of encodings (Tom, Heikki) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Avoid unnecessary locking of small tables in <command>VACUUM</> + (Heikki) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix uninitialized variables in <filename>contrib/tsearch2</>'s + <function>get_covers()</> function (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make all documentation reference <literal>pgsql-bugs</> and/or + <literal>pgsql-hackers</> as appropriate, instead of the + now-decommissioned <literal>pgsql-ports</> and <literal>pgsql-patches</> + mailing lists (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2009a (for + Kathmandu and historical DST corrections in Switzerland, Cuba) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-0-19"> + <title>Release 8.0.19</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2008-11-03</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.18. + For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-0">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.0.19</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, + see the release notes for 8.0.6. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix backend crash when the client encoding cannot represent a localized + error message (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + We have addressed similar issues before, but it would still fail if + the <quote>character has no equivalent</> message itself couldn't + be converted. The fix is to disable localization and send the plain + ASCII error message when we detect such a situation. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible crash when deeply nested functions are invoked from + a trigger (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Ensure an error is reported when a newly-defined PL/pgSQL trigger + function is invoked as a normal function (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix incorrect tsearch2 headline generation when single query + item matches first word of text (Sushant Sinha) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix improper display of fractional seconds in interval values when + using a non-ISO datestyle in an <option>--enable-integer-datetimes</> + build (Ron Mayer) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Ensure <function>SPI_getvalue</> and <function>SPI_getbinval</> + behave correctly when the passed tuple and tuple descriptor have + different numbers of columns (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This situation is normal when a table has had columns added or removed, + but these two functions didn't handle it properly. + The only likely consequence is an incorrect error indication. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>ecpg</>'s parsing of <command>CREATE USER</> (Michael) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix recent breakage of <literal>pg_ctl restart</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2008i (for + DST law changes in Argentina, Brazil, Mauritius, Syria) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-0-18"> + <title>Release 8.0.18</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2008-09-22</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.17. + For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-0">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.0.18</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, + see the release notes for 8.0.6. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Widen local lock counters from 32 to 64 bits (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This responds to reports that the counters could overflow in + sufficiently long transactions, leading to unexpected <quote>lock is + already held</> errors. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add checks in executor startup to ensure that the tuples produced by an + <command>INSERT</> or <command>UPDATE</> will match the target table's + current rowtype (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + <command>ALTER COLUMN TYPE</>, followed by re-use of a previously + cached plan, could produce this type of situation. The check protects + against data corruption and/or crashes that could ensue. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix datetime input functions to correctly detect integer overflow when + running on a 64-bit platform (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve performance of writing very long log messages to syslog (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix bug in backwards scanning of a cursor on a <literal>SELECT DISTINCT + ON</> query (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix planner to estimate that <literal>GROUP BY</> expressions yielding + boolean results always result in two groups, regardless of the + expressions' contents (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This is very substantially more accurate than the regular <literal>GROUP + BY</> estimate for certain boolean tests like <replaceable>col</> + <literal>IS NULL</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix PL/Tcl to behave correctly with Tcl 8.5, and to be more careful + about the encoding of data sent to or from Tcl (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix PL/Python to work with Python 2.5 + </para> + + <para> + This is a back-port of fixes made during the 8.2 development cycle. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve <application>pg_dump</> and <application>pg_restore</>'s + error reporting after failure to send a SQL command (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>pg_ctl</> to properly preserve postmaster + command-line arguments across a <literal>restart</> (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2008f (for + DST law changes in Argentina, Bahamas, Brazil, Mauritius, Morocco, + Pakistan, Palestine, and Paraguay) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-0-17"> + <title>Release 8.0.17</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2008-06-12</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains one serious bug fix over 8.0.16. + For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-0">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.0.17</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, + see the release notes for 8.0.6. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <function>pg_get_ruledef()</> parenthesize negative constants (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Before this fix, a negative constant in a view or rule might be dumped + as, say, <literal>-42::integer</>, which is subtly incorrect: it should + be <literal>(-42)::integer</> due to operator precedence rules. + Usually this would make little difference, but it could interact with + another recent patch to cause + <productname>PostgreSQL</> to reject what had been a valid + <command>SELECT DISTINCT</> view query. Since this could result in + <application>pg_dump</> output failing to reload, it is being treated + as a high-priority fix. The only released versions in which dump + output is actually incorrect are 8.3.1 and 8.2.7. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-0-16"> + <title>Release 8.0.16</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>never released</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.15. + For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-0">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.0.16</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, + see the release notes for 8.0.6. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <command>ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN ... PRIMARY KEY</> so that the new + column is correctly checked to see if it's been initialized to all + non-nulls (Brendan Jurd) + </para> + + <para> + Previous versions neglected to check this requirement at all. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible <command>CREATE TABLE</> failure when inheriting the + <quote>same</> constraint from multiple parent relations that + inherited that constraint from a common ancestor (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix conversions between ISO-8859-5 and other encodings to handle + Cyrillic <quote>Yo</> characters (<literal>e</> and <literal>E</> with + two dots) (Sergey Burladyan) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix a few datatype input functions + that were allowing unused bytes in their results to contain + uninitialized, unpredictable values (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This could lead to failures in which two apparently identical literal + values were not seen as equal, resulting in the parser complaining + about unmatched <literal>ORDER BY</> and <literal>DISTINCT</> + expressions. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix a corner case in regular-expression substring matching + (<literal>substring(<replaceable>string</> from + <replaceable>pattern</>)</literal>) (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The problem occurs when there is a match to the pattern overall but + the user has specified a parenthesized subexpression and that + subexpression hasn't got a match. An example is + <literal>substring('foo' from 'foo(bar)?')</>. + This should return NULL, since <literal>(bar)</> isn't matched, but + it was mistakenly returning the whole-pattern match instead (ie, + <literal>foo</>). + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2008c (for + DST law changes in Morocco, Iraq, Choibalsan, Pakistan, Syria, Cuba, + Argentina/San_Luis, and Chile) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix incorrect result from <application>ecpg</>'s + <function>PGTYPEStimestamp_sub()</> function (Michael) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix core dump in <filename>contrib/xml2</>'s + <function>xpath_table()</> function when the input query returns a + NULL value (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <filename>contrib/xml2</>'s makefile to not override + <literal>CFLAGS</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <literal>DatumGetBool</> macro to not fail with <application>gcc</> + 4.3 (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This problem affects <quote>old style</> (V0) C functions that + return boolean. The fix is already in 8.3, but the need to + back-patch it was not realized at the time. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix longstanding <command>LISTEN</>/<command>NOTIFY</> + race condition (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + In rare cases a session that had just executed a + <command>LISTEN</> might not get a notification, even though + one would be expected because the concurrent transaction executing + <command>NOTIFY</> was observed to commit later. + </para> + + <para> + A side effect of the fix is that a transaction that has executed + a not-yet-committed <command>LISTEN</> command will not see any + row in <structname>pg_listener</> for the <command>LISTEN</>, + should it choose to look; formerly it would have. This behavior + was never documented one way or the other, but it is possible that + some applications depend on the old behavior. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix rare crash when an error occurs during a query using a hash index + (Heikki) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix input of datetime values for February 29 in years BC (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The former coding was mistaken about which years were leap years. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <quote>unrecognized node type</> error in some variants of + <command>ALTER OWNER</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>pg_ctl</> to correctly extract the postmaster's port + number from command-line options (Itagaki Takahiro, Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Previously, <literal>pg_ctl start -w</> could try to contact the + postmaster on the wrong port, leading to bogus reports of startup + failure. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Use <option>-fwrapv</> to defend against possible misoptimization + in recent <application>gcc</> versions (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This is known to be necessary when building <productname>PostgreSQL</> + with <application>gcc</> 4.3 or later. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix display of constant expressions in <literal>ORDER BY</> + and <literal>GROUP BY</> (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + An explictly casted constant would be shown incorrectly. This could + for example lead to corruption of a view definition during + dump and reload. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>libpq</> to handle NOTICE messages correctly + during COPY OUT (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This failure has only been observed to occur when a user-defined + datatype's output routine issues a NOTICE, but there is no + guarantee it couldn't happen due to other causes. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-0-15"> + <title>Release 8.0.15</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2008-01-07</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.14, + including fixes for significant security issues. + For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-0">. + </para> + + <para> + This is the last 8.0.X release for which the <productname>PostgreSQL</> + community will produce binary packages for <productname>Windows</>. + Windows users are encouraged to move to 8.2.X or later, + since there are Windows-specific fixes in 8.2.X that + are impractical to back-port. 8.0.X will continue to + be supported on other platforms. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.0.15</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, see the release + notes for 8.0.6. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent functions in indexes from executing with the privileges of + the user running <command>VACUUM</>, <command>ANALYZE</>, etc (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Functions used in index expressions and partial-index + predicates are evaluated whenever a new table entry is made. It has + long been understood that this poses a risk of trojan-horse code + execution if one modifies a table owned by an untrustworthy user. + (Note that triggers, defaults, check constraints, etc. pose the + same type of risk.) But functions in indexes pose extra danger + because they will be executed by routine maintenance operations + such as <command>VACUUM FULL</>, which are commonly performed + automatically under a superuser account. For example, a nefarious user + can execute code with superuser privileges by setting up a + trojan-horse index definition and waiting for the next routine vacuum. + The fix arranges for standard maintenance operations + (including <command>VACUUM</>, <command>ANALYZE</>, <command>REINDEX</>, + and <command>CLUSTER</>) to execute as the table owner rather than + the calling user, using the same privilege-switching mechanism already + used for <literal>SECURITY DEFINER</> functions. To prevent bypassing + this security measure, execution of <command>SET SESSION + AUTHORIZATION</> and <command>SET ROLE</> is now forbidden within a + <literal>SECURITY DEFINER</> context. (CVE-2007-6600) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Repair assorted bugs in the regular-expression package (Tom, Will Drewry) + </para> + + <para> + Suitably crafted regular-expression patterns could cause crashes, + infinite or near-infinite looping, and/or massive memory consumption, + all of which pose denial-of-service hazards for applications that + accept regex search patterns from untrustworthy sources. + (CVE-2007-4769, CVE-2007-4772, CVE-2007-6067) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Require non-superusers who use <filename>/contrib/dblink</> to use only + password authentication, as a security measure (Joe) + </para> + + <para> + The fix that appeared for this in 8.0.14 was incomplete, as it plugged + the hole for only some <filename>dblink</> functions. (CVE-2007-6601, + CVE-2007-3278) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2007k + (in particular, recent Argentina changes) (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix planner failure in some cases of <literal>WHERE false AND var IN + (SELECT ...)</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Preserve the tablespace of indexes that are + rebuilt by <command>ALTER TABLE ... ALTER COLUMN TYPE</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make archive recovery always start a new WAL timeline, rather than only + when a recovery stop time was used (Simon) + </para> + + <para> + This avoids a corner-case risk of trying to overwrite an existing + archived copy of the last WAL segment, and seems simpler and cleaner + than the original definition. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>VACUUM</> not use all of <varname>maintenance_work_mem</> + when the table is too small for it to be useful (Alvaro) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix potential crash in <function>translate()</> when using a multibyte + database encoding (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix PL/Perl to cope when platform's Perl defines type <literal>bool</> + as <literal>int</> rather than <literal>char</> (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + While this could theoretically happen anywhere, no standard build of + Perl did things this way ... until <productname>Mac OS X</> 10.5. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix PL/Python to not crash on long exception messages (Alvaro) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>pg_dump</> to correctly handle inheritance child tables + that have default expressions different from their parent's (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <application>ecpg</> parser fixes (Michael) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <filename>contrib/tablefunc</>'s <function>crosstab()</> handle + NULL rowid as a category in its own right, rather than crashing (Joe) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <type>tsvector</> and <type>tsquery</> output routines to + escape backslashes correctly (Teodor, Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix crash of <function>to_tsvector()</> on huge input strings (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Require a specific version of <productname>Autoconf</> to be used + when re-generating the <command>configure</> script (Peter) + </para> + + <para> + This affects developers and packagers only. The change was made + to prevent accidental use of untested combinations of + <productname>Autoconf</> and <productname>PostgreSQL</> versions. + You can remove the version check if you really want to use a + different <productname>Autoconf</> version, but it's + your responsibility whether the result works or not. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-0-14"> + <title>Release 8.0.14</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2007-09-17</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.13. + For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-0">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.0.14</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, see the release + notes for 8.0.6. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent index corruption when a transaction inserts rows and + then aborts close to the end of a concurrent <command>VACUUM</> + on the same table (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>CREATE DOMAIN ... DEFAULT NULL</> work properly (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix excessive logging of <acronym>SSL</> error messages (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix logging so that log messages are never interleaved when using + the syslogger process (Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix crash when <varname>log_min_error_statement</> logging runs out + of memory (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix incorrect handling of some foreign-key corner cases (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent <command>CLUSTER</> from failing + due to attempting to process temporary tables of other sessions (Alvaro) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update the time zone database rules, particularly New Zealand's upcoming changes (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Windows socket improvements (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Suppress timezone name (<literal>%Z</>) in log timestamps on Windows + because of possible encoding mismatches (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Require non-superusers who use <filename>/contrib/dblink</> to use only + password authentication, as a security measure (Joe) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-0-13"> + <title>Release 8.0.13</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2007-04-23</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.12, + including a security fix. + For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-0">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.0.13</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, see the release + notes for 8.0.6. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support explicit placement of the temporary-table schema within + <varname>search_path</>, and disable searching it for functions + and operators (Tom) + </para> + <para> + This is needed to allow a security-definer function to set a + truly secure value of <varname>search_path</>. Without it, + an unprivileged SQL user can use temporary objects to execute code + with the privileges of the security-definer function (CVE-2007-2138). + See <command>CREATE FUNCTION</> for more information. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <filename>/contrib/tsearch2</> crash fixes (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix potential-data-corruption bug in how <command>VACUUM FULL</> handles + <command>UPDATE</> chains (Tom, Pavan Deolasee) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix PANIC during enlargement of a hash index (bug introduced in 8.0.10) + (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix POSIX-style timezone specs to follow new USA DST rules (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-0-12"> + <title>Release 8.0.12</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2007-02-07</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains one fix from 8.0.11. + For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-0">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.0.12</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, see the release + notes for 8.0.6. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove overly-restrictive check for type length in constraints and + functional indexes(Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-0-11"> + <title>Release 8.0.11</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2007-02-05</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.10, including + a security fix. + For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-0">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.0.11</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, see the release + notes for 8.0.6. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove security vulnerabilities that allowed connected users + to read backend memory (Tom) + </para> + <para> + The vulnerabilities involve suppressing the normal check that a SQL + function returns the data type it's declared to, and changing the + data type of a table column (CVE-2007-0555, CVE-2007-0556). These + errors can easily be exploited to cause a backend crash, and in + principle might be used to read database content that the user + should not be able to access. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix rare bug wherein btree index page splits could fail + due to choosing an infeasible split point (Heikki Linnakangas) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix for rare Assert() crash triggered by <literal>UNION</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Tighten security of multi-byte character processing for UTF8 sequences + over three bytes long (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-0-10"> + <title>Release 8.0.10</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2007-01-08</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.9. + For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-0">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.0.10</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, see the release + notes for 8.0.6. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve handling of <function>getaddrinfo()</> on AIX (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This fixes a problem with starting the statistics collector, + among other things. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <quote>failed to re-find parent key</> errors in + <command>VACUUM</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix race condition for truncation of a large relation across a + gigabyte boundary by <command>VACUUM</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix bugs affecting multi-gigabyte hash indexes (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible deadlock in Windows signal handling (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix error when constructing an <literal>ARRAY[]</> made up of multiple + empty elements (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix ecpg memory leak during connection (Michael) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <function>to_number()</> and <function>to_char(numeric)</> + are now <literal>STABLE</>, not <literal>IMMUTABLE</>, for + new <application>initdb</> installs (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This is because <varname>lc_numeric</> can potentially + change the output of these functions. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve index usage of regular expressions that use parentheses (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This improves <application>psql</> <literal>\d</> performance also. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update timezone database + </para> + + <para> + This affects Australian and Canadian daylight-savings rules in + particular. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-0-9"> + <title>Release 8.0.9</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2006-10-16</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.8. + For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-0">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.0.9</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, see the release + notes for 8.0.6. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Fix crash when referencing <literal>NEW</> row +values in rule WHERE expressions (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix core dump when an untyped literal is taken as +ANYARRAY</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix mishandling of AFTER triggers when query contains a SQL +function returning multiple rows (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <command>ALTER TABLE ... TYPE</> to recheck +<literal>NOT NULL</> for <literal>USING</> clause (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <function>string_to_array()</> to handle overlapping + matches for the separator string</para> +<para>For example, <literal>string_to_array('123xx456xxx789', 'xx')</>. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix corner cases in pattern matching for + <application>psql</>'s <literal>\d</> commands</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix index-corrupting bugs in /contrib/ltree + (Teodor)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Numerous robustness fixes in <application>ecpg</> (Joachim +Wieland)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix backslash escaping in /contrib/dbmirror</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix instability of statistics collection on Win32 (Tom, Andrew)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fixes for <systemitem class="osname">AIX</> and +<productname>Intel</> compilers (Tom)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-0-8"> + <title>Release 8.0.8</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2006-05-23</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.7, + including patches for extremely serious security issues. + For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-0">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.0.8</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, see the release + notes for 8.0.6. + </para> + + <para> + Full security against the SQL-injection attacks described in + CVE-2006-2313 and CVE-2006-2314 might require changes in application + code. If you have applications that embed untrustworthy strings + into SQL commands, you should examine them as soon as possible to + ensure that they are using recommended escaping techniques. In + most cases, applications should be using subroutines provided by + libraries or drivers (such as <application>libpq</>'s + <function>PQescapeStringConn()</>) to perform string escaping, + rather than relying on <foreignphrase>ad hoc</> code to do it. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Change the server to reject invalidly-encoded multibyte +characters in all cases (Tatsuo, Tom)</para> +<para>While <productname>PostgreSQL</> has been moving in this direction for +some time, the checks are now applied uniformly to all encodings and all +textual input, and are now always errors not merely warnings. This change +defends against SQL-injection attacks of the type described in CVE-2006-2313. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Reject unsafe uses of <literal>\'</> in string literals</para> +<para>As a server-side defense against SQL-injection attacks of the type +described in CVE-2006-2314, the server now only accepts <literal>''</> and not +<literal>\'</> as a representation of ASCII single quote in SQL string +literals. By default, <literal>\'</> is rejected only when +<varname>client_encoding</> is set to a client-only encoding (SJIS, BIG5, GBK, +GB18030, or UHC), which is the scenario in which SQL injection is possible. +A new configuration parameter <varname>backslash_quote</> is available to +adjust this behavior when needed. Note that full security against +CVE-2006-2314 might require client-side changes; the purpose of +<varname>backslash_quote</> is in part to make it obvious that insecure +clients are insecure. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Modify <application>libpq</>'s string-escaping routines to be +aware of encoding considerations and +<varname>standard_conforming_strings</></para> +<para>This fixes <application>libpq</>-using applications for the security +issues described in CVE-2006-2313 and CVE-2006-2314, and also future-proofs +them against the planned changeover to SQL-standard string literal syntax. +Applications that use multiple <productname>PostgreSQL</> connections +concurrently should migrate to <function>PQescapeStringConn()</> and +<function>PQescapeByteaConn()</> to ensure that escaping is done correctly +for the settings in use in each database connection. Applications that +do string escaping <quote>by hand</> should be modified to rely on library +routines instead. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix some incorrect encoding conversion functions</para> +<para><function>win1251_to_iso</>, <function>alt_to_iso</>, +<function>euc_tw_to_big5</>, <function>euc_tw_to_mic</>, +<function>mic_to_euc_tw</> were all broken to varying +extents. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Clean up stray remaining uses of <literal>\'</> in strings +(Bruce, Jan)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix bug that sometimes caused OR'd index scans to +miss rows they should have returned</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix WAL replay for case where a btree index has been +truncated</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix <literal>SIMILAR TO</> for patterns involving +<literal>|</> (Tom)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix <command>SELECT INTO</> and <command>CREATE TABLE AS</> to +create tables in the default tablespace, not the base directory (Kris +Jurka)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix server to use custom DH SSL parameters correctly (Michael +Fuhr)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix for Bonjour on Intel Macs (Ashley Clark)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix various minor memory leaks</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix problem with password prompting on some Win32 systems +(Robert Kinberg)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-0-7"> + <title>Release 8.0.7</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2006-02-14</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.6. + For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-0">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.0.7</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, see the release + notes for 8.0.6. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> + +<listitem><para>Fix potential crash in <command>SET +SESSION AUTHORIZATION</> (CVE-2006-0553)</para> +<para>An unprivileged user could crash the server process, resulting in +momentary denial of service to other users, if the server has been compiled +with Asserts enabled (which is not the default). +Thanks to Akio Ishida for reporting this problem. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix bug with row visibility logic in self-inserted +rows (Tom)</para> +<para>Under rare circumstances a row inserted by the current command +could be seen as already valid, when it should not be. Repairs bug +created in 8.0.4, 7.4.9, and 7.3.11 releases. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix race condition that could lead to <quote>file already +exists</> errors during pg_clog and pg_subtrans file creation +(Tom)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix cases that could lead to crashes if a cache-invalidation +message arrives at just the wrong time (Tom)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Properly check <literal>DOMAIN</> constraints for +<literal>UNKNOWN</> parameters in prepared statements +(Neil)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Ensure <command>ALTER COLUMN TYPE</> will process +<literal>FOREIGN KEY</>, <literal>UNIQUE</>, and <literal>PRIMARY KEY</> +constraints in the proper order (Nakano Yoshihisa)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fixes to allow restoring dumps that have cross-schema +references to custom operators or operator classes (Tom)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Allow <application>pg_restore</> to continue properly after a +<command>COPY</> failure; formerly it tried to treat the remaining +<command>COPY</> data as SQL commands (Stephen Frost)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix <application>pg_ctl</> <literal>unregister</> crash +when the data directory is not specified (Magnus)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix <application>ecpg</> crash on AMD64 and PPC +(Neil)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Recover properly if error occurs during argument passing +in <application>PL/python</> (Neil)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix <application>PL/perl</>'s handling of locales on +Win32 to match the backend (Andrew)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix crash when <literal>log_min_messages</> is set to +<literal>DEBUG3</> or above in <filename>postgresql.conf</> on Win32 +(Bruce)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix <application>pgxs</> <literal>-L</> library path +specification for Win32, Cygwin, OS X, AIX (Bruce)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Check that SID is enabled while checking for Win32 admin +privileges (Magnus)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Properly reject out-of-range date inputs (Kris +Jurka)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Portability fix for testing presence of <function>finite</> +and <function>isinf</> during configure (Tom)</para></listitem> + +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-0-6"> + <title>Release 8.0.6</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2006-01-09</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.5. + For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-0">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.0.6</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.3, see the release + notes for 8.0.3. + Also, you might need to <command>REINDEX</> indexes on textual + columns after updating, if you are affected by the locale or + <application>plperl</> issues described below. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> + +<listitem><para>Fix Windows code so that postmaster will continue rather +than exit if there is no more room in ShmemBackendArray (Magnus)</para> +<para>The previous behavior could lead to a denial-of-service situation if too +many connection requests arrive close together. This applies +<emphasis>only</> to the Windows port.</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix bug introduced in 8.0 that could allow ReadBuffer +to return an already-used page as new, potentially causing loss of +recently-committed data (Tom)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix for protocol-level Describe messages issued +outside a transaction or in a failed transaction (Tom)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix character string comparison for locales that consider +different character combinations as equal, such as Hungarian (Tom)</para> +<para>This might require <command>REINDEX</> to fix existing indexes on +textual columns.</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Set locale environment variables during postmaster startup +to ensure that <application>plperl</> won't change the locale later</para> +<para>This fixes a problem that occurred if the <application>postmaster</> was +started with environment variables specifying a different locale than what +<application>initdb</> had been told. Under these conditions, any use of +<application>plperl</> was likely to lead to corrupt indexes. You might need +<command>REINDEX</> to fix existing indexes on +textual columns if this has happened to you.</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Allow more flexible relocation of installation +directories (Tom)</para> +<para>Previous releases supported relocation only if all installation +directory paths were the same except for the last component.</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix longstanding bug in strpos() and regular expression +handling in certain rarely used Asian multi-byte character sets (Tatsuo) +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Various fixes for functions returning <literal>RECORD</>s +(Tom) </para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix bug in <filename>/contrib/pgcrypto</> gen_salt, +which caused it not to use all available salt space for MD5 and +XDES algorithms (Marko Kreen, Solar Designer)</para> +<para>Salts for Blowfish and standard DES are unaffected.</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix <filename>/contrib/dblink</> to throw an error, +rather than crashing, when the number of columns specified is different from +what's actually returned by the query (Joe)</para></listitem> + +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-0-5"> + <title>Release 8.0.5</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2005-12-12</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.4. + For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-0">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.0.5</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.3, see the release + notes for 8.0.3. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> + +<listitem><para>Fix race condition in transaction log management</para> +<para>There was a narrow window in which an I/O operation could be initiated +for the wrong page, leading to an Assert failure or data +corruption.</para> +</listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix bgwriter problems after recovering from errors +(Tom)</para> +<para> +The background writer was found to leak buffer pins after write errors. +While not fatal in itself, this might lead to mysterious blockages of +later VACUUM commands. +</para> +</listitem> + +<listitem><para>Prevent failure if client sends Bind protocol message +when current transaction is already aborted</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para><filename>/contrib/ltree</> fixes (Teodor)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>AIX and HPUX compile fixes (Tom)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Retry file reads and writes after Windows +NO_SYSTEM_RESOURCES error (Qingqing Zhou)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix intermittent failure when <varname>log_line_prefix</> +includes <literal>%i</></para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix <application>psql</> performance issue with long scripts +on Windows (Merlin Moncure)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix missing updates of <filename>pg_group</> flat +file</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix longstanding planning error for outer joins</para> +<para>This bug sometimes caused a bogus error <quote>RIGHT JOIN is +only supported with merge-joinable join conditions</>.</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Postpone timezone initialization until after +<filename>postmaster.pid</> is created</para> +<para>This avoids confusing startup scripts that expect the pid file to appear +quickly.</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Prevent core dump in <application>pg_autovacuum</> when a +table has been dropped</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix problems with whole-row references (<literal>foo.*</>) +to subquery results</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-0-4"> + <title>Release 8.0.4</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2005-10-04</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.3. + For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-0">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.0.4</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.3, see the release + notes for 8.0.3. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Fix error that allowed <command>VACUUM</> to remove +<literal>ctid</> chains too soon, and add more checking in code that follows +<literal>ctid</> links</para> +<para>This fixes a long-standing problem that could cause crashes in very rare +circumstances.</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <type>CHAR()</> to properly pad spaces to the specified +length when using a multiple-byte character set (Yoshiyuki Asaba)</para> +<para>In prior releases, the padding of <type>CHAR()</> was incorrect +because it only padded to the specified number of bytes without +considering how many characters were stored.</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Force a checkpoint before committing <command>CREATE +DATABASE</></para> +<para>This should fix recent reports of <quote>index is not a btree</> +failures when a crash occurs shortly after <command>CREATE +DATABASE</>.</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix the sense of the test for read-only transaction +in <command>COPY</></para> +<para>The code formerly prohibited <command>COPY TO</>, where it should +prohibit <command>COPY FROM</>. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Handle consecutive embedded newlines in <command>COPY</> +CSV-mode input</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <function>date_trunc(week)</> for dates near year +end</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix planning problem with outer-join ON clauses that reference +only the inner-side relation</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Further fixes for <literal>x FULL JOIN y ON true</> corner +cases</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix overenthusiastic optimization of <literal>x IN (SELECT +DISTINCT ...)</> and related cases</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix mis-planning of queries with small <literal>LIMIT</> +values due to poorly thought out <quote>fuzzy</> cost +comparison</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make <function>array_in</> and <function>array_recv</> more +paranoid about validating their OID parameter</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix missing rows in queries like <literal>UPDATE a=... WHERE +a...</> with GiST index on column <literal>a</></para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve robustness of datetime parsing</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve checking for partially-written WAL +pages</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve robustness of signal handling when SSL is +enabled</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve MIPS and M68K spinlock code</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Don't try to open more than <literal>max_files_per_process</> +files during postmaster startup</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Various memory leakage fixes</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Various portability improvements</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Update timezone data files</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve handling of DLL load failures on Windows</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve random-number generation on Windows</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make <literal>psql -f filename</> return a nonzero exit code +when opening the file fails</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Change <application>pg_dump</> to handle inherited check +constraints more reliably</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix password prompting in <application>pg_restore</> on +Windows</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix PL/PgSQL to handle <literal>var := var</> correctly when +the variable is of pass-by-reference type</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix PL/Perl <literal>%_SHARED</> so it's actually +shared</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <filename>contrib/pg_autovacuum</> to allow sleep +intervals over 2000 sec</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Update <filename>contrib/tsearch2</> to use current Snowball +code</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-0-3"> + <title>Release 8.0.3</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2005-05-09</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.2, including several + security-related issues. + For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-0">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.0.3</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. However, + it is one possible way of handling two significant security problems + that have been found in the initial contents of 8.0.X system + catalogs. A dump/initdb/reload sequence using 8.0.3's initdb will + automatically correct these problems. + </para> + + <para> + The larger security problem is that the built-in character set encoding + conversion functions can be invoked from SQL commands by unprivileged + users, but the functions were not designed for such use and are not + secure against malicious choices of arguments. The fix involves changing + the declared parameter list of these functions so that they can no longer + be invoked from SQL commands. (This does not affect their normal use + by the encoding conversion machinery.) + </para> + + <para> + The lesser problem is that the <filename>contrib/tsearch2</> module + creates several functions that are improperly declared to return + <type>internal</> when they do not accept <type>internal</> arguments. + This breaks type safety for all functions using <type>internal</> + arguments. + </para> + + <para> + It is strongly recommended that all installations repair these errors, + either by initdb or by following the manual repair procedure given + below. The errors at least allow unprivileged database users to crash + their server process, and might allow unprivileged users to gain the + privileges of a database superuser. + </para> + + <para> + If you wish not to do an initdb, perform the same manual repair + procedures shown in the <link linkend="release-7-4-8">7.4.8 release + notes</link>. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Change encoding function signature to prevent +misuse</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Change <filename>contrib/tsearch2</> to avoid unsafe use of +<type>INTERNAL</> function results</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Guard against incorrect second parameter to +<function>record_out</></para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Repair ancient race condition that allowed a transaction to be +seen as committed for some purposes (eg SELECT FOR UPDATE) slightly sooner +than for other purposes</para> +<para>This is an extremely serious bug since it could lead to apparent +data inconsistencies being briefly visible to applications.</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Repair race condition between relation extension and +VACUUM</para> +<para>This could theoretically have caused loss of a page's worth of +freshly-inserted data, although the scenario seems of very low probability. +There are no known cases of it having caused more than an Assert failure. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix comparisons of <type>TIME WITH TIME ZONE</> values</para> +<para> +The comparison code was wrong in the case where the +<literal>--enable-integer-datetimes</> configuration switch had been used. +NOTE: if you have an index on a <type>TIME WITH TIME ZONE</> column, +it will need to be <command>REINDEX</>ed after installing this update, because +the fix corrects the sort order of column values. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <function>EXTRACT(EPOCH)</> for +<type>TIME WITH TIME ZONE</> values</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix mis-display of negative fractional seconds in +<type>INTERVAL</> values</para> +<para> +This error only occurred when the +<literal>--enable-integer-datetimes</> configuration switch had been used. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix pg_dump to dump trigger names containing <literal>%</> +correctly (Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Still more 64-bit fixes for +<filename>contrib/intagg</></para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent incorrect optimization of functions returning +<type>RECORD</></para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent crash on <literal>COALESCE(NULL,NULL)</></para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix Borland makefile for libpq</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <filename>contrib/btree_gist</> for <type>timetz</> type +(Teodor)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make <command>pg_ctl</> check the PID found in +<filename>postmaster.pid</> to see if it is still a live +process</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <command>pg_dump</>/<command>pg_restore</> problems caused +by addition of dump timestamps</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix interaction between materializing holdable cursors and +firing deferred triggers during transaction commit</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix memory leak in SQL functions returning pass-by-reference +data types</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-0-2"> + <title>Release 8.0.2</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2005-04-07</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.1. + For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-0">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.0.2</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.*. + This release updates the major version number of the + <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> libraries, so it might be + necessary to re-link some user applications if they cannot + find the properly-numbered shared library. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Increment the major version number of all interface +libraries (Bruce)</para> +<para> +This should have been done in 8.0.0. It is required so 7.4.X versions +of PostgreSQL client applications, like <application>psql</>, +can be used on the same machine as 8.0.X applications. This might require +re-linking user applications that use these libraries. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add Windows-only <varname>wal_sync_method</> setting of +<option>fsync_writethrough</> (Magnus, Bruce)</para> +<para> +This setting causes <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> to write through +any disk-drive write cache when writing to WAL. +This behavior was formerly called <option>fsync</>, but was +renamed because it acts quite differently from <option>fsync</> on other +platforms. +</para> +</listitem> +<listitem><para>Enable the <varname>wal_sync_method</> setting of +<option>open_datasync</> on Windows, and make it the default for that + platform (Magnus, Bruce)</para> +<para> +Because the default is no longer <option>fsync_writethrough</>, +data loss is possible during a power failure if the disk drive has +write caching enabled. To turn off the write cache on Windows, +from the <application>Device Manager</>, choose the drive properties, +then <literal>Policies</>. +</para> +</listitem> +<listitem><para>New cache management algorithm <acronym>2Q</> replaces +<acronym>ARC</> (Tom)</para> +<para> +This was done to avoid a pending US patent on <acronym>ARC</>. The +<acronym>2Q</> code might be a few percentage points slower than +<acronym>ARC</> for some work loads. A better cache management algorithm +will appear in 8.1. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Planner adjustments to improve behavior on freshly-created +tables (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow plpgsql to assign to an element of an array that is +initially <literal>NULL</> (Tom)</para> +<para> +Formerly the array would remain <literal>NULL</>, but now it becomes a +single-element array. The main SQL engine was changed to handle +<command>UPDATE</> of a null array value this way in 8.0, but the similar +case in plpgsql was overlooked. +</para> +</listitem> +<listitem><para>Convert <literal>\r\n</> and <literal>\r</> to <literal>\n</> +in plpython function bodies (Michael Fuhr)</para> +<para> + This prevents syntax errors when plpython code is written on a Windows or + Mac client. +</para> +</listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow SPI cursors to handle utility commands that return rows, +such as <command>EXPLAIN</> (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <command>CLUSTER</> failure after <command>ALTER TABLE +SET WITHOUT OIDS</> (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Reduce memory usage of <command>ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN</> +(Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <command>ALTER LANGUAGE RENAME</> (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Document the Windows-only <literal>register</> and +<literal>unregister</> options of <application>pg_ctl</> (Magnus)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Ensure operations done during backend shutdown are counted by +statistics collector</para> +<para> +This is expected to resolve reports of <application>pg_autovacuum</> +not vacuuming the system catalogs often enough — it was not being +told about catalog deletions caused by temporary table removal during +backend exit. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Change the Windows default for configuration parameter +<varname>log_destination</> to <option>eventlog</> (Magnus)</para> +<para> +By default, a server running on Windows will now send log output to the +Windows event logger rather than standard error. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make Kerberos authentication work on Windows (Magnus)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow <command>ALTER DATABASE RENAME</> by superusers +who aren't flagged as having CREATEDB privilege (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Modify WAL log entries for <command>CREATE</> and +<command>DROP DATABASE</> to not specify absolute paths (Tom)</para> +<para>This allows point-in-time recovery on a different machine with possibly +different database location. Note that <command>CREATE TABLESPACE</> still +poses a hazard in such situations. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix crash from a backend exiting with an open transaction +that created a table and opened a cursor on it (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <function>array_map()</> so it can call PL functions +(Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Several <filename>contrib/tsearch2</> and +<filename>contrib/btree_gist</> fixes (Teodor) +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix crash of some <filename>contrib/pgcrypto</> +functions on some platforms (Marko Kreen)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <filename>contrib/intagg</> for 64-bit platforms +(Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix ecpg bugs in parsing of <command>CREATE</> statement +(Michael)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Work around gcc bug on powerpc and amd64 causing problems in +ecpg (Christof Petig)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Do not use locale-aware versions of <function>upper()</>, +<function>lower()</>, and <function>initcap()</> when the locale is +<literal>C</> (Bruce)</para> +<para> + This allows these functions to work on platforms that generate errors + for non-7-bit data when the locale is <literal>C</>. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <function>quote_ident()</> to quote names that match keywords (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <function>to_date()</> to behave reasonably when +<literal>CC</> and <literal>YY</> fields are both used (Karel)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent <function>to_char(interval)</> from failing +when given a zero-month interval (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix wrong week returned by <function>date_trunc('week')</> +(Bruce)</para> +<para> +<function>date_trunc('week')</> +returned the wrong year for the first few days of January in some years. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Use the correct default mask length for class <literal>D</> +addresses in <type>INET</> data types (Tom)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-0-1"> + <title>Release 8.0.1</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2005-01-31</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.0, including several + security-related issues. + For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-0">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.0.1</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.0. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Disallow <command>LOAD</> to non-superusers</para> +<para> +On platforms that will automatically execute initialization functions of a +shared library (this includes at least Windows and ELF-based Unixen), +<command>LOAD</> can be used to make the server execute arbitrary code. +Thanks to NGS Software for reporting this.</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Check that creator of an aggregate function has the right to +execute the specified transition functions</para> +<para> +This oversight made it possible to bypass denial of EXECUTE +permission on a function.</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix security and 64-bit issues in +contrib/intagg</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add needed STRICT marking to some contrib functions (Kris +Jurka)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Avoid buffer overrun when plpgsql cursor declaration has too +many parameters (Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make <command>ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN</> enforce domain +constraints in all cases</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix planning error for FULL and RIGHT outer joins</para> +<para> +The result of the join was mistakenly supposed to be sorted the same as the +left input. This could not only deliver mis-sorted output to the user, but +in case of nested merge joins could give outright wrong answers. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve planning of grouped aggregate queries</para></listitem> +<listitem><para><command>ROLLBACK TO <replaceable>savepoint</></command> +closes cursors created since the savepoint</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix inadequate backend stack size on Windows</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Avoid SHGetSpecialFolderPath() on Windows +(Magnus)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix some problems in running pg_autovacuum as a Windows +service (Dave Page)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Multiple minor bug fixes in +pg_dump/pg_restore</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix ecpg segfault with named structs used in +typedefs (Michael)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-0"> + <title>Release 8.0</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2005-01-19</simpara> + </note> + + <sect2> + <title>Overview</title> + + <para> + Major changes in this release: + </para> + + <variablelist> + <varlistentry> + <term> + Microsoft Windows Native Server + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + This is the first <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> release + to run natively on <trademark class="registered">Microsoft Windows</> as + a server. It can run as a <productname>Windows</> service. This + release supports NT-based Windows releases like + <productname>Windows 2000 SP4</>, <productname>Windows XP</>, and + <productname>Windows 2003</>. Older releases like + <productname>Windows 95</>, <productname>Windows 98</>, and + <productname>Windows ME</> are not supported because these operating + systems do not have the infrastructure to support + <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>. A separate installer + project has been created to ease installation on + <productname>Windows</> — see <ulink + url="http://www.postgresql.org/ftp/win32/"></ulink>. + </para> + + <para> + Although tested throughout our release cycle, the Windows port + does not have the benefit of years of use in production + environments that <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> has on + Unix platforms. Therefore it should be treated with the same + level of caution as you would a new product. + </para> + + <para> + Previous releases required the Unix emulation toolkit + <productname>Cygwin</> in order to run the server on Windows + operating systems. <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> has + supported native clients on Windows for many years. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Savepoints + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + Savepoints allow specific parts of a transaction to be aborted + without affecting the remainder of the transaction. Prior + releases had no such capability; there was no way to recover + from a statement failure within a transaction except by + aborting the whole transaction. This feature is valuable for + application writers who require error recovery within a + complex transaction. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Point-In-Time Recovery + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + In previous releases there was no way to recover from disk + drive failure except to restore from a previous backup or use + a standby replication server. Point-in-time recovery allows + continuous backup of the server. You can recover either to + the point of failure or to some transaction in the past. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Tablespaces + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + Tablespaces allow administrators to select different file systems + for storage of individual tables, indexes, and databases. + This improves performance and control over disk space + usage. Prior releases used <application>initlocation</> and + manual symlink management for such tasks. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Improved Buffer Management, <command>CHECKPOINT</command>, + <command>VACUUM</command> + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + This release has a more intelligent buffer replacement strategy, + which will make better use of available shared buffers and + improve performance. The performance impact of vacuum and + checkpoints is also lessened. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Change Column Types + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + A column's data type can now be changed with <command>ALTER + TABLE</command>. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + New Perl Server-Side Language + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + A new version of the <application>plperl</> server-side language now + supports a persistent shared storage area, triggers, returning records + and arrays of records, and SPI calls to access the database. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Comma-separated-value (CSV) support in <command>COPY</command> + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + <command>COPY</command> can now read and write + comma-separated-value files. It has the flexibility to + interpret nonstandard quoting and separation characters too. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + </variablelist> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.0</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore using <application>pg_dump</application> is + required for those wishing to migrate data from any previous + release. + </para> + + <para> + Observe the following incompatibilities: + </para> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + In <option>READ COMMITTED</> serialization mode, volatile functions + now see the results of concurrent transactions committed up to the + beginning of each statement within the function, rather than up to the + beginning of the interactive command that called the function. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Functions declared <option>STABLE</> or <option>IMMUTABLE</> always + use the snapshot of the calling query, and therefore do not see the + effects of actions taken after the calling query starts, whether in + their own transaction or other transactions. Such a function must be + read-only, too, meaning that it cannot use any SQL commands other than + <command>SELECT</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Nondeferred <option>AFTER</> triggers are now fired immediately + after completion of the triggering query, rather than upon + finishing the current interactive command. This makes a + difference when the triggering query occurred within a function: + the trigger is invoked before the function proceeds to its next + operation. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Server configuration parameters <varname>virtual_host</> and + <varname>tcpip_socket</> have been replaced with a more general + parameter <varname>listen_addresses</>. Also, the server now listens on + <literal>localhost</> by default, which eliminates the need for the + <literal>-i</> postmaster switch in many scenarios. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Server configuration parameters <varname>SortMem</> and + <varname>VacuumMem</> have been renamed to <varname>work_mem</> + and <varname>maintenance_work_mem</> to better reflect their + use. The original names are still supported in + <command>SET</command> and <command>SHOW</command>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Server configuration parameters <varname>log_pid</>, + <varname>log_timestamp</>, and <varname>log_source_port</> have been + replaced with a more general parameter <varname>log_line_prefix</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Server configuration parameter <varname>syslog</> has been + replaced with a more logical <varname>log_destination</> variable to + control the log output destination. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Server configuration parameter <varname>log_statement</> has been + changed so it can selectively log just database modification or + data definition statements. Server configuration parameter + <varname>log_duration</> now prints only when <varname>log_statement</> + prints the query. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Server configuration parameter <varname>max_expr_depth</> parameter has + been replaced with <varname>max_stack_depth</> which measures the + physical stack size rather than the expression nesting depth. This + helps prevent session termination due to stack overflow caused by + recursive functions. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + The <function>length()</> function no longer counts trailing spaces in + <type>CHAR(n)</> values. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Casting an integer to <type>BIT(N)</> selects the rightmost N bits of the + integer, not the leftmost N bits as before. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Updating an element or slice of a NULL array value now produces + a nonnull array result, namely an array containing + just the assigned-to positions. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Syntax checking of array input values has been tightened up + considerably. Junk that was previously allowed in odd places with + odd results now causes an error. Empty-string element values + must now be written as <literal>""</>, rather than writing nothing. + Also changed behavior with respect to whitespace surrounding + array elements: trailing whitespace is now ignored, for symmetry + with leading whitespace (which has always been ignored). + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Overflow in integer arithmetic operations is now detected and + reported as an error. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + The arithmetic operators associated with the single-byte + <type>"char"</> data type have been removed. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + The <function>extract()</> function (also called + <function>date_part</>) now returns the proper year for BC dates. + It previously returned one less than the correct year. The + function now also returns the proper values for millennium and + century. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <type>CIDR</> values now must have their nonmasked bits be zero. + For example, we no longer allow + <literal>204.248.199.1/31</literal> as a <type>CIDR</> value. Such + values should never have been accepted by + <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> and will now be rejected. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <command>EXECUTE</command> now returns a completion tag that + matches the executed statement. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <application>psql</>'s <command>\copy</> command now reads or + writes to the query's <literal>stdin/stdout</>, rather than + <application>psql</>'s <literal>stdin/stdout</>. The previous + behavior can be accessed via new + <option>pstdin</>/<option>pstdout</> parameters. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + The JDBC client interface has been removed from the core + distribution, and is now hosted at <ulink url= + "http://jdbc.postgresql.org"></ulink>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + The Tcl client interface has also been removed. There are several + Tcl interfaces now hosted at <ulink url= + "http://gborg.postgresql.org"></ulink>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + The server now uses its own time zone database, rather than the + one supplied by the operating system. This will provide consistent + behavior across all platforms. In most cases, there should be + little noticeable difference in time zone behavior, except that + the time zone names used by <command>SET</>/<command>SHOW</> + <varname>TimeZone</> might be different from what your platform provides. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <application>Configure</>'s threading option no longer requires + users to run tests or edit configuration files; threading options + are now detected automatically. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Now that tablespaces have been implemented, + <application>initlocation</> has been removed. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + The API for user-defined GiST indexes has been changed. The + Union and PickSplit methods are now passed a pointer to a + special <structname>GistEntryVector</structname> structure, + rather than a <type>bytea</type>. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Deprecated Features</title> + + <para> + Some aspects of <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>'s behavior + have been determined to be suboptimal. For the sake of backward + compatibility these have not been removed in 8.0, but they are + considered deprecated and will be removed in the next major + release. + </para> + + <itemizedlist> + <listitem> + <para> + The 8.1 release will remove the <function>to_char()</> function + for intervals. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + The server now warns of empty strings passed to + <type>oid</type>/<type>float4</type>/<type>float8</type> data + types, but continues to interpret them as zeroes as before. + In the next major release, empty strings will be considered + invalid input for these data types. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + By default, tables in <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> 8.0 + and earlier are created with <type>OID</>s. In the next release, + this will <emphasis>not</emphasis> be the case: to create a table + that contains <type>OID</>s, the <option>WITH OIDS</> clause must + be specified or the <varname>default_with_oids</varname> + configuration parameter must be set. Users are encouraged to + explicitly specify <option>WITH OIDS</> if their tables + require OIDs for compatibility with future releases of + <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <para> + Below you will find a detailed account of the changes between + release 8.0 and the previous major release. + </para> + + <sect3> + <title>Performance Improvements</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support cross-data-type index usage (Tom) + </para> + <para> + Before this change, many queries would not use an index if the data + types did not match exactly. This improvement makes index usage more + intuitive and consistent. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + New buffer replacement strategy that improves caching (Jan) + </para> + <para> + Prior releases used a least-recently-used (LRU) cache to keep + recently referenced pages in memory. The LRU algorithm + did not consider the number of times a specific cache entry was + accessed, so large table scans could force out useful cache pages. + The new cache algorithm uses four separate lists to track most + recently used and most frequently used cache pages and dynamically + optimize their replacement based on the work load. This should + lead to much more efficient use of the shared buffer cache. + Administrators who have tested shared buffer sizes in the past + should retest with this new cache replacement policy. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add subprocess to write dirty buffers periodically to reduce + checkpoint writes (Jan) + </para> + <para> + In previous releases, the checkpoint process, which runs every few + minutes, would write all dirty buffers to the operating system's + buffer cache then flush all dirty operating system buffers to + disk. This resulted in a periodic spike in disk usage that often + hurt performance. The new code uses a background writer to trickle + disk writes at a steady pace so checkpoints have far fewer dirty + pages to write to disk. Also, the new code does not issue a global + <function>sync()</> call, but instead <function>fsync()</>s just + the files written since the last checkpoint. This should improve + performance and minimize degradation during checkpoints. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add ability to prolong vacuum to reduce performance impact (Jan) + </para> + <para> + On busy systems, <command>VACUUM</command> performs many I/O + requests which can hurt performance for other users. This + release allows you to slow down <command>VACUUM</command> to + reduce its impact on other users, though this increases the + total duration of <command>VACUUM</command>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve B-tree index performance for duplicate keys (Dmitry Tkach, Tom) + </para> + <para> + This improves the way indexes are scanned when many duplicate + values exist in the index. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Use dynamically-generated table size estimates while planning (Tom) + </para> + <para> + Formerly the planner estimated table sizes using the values seen + by the last <command>VACUUM</command> or <command>ANALYZE</command>, + both as to physical table size (number of pages) and number of rows. + Now, the current physical table size is obtained from the kernel, + and the number of rows is estimated by multiplying the table size + by the row density (rows per page) seen by the last + <command>VACUUM</command> or <command>ANALYZE</command>. This should + produce more reliable estimates in cases where the table size has + changed significantly since the last housekeeping command. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improved index usage with <literal>OR</> clauses (Tom) + </para> + <para> + This allows the optimizer to use indexes in statements with many OR + clauses that would not have been indexed in the past. It can also use + multi-column indexes where the first column is specified and the second + column is part of an <literal>OR</> clause. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve matching of partial index clauses (Tom) + </para> + <para> + The server is now smarter about using partial indexes in queries + involving complex <option>WHERE</> clauses. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve performance of the GEQO optimizer (Tom) + </para> + <para> + The GEQO optimizer is used to plan queries involving many tables (by + default, twelve or more). This release speeds up the way queries are + analyzed to decrease time spent in optimization. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Miscellaneous optimizer improvements + </para> + <para> + There is not room here to list all the minor improvements made, but + numerous special cases work better than in prior releases. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve lookup speed for C functions (Tom) + </para> + <para> + This release uses a hash table to lookup information for dynamically + loaded C functions. This improves their speed so they perform nearly as + quickly as functions that are built into the server executable. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add type-specific <command>ANALYZE</command> statistics + capability (Mark Cave-Ayland) + </para> + <para> + This feature allows more flexibility in generating statistics + for nonstandard data types. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <command>ANALYZE</command> now collects statistics for + expression indexes (Tom) + </para> + <para> + Expression indexes (also called functional indexes) allow users to + index not just columns but the results of expressions and function + calls. With this release, the optimizer can gather and use statistics + about the contents of expression indexes. This will greatly improve + the quality of planning for queries in which an expression index is + relevant. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + New two-stage sampling method for <command>ANALYZE</command> + (Manfred Koizar) + </para> + <para> + This gives better statistics when the density of valid rows is very + different in different regions of a table. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Speed up <command>TRUNCATE</command> (Tom) + </para> + <para> + This buys back some of the performance loss observed in 7.4, while still + keeping <command>TRUNCATE</command> transaction-safe. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + + <sect3> + <title>Server Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add WAL file archiving and point-in-time recovery (Simon Riggs) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add tablespaces so admins can control disk layout (Gavin) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add a built-in log rotation program (Andreas Pflug) + </para> + <para> + It is now possible to log server messages conveniently without + relying on either <application>syslog</> or an external log + rotation program. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add new read-only server configuration parameters to show server + compile-time settings: <varname>block_size</>, + <varname>integer_datetimes</>, <varname>max_function_args</>, + <varname>max_identifier_length</>, <varname>max_index_keys</> (Joe) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make quoting of <literal>sameuser</>, <literal>samegroup</>, and + <literal>all</> remove special meaning of these terms in + <filename>pg_hba.conf</> (Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Use clearer IPv6 name <literal>::1/128</> for + <literal>localhost</> in default <filename>pg_hba.conf</> (Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Use CIDR format in <filename>pg_hba.conf</> examples (Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Rename server configuration parameters <varname>SortMem</> and + <varname>VacuumMem</> to <varname>work_mem</> and + <varname>maintenance_work_mem</> (Old names still supported) (Tom) + </para> + <para> + This change was made to clarify that bulk operations such as index and + foreign key creation use <varname>maintenance_work_mem</>, while + <varname>work_mem</> is for workspaces used during query execution. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow logging of session disconnections using server configuration + <varname>log_disconnections</> (Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add new server configuration parameter <varname>log_line_prefix</> to + allow control of information emitted in each log line (Andrew) + </para> + <para> + Available information includes user name, database name, remote IP + address, and session start time. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove server configuration parameters <varname>log_pid</>, + <varname>log_timestamp</>, <varname>log_source_port</>; functionality + superseded by <varname>log_line_prefix</> (Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Replace the <varname>virtual_host</> and <varname>tcpip_socket</> + parameters with a unified <varname>listen_addresses</> parameter + (Andrew, Tom) + </para> + <para> + <varname>virtual_host</> could only specify a single IP address to + listen on. <varname>listen_addresses</> allows multiple addresses + to be specified. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Listen on localhost by default, which eliminates the need for the + <option>-i</> postmaster switch in many scenarios (Andrew) + </para> + <para> + Listening on localhost (<literal>127.0.0.1</>) opens no new + security holes but allows configurations like Windows and JDBC, + which do not support local sockets, to work without special + adjustments. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove <varname>syslog</> server configuration parameter, and add more + logical <varname>log_destination</> variable to control log output + location (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Change server configuration parameter <varname>log_statement</> to take + values <varname>all</>, <varname>mod</>, <varname>ddl</>, or + <varname>none</> to select which queries are logged (Bruce) + </para> + <para> + This allows administrators to log only data definition changes or + only data modification statements. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Some logging-related configuration parameters could formerly be adjusted + by ordinary users, but only in the <quote>more verbose</> direction. + They are now treated more strictly: only superusers can set them. + However, a superuser can use <command>ALTER USER</> to provide per-user + settings of these values for non-superusers. Also, it is now possible + for superusers to set values of superuser-only configuration parameters + via <literal>PGOPTIONS</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow configuration files to be placed outside the data directory (mlw) + </para> + <para> + By default, configuration files are kept in the cluster's top directory. + With this addition, configuration files can be placed outside the + data directory, easing administration. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Plan prepared queries only when first executed so constants can be + used for statistics (Oliver Jowett) + </para> + <para> + Prepared statements plan queries once and execute them many + times. While prepared queries avoid the overhead of re-planning + on each use, the quality of the plan suffers from not knowing the exact + parameters to be used in the query. In this release, planning of + unnamed prepared statements is delayed until the first execution, + and the actual parameter values of that execution are used as + optimization hints. This allows use of out-of-line parameter passing + without incurring a performance penalty. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <command>DECLARE CURSOR</command> to take parameters + (Oliver Jowett) + </para> + <para> + It is now useful to issue <command>DECLARE CURSOR</command> in a + <function>Parse</> message with parameters. The parameter values + sent at <function>Bind</> time will be substituted into the + execution of the cursor's query. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix hash joins and aggregates of <type>inet</type> and + <type>cidr</type> data types (Tom) + </para> + <para> + Release 7.4 handled hashing of mixed <type>inet</type> and + <type>cidr</type> values incorrectly. (This bug did not exist + in prior releases because they wouldn't try to hash either + data type.) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <varname>log_duration</> print only when <varname>log_statement</> + prints the query (Ed L.) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + + <sect3> + <title>Query Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add savepoints (nested transactions) (Alvaro) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Unsupported isolation levels are now accepted and promoted to the + nearest supported level (Peter) + </para> + <para> + The SQL specification states that if a database doesn't support a + specific isolation level, it should use the next more restrictive level. + This change complies with that recommendation. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <command>BEGIN WORK</command> to specify transaction + isolation levels like <command>START TRANSACTION</command> does + (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix table permission checking for cases in which rules generate + a query type different from the originally submitted query (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Implement dollar quoting to simplify single-quote usage (Andrew, Tom, + David Fetter) + </para> + <para> + In previous releases, because single quotes had to be used to + quote a function's body, the use of single quotes inside the + function text required use of two single quotes or other error-prone + notations. With this release we add the ability to use "dollar + quoting" to quote a block of text. The ability to use different + quoting delimiters at different nesting levels greatly simplifies + the task of quoting correctly, especially in complex functions. + Dollar quoting can be used anywhere quoted text is needed. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <literal>CASE val WHEN compval1 THEN ...</> evaluate <literal>val</> only once (Tom) + </para> + <para> + <option>CASE</> no longer evaluates the tested expression multiple + times. This has benefits when the expression is complex or is + volatile. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Test <option>HAVING</> before computing target list of an + aggregate query (Tom) + </para> + <para> + Fixes improper failure of cases such as <literal>SELECT SUM(win)/SUM(lose) + ... GROUP BY ... HAVING SUM(lose) > 0</>. This should work but formerly + could fail with divide-by-zero. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Replace <varname>max_expr_depth</> parameter with + <varname>max_stack_depth</> parameter, measured in kilobytes of stack + size (Tom) + </para> + <para> + This gives us a fairly bulletproof defense against crashing due to + runaway recursive functions. Instead of measuring the depth of expression + nesting, we now directly measure the size of the execution stack. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow arbitrary row expressions (Tom) + </para> + <para> + This release allows SQL expressions to contain arbitrary composite + types, that is, row values. It also allows functions to more easily + take rows as arguments and return row values. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <option>LIKE</>/<option>ILIKE</> to be used as the operator + in row and subselect comparisons (Fabien Coelho) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Avoid locale-specific case conversion of basic ASCII letters in + identifiers and keywords (Tom) + </para> + <para> + This solves the <quote>Turkish problem</> with mangling of words + containing <literal>I</> and <literal>i</>. Folding of characters + outside the 7-bit-ASCII set is still locale-aware. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve syntax error reporting (Fabien, Tom) + </para> + <para> + Syntax error reports are more useful than before. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Change <command>EXECUTE</command> to return a completion tag + matching the executed statement (Kris Jurka) + </para> + <para> + Previous releases return an <command>EXECUTE</command> tag for + any <command>EXECUTE</command> call. In this release, the tag + returned will reflect the command executed. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Avoid emitting <option>NATURAL CROSS JOIN</> in rule listings (Tom) + </para> + <para> + Such a clause makes no logical sense, but in some cases the rule + decompiler formerly produced this syntax. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + + <sect3> + <title>Object Manipulation Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <command>COMMENT ON</> for casts, conversions, languages, + operator classes, and large objects (Christopher) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add new server configuration parameter <varname>default_with_oids</> to + control whether tables are created with <type>OID</>s by default (Neil) + </para> + <para> + This allows administrators to control whether <command>CREATE + TABLE</command> commands create tables with or without <type>OID</> + columns by default. (Note: the current factory default setting for + <varname>default_with_oids</> is <literal>TRUE</>, but the default + will become <literal>FALSE</> in future releases.) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <option>WITH</> / <option>WITHOUT OIDS</> clause to + <command>CREATE TABLE AS</command> (Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <command>ALTER TABLE DROP COLUMN</> to drop an <type>OID</> + column (<command>ALTER TABLE SET WITHOUT OIDS</> still works) + (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow composite types as table columns (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <command>ALTER ... ADD COLUMN</> with defaults and + <option>NOT NULL</> constraints; works per SQL spec (Rod) + </para> + <para> + It is now possible for <option>ADD COLUMN</> to create a column + that is not initially filled with NULLs, but with a specified + default value. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <command>ALTER COLUMN TYPE</> to change column's type (Rod) + </para> + <para> + It is now possible to alter a column's data type without dropping + and re-adding the column. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow multiple <command>ALTER</> actions in a single <command>ALTER + TABLE</command> command (Rod) + </para> + <para> + This is particularly useful for <command>ALTER</> commands that + rewrite the table (which include <option>ALTER COLUMN TYPE</> and + <option>ADD COLUMN</> with a default). By grouping + <command>ALTER</> commands together, the table need be rewritten + only once. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <command>ALTER TABLE</command> to add <type>SERIAL</type> + columns (Tom) + </para> + <para> + This falls out from the new capability of specifying defaults for new + columns. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow changing the owners of aggregates, conversions, databases, + functions, operators, operator classes, schemas, types, and tablespaces + (Christopher, Euler Taveira de Oliveira) + </para> + <para> + Previously this required modifying the system tables directly. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow temporary object creation to be limited to <option>SECURITY + DEFINER</> functions (Sean Chittenden) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <option>ALTER TABLE ... SET WITHOUT CLUSTER</> (Christopher) + </para> + <para> + Prior to this release, there was no way to clear an auto-cluster + specification except to modify the system tables. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Constraint/Index/<type>SERIAL</> names are now + <replaceable>table_column_type</> + with numbers appended to guarantee uniqueness within the schema + (Tom) + </para> + <para> + The SQL specification states that such names should be unique + within a schema. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>pg_get_serial_sequence()</> to return a + <type>SERIAL</> column's sequence name (Christopher) + </para> + <para> + This allows automated scripts to reliably find the <type>SERIAL</> + sequence name. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Warn when primary/foreign key data type mismatch requires costly lookup + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + New <command>ALTER INDEX</> command to allow moving of indexes + between tablespaces (Gavin) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>ALTER TABLE OWNER</> change dependent sequence + ownership too (Alvaro) + </para> + </listitem> + + + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + + <sect3> + <title>Utility Command Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <command>CREATE SCHEMA</command> to create triggers, + indexes, and sequences (Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <option>ALSO</> keyword to <command>CREATE RULE</command> (Fabien + Coelho) + </para> + <para> + This allows <option>ALSO</> to be added to rule creation to contrast it with + <option>INSTEAD</> rules. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <option>NOWAIT</> option to <command>LOCK</command> (Tatsuo) + </para> + <para> + This allows the <command>LOCK</command> command to fail if it + would have to wait for the requested lock. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <command>COPY</command> to read and write + comma-separated-value (CSV) files (Andrew, Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Generate error if the <command>COPY</command> delimiter and NULL + string conflict (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <command>GRANT</command>/<command>REVOKE</command> behavior + follows the SQL spec more closely + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Avoid locking conflict between <command>CREATE INDEX</command> + and <command>CHECKPOINT</command> (Tom) + </para> + <para> + In 7.3 and 7.4, a long-running B-tree index build could block concurrent + <command>CHECKPOINT</>s from completing, thereby causing WAL bloat because the + WAL log could not be recycled. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Database-wide <command>ANALYZE</command> does not hold locks + across tables (Tom) + </para> + <para> + This reduces the potential for deadlocks against other backends + that want exclusive locks on tables. To get the benefit of this + change, do not execute database-wide <command>ANALYZE</command> + inside a transaction block (<command>BEGIN</command> block); it + must be able to commit and start a new transaction for each + table. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <command>REINDEX</command> does not exclusively lock the index's + parent table anymore + </para> + <para> + The index itself is still exclusively locked, but readers of the + table can continue if they are not using the particular index + being rebuilt. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Erase MD5 user passwords when a user is renamed (Bruce) + </para> + <para> + <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> uses the user name as salt + when encrypting passwords via MD5. When a user's name is changed, + the salt will no longer match the stored MD5 password, so the + stored password becomes useless. In this release a notice is + generated and the password is cleared. A new password must then + be assigned if the user is to be able to log in with a password. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + New <application>pg_ctl</> <option>kill</> option for Windows (Andrew) + </para> + <para> + Windows does not have a <literal>kill</> command to send signals to + backends so this capability was added to <application>pg_ctl</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Information schema improvements + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <option>--pwfile</> option to + <application>initdb</application> so the initial password can be + set by GUI tools (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Detect locale/encoding mismatch in + <application>initdb</application> (Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <option>register</> command to <application>pg_ctl</> to + register Windows operating system service (Dave Page) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + + <sect3> + <title>Data Type and Function Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + More complete support for composite types (row types) (Tom) + </para> + <para> + Composite values can be used in many places where only scalar values + worked before. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Reject nonrectangular array values as erroneous (Joe) + </para> + <para> + Formerly, <function>array_in</> would silently build a + surprising result. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Overflow in integer arithmetic operations is now detected (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + The arithmetic operators associated with the single-byte + <type>"char"</> data type have been removed. + </para> + <para> + Formerly, the parser would select these operators in many situations + where an <quote>unable to select an operator</> error would be more + appropriate, such as <literal>null * null</>. If you actually want + to do arithmetic on a <type>"char"</> column, you can cast it to + integer explicitly. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Syntax checking of array input values considerably tightened up (Joe) + </para> + <para> + Junk that was previously allowed in odd places with odd results + now causes an <literal>ERROR</>, for example, non-whitespace + after the closing right brace. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Empty-string array element values must now be written as + <literal>""</>, rather than writing nothing (Joe) + </para> + <para> + Formerly, both ways of writing an empty-string element value were + allowed, but now a quoted empty string is required. The case where + nothing at all appears will probably be considered to be a NULL + element value in some future release. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Array element trailing whitespace is now ignored (Joe) + </para> + <para> + Formerly leading whitespace was ignored, but trailing whitespace + between an element value and the delimiter or right brace was + significant. Now trailing whitespace is also ignored. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Emit array values with explicit array bounds when lower bound is not one + (Joe) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Accept <literal>YYYY-monthname-DD</> as a date string (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <function>netmask</> and <function>hostmask</> functions + return maximum-length mask length (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Change factorial function to return <type>numeric</type> (Gavin) + </para> + <para> + Returning <type>numeric</type> allows the factorial function to + work for a wider range of input values. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <function>to_char</>/<function>to_date()</> date conversion + improvements (Kurt Roeckx, Fabien Coelho) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <function>length()</> disregard trailing spaces in + <type>CHAR(n)</> (Gavin) + </para> + <para> + This change was made to improve consistency: trailing spaces are + semantically insignificant in <type>CHAR(n)</> data, so they + should not be counted by <function>length()</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Warn about empty string being passed to + <type>OID</>/<type>float4</>/<type>float8</> data types (Neil) + </para> + <para> + 8.1 will throw an error instead. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow leading or trailing whitespace in + <type>int2</>/<type>int4</>/<type>int8</>/<type>float4</>/<type>float8</> + input routines + (Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Better support for IEEE <literal>Infinity</> and <literal>NaN</> + values in <type>float4</type>/<type>float8</type> (Neil) + </para> + <para> + These should now work on all platforms that support IEEE-compliant + floating point arithmetic. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <option>week</> option to <function>date_trunc()</> (Robert Creager) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <function>to_char</function> for <literal>1 BC</> + (previously it returned <literal>1 AD</>) (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <function>date_part(year)</> for BC dates (previously it + returned one less than the correct year) (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <function>date_part()</> to return the proper millennium and + century (Fabien Coelho) + </para> + <para> + In previous versions, the century and millennium results had a wrong + number and started in the wrong year, as compared to standard + reckoning of such things. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>ceiling()</> as an alias for <function>ceil()</>, + and <function>power()</> as an alias for <function>pow()</> for + standards compliance (Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Change <function>ln()</>, <function>log()</>, + <function>power()</>, and <function>sqrt()</> to emit the correct + <literal>SQLSTATE</> error codes for certain error conditions, as + specified by SQL:2003 (Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>width_bucket()</> function as defined by SQL:2003 (Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>generate_series()</> functions to simplify working + with numeric sets (Joe) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <function>upper/lower/initcap()</> functions to work with + multibyte encodings (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add boolean and bitwise integer <option>AND</>/<option>OR</> + aggregates (Fabien Coelho) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + New session information functions to return network addresses for client + and server (Sean Chittenden) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add function to determine the area of a closed path (Sean Chittenden) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add function to send cancel request to other backends (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <type>interval</> plus <type>datetime</> operators (Tom) + </para> + <para> + The reverse ordering, <type>datetime</> plus <type>interval</>, + was already supported, but both are required by the SQL standard. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Casting an integer to <type>BIT(N)</> selects the rightmost N bits + of the integer + (Tom) + </para> + <para> + In prior releases, the leftmost N bits were selected, but this was + deemed unhelpful, not to mention inconsistent with casting from bit + to int. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Require <type>CIDR</> values to have all nonmasked bits be zero + (Kevin Brintnall) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + + <sect3> + <title>Server-Side Language Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + In <literal>READ COMMITTED</> serialization mode, volatile functions + now see the results of concurrent transactions committed up to the + beginning of each statement within the function, rather than up to the + beginning of the interactive command that called the function. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Functions declared <literal>STABLE</> or <literal>IMMUTABLE</> always + use the snapshot of the calling query, and therefore do not see the + effects of actions taken after the calling query starts, whether in + their own transaction or other transactions. Such a function must be + read-only, too, meaning that it cannot use any SQL commands other than + <command>SELECT</>. There is a considerable performance gain from + declaring a function <literal>STABLE</> or <literal>IMMUTABLE</> + rather than <literal>VOLATILE</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Nondeferred <option>AFTER</> triggers are now fired immediately + after completion of the triggering query, rather than upon + finishing the current interactive command. This makes a difference + when the triggering query occurred within a function: the trigger + is invoked before the function proceeds to its next operation. For + example, if a function inserts a new row into a table, any + nondeferred foreign key checks occur before proceeding with the + function. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow function parameters to be declared with names (Dennis Björklund) + </para> + <para> + This allows better documentation of functions. Whether the names + actually do anything depends on the specific function language + being used. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow PL/pgSQL parameter names to be referenced in the function (Dennis Björklund) + </para> + <para> + This basically creates an automatic alias for each named parameter. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Do minimal syntax checking of PL/pgSQL functions at creation time (Tom) + </para> + <para> + This allows us to catch simple syntax errors sooner. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + More support for composite types (row and record variables) in PL/pgSQL + </para> + <para> + For example, it now works to pass a rowtype variable to another function + as a single variable. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Default values for PL/pgSQL variables can now reference previously + declared variables + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve parsing of PL/pgSQL FOR loops (Tom) + </para> + <para> + Parsing is now driven by presence of <literal>".."</> rather than + data type of <option>FOR</> variable. This makes no difference for + correct functions, but should result in more understandable error + messages when a mistake is made. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Major overhaul of PL/Perl server-side language (Command Prompt, Andrew Dunstan) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + In PL/Tcl, SPI commands are now run in subtransactions. If an error + occurs, the subtransaction is cleaned up and the error is reported + as an ordinary Tcl error, which can be trapped with <literal>catch</>. + Formerly, it was not possible to catch such errors. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Accept <command>ELSEIF</> in PL/pgSQL (Neil) + </para> + <para> + Previously PL/pgSQL only allowed <command>ELSIF</>, but many people + are accustomed to spelling this keyword <command>ELSEIF</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + + <sect3> + <title><application>psql</> Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve <application>psql</> information display about database + objects (Christopher) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <application>psql</> to display group membership in + <command>\du</> and <command>\dg</> (Markus Bertheau) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent <application>psql</> <command>\dn</command> from showing + temporary schemas (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <application>psql</> to handle tilde user expansion for file + names (Zach Irmen) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <application>psql</> to display fancy prompts, including + color, via <application>readline</> (Reece Hart, Chet Ramey) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <application>psql</> <command>\copy</> match <command>COPY</command> command syntax + fully (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Show the location of syntax errors (Fabien Coelho, Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <command>CLUSTER</command> information to <application>psql</> + <command>\d</> display + (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Change <application>psql</> <command>\copy stdin/stdout</> to read + from command input/output (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <option>pstdin</>/<option>pstdout</> to read from + <application>psql</>'s <literal>stdin</>/<literal>stdout</> (Mark + Feit) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add global <application>psql</> configuration file, <filename>psqlrc.sample</filename> + (Bruce) + </para> + <para> + This allows a central file where global <application>psql</> startup commands can + be stored. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Have <application>psql</> <command>\d+</> indicate if the table + has an <type>OID</> column (Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + On Windows, use binary mode in <application>psql</> when reading files so control-Z + is not seen as end-of-file + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Have <command>\dn+</> show permissions and description for schemas (Dennis + Björklund) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve tab completion support (Stefan Kaltenbrunn, Greg Sabino Mullane) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow boolean settings to be set using upper or lower case (Michael Paesold) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + + <sect3> + <title><application>pg_dump</> Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Use dependency information to improve the reliability of + <application>pg_dump</> (Tom) + </para> + <para> + This should solve the longstanding problems with related objects + sometimes being dumped in the wrong order. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Have <application>pg_dump</> output objects in alphabetical order if possible (Tom) + </para> + <para> + This should make it easier to identify changes between + dump files. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <application>pg_restore</> to ignore some SQL errors (Fabien Coelho) + </para> + <para> + This makes <application>pg_restore</>'s behavior similar to the + results of feeding a <application>pg_dump</> output script to + <application>psql</>. In most cases, ignoring errors and plowing + ahead is the most useful thing to do. Also added was a pg_restore + option to give the old behavior of exiting on an error. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <application>pg_restore</> <option>-l</> display now includes + objects' schema names + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + New begin/end markers in <application>pg_dump</> text output (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add start/stop times for + <application>pg_dump</>/<application>pg_dumpall</> in verbose mode + (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow most <application>pg_dump</> options in + <application>pg_dumpall</> (Christopher) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Have <application>pg_dump</> use <command>ALTER OWNER</> rather + than <command>SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION</> by default + (Christopher) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + + <sect3> + <title>libpq Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make libpq's <option>SIGPIPE</> handling thread-safe (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>PQmbdsplen()</> which returns the display length + of a character (Tatsuo) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add thread locking to <application>SSL</> and + <application>Kerberos</> connections (Manfred Spraul) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <function>PQoidValue()</>, <function>PQcmdTuples()</>, and + <function>PQoidStatus()</> to work on <command>EXECUTE</command> + commands (Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>PQserverVersion()</> to provide more convenient + access to the server version number (Greg Sabino Mullane) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>PQprepare/PQsendPrepared()</> functions to support + preparing statements without necessarily specifying the data types + of their parameters (Abhijit Menon-Sen) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Many ECPG improvements, including <command>SET DESCRIPTOR</> (Michael) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + + <sect3> + <title>Source Code Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow the database server to run natively on Windows (Claudio, Magnus, Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Shell script commands converted to C versions for Windows support (Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Create an extension makefile framework (Fabien Coelho, Peter) + </para> + <para> + This simplifies the task of building extensions outside the original + source tree. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support relocatable installations (Bruce) + </para> + <para> + Directory paths for installed files (such as the + <filename>/share</> directory) are now computed relative to the + actual location of the executables, so that an installation tree + can be moved to another place without reconfiguring and + rebuilding. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Use <option>--with-docdir</> to choose installation location of documentation; also + allow <option>--infodir</> (Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <option>--without-docdir</> to prevent installation of documentation (Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Upgrade to <application>DocBook</> V4.2 SGML (Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + New <literal>PostgreSQL</> <application>CVS</> tag (Marc) + </para> + <para> + This was done to make it easier for organizations to manage their + own copies of the <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> + <application>CVS</> repository. File version stamps from the master + repository will not get munged by checking into or out of a copied + repository. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Clarify locking code (Manfred Koizar) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Buffer manager cleanup (Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Decouple platform tests from CPU spinlock code (Bruce, Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add inlined test-and-set code on PA-RISC for <application>gcc</> + (ViSolve, Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve i386 spinlock code (Manfred Spraul) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Clean up spinlock assembly code to avoid warnings from newer + <application>gcc</> releases (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove JDBC from source tree; now a separate project + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove the libpgtcl client interface; now a separate project + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + More accurately estimate memory and file descriptor usage (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improvements to the Mac OS X startup scripts (Ray A.) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + New <function>fsync()</> test program (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Major documentation improvements (Neil, Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove <application>pg_encoding</application>; not needed + anymore + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove <application>pg_id</application>; not needed anymore + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove <application>initlocation</application>; not needed + anymore + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Auto-detect thread flags (no more manual testing) (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Use Olson's public domain <application>timezone</> library (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + With threading enabled, use thread flags on Unixware for + backend executables too (Bruce) + </para> + <para> + Unixware cannot mix threaded and nonthreaded object files in the + same executable, so everything must be compiled as threaded. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <application>psql</> now uses a <application>flex</>-generated + lexical analyzer to process command strings + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Reimplement the linked list data structure used throughout the + backend (Neil) + </para> + <para> + This improves performance by allowing list append and length + operations to be more efficient. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow dynamically loaded modules to create their own server configuration + parameters (Thomas Hallgren) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + New Brazilian version of FAQ (Euler Taveira de Oliveira) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add French FAQ (Guillaume Lelarge) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + New <application>pgevent</> for Windows logging + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make libpq and ECPG build as proper shared libraries on OS X (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + + <sect3> + <title>Contrib Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Overhaul of <filename>contrib/dblink</> (Joe) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <filename>contrib/dbmirror</> improvements (Steven Singer) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + New <filename>contrib/xml2</> (John Gray, Torchbox) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Updated <filename>contrib/mysql</filename> + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + New version of <filename>contrib/btree_gist</> (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + New <filename>contrib/trgm</>, trigram matching for + <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Many <filename>contrib/tsearch2</> improvements (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add double metaphone to <filename>contrib/fuzzystrmatch</> (Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <filename>contrib/pg_autovacuum</> to run as a Windows service (Dave Page) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add functions to <filename>contrib/dbsize</> (Andreas Pflug) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Removed <filename>contrib/pg_logger</>: obsoleted by integrated logging + subprocess + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Removed <filename>contrib/rserv</>: obsoleted by various separate projects + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + </sect2> + </sect1> diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/release-8.1.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/release-8.1.sgml new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..5785b1dd8ee --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/src/sgml/release-8.1.sgml @@ -0,0 +1,4318 @@ +<!-- $PostgreSQL: pgsql/doc/src/sgml/release-8.1.sgml,v 1.1 2009/05/02 20:17:19 tgl Exp $ --> +<!-- See header comment in release.sgml about typical markup --> + + <sect1 id="release-8-1-17"> + <title>Release 8.1.17</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2009-03-16</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.16. + For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-1">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.1.17</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.15, + see the release notes for 8.1.15. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent error recursion crashes when encoding conversion fails (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This change extends fixes made in the last two minor releases for + related failure scenarios. The previous fixes were narrowly tailored + for the original problem reports, but we have now recognized that + <emphasis>any</> error thrown by an encoding conversion function could + potentially lead to infinite recursion while trying to report the + error. The solution therefore is to disable translation and encoding + conversion and report the plain-ASCII form of any error message, + if we find we have gotten into a recursive error reporting situation. + (CVE-2009-0922) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Disallow <command>CREATE CONVERSION</> with the wrong encodings + for the specified conversion function (Heikki) + </para> + + <para> + This prevents one possible scenario for encoding conversion failure. + The previous change is a backstop to guard against other kinds of + failures in the same area. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix core dump when <function>to_char()</> is given format codes that + are inappropriate for the type of the data argument (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix decompilation of <literal>CASE WHEN</> with an implicit coercion + (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This mistake could lead to Assert failures in an Assert-enabled build, + or an <quote>unexpected CASE WHEN clause</> error message in other + cases, when trying to examine or dump a view. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible misassignment of the owner of a TOAST table's rowtype (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + If <command>CLUSTER</> or a rewriting variant of <command>ALTER TABLE</> + were executed by someone other than the table owner, the + <structname>pg_type</> entry for the table's TOAST table would end up + marked as owned by that someone. This caused no immediate problems, + since the permissions on the TOAST rowtype aren't examined by any + ordinary database operation. However, it could lead to unexpected + failures if one later tried to drop the role that issued the command + (in 8.1 or 8.2), or <quote>owner of data type appears to be invalid</> + warnings from <application>pg_dump</> after having done so (in 8.3). + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Clean up PL/pgSQL error status variables fully at block exit + (Ashesh Vashi and Dave Page) + </para> + + <para> + This is not a problem for PL/pgSQL itself, but the omission could cause + the PL/pgSQL Debugger to crash while examining the state of a function. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>MUST</> (Mauritius Island Summer Time) to the default list + of known timezone abbreviations (Xavier Bugaud) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-1-16"> + <title>Release 8.1.16</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2009-02-02</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.15. + For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-1">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.1.16</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.15, + see the release notes for 8.1.15. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix crash in autovacuum (Alvaro) + </para> + + <para> + The crash occurs only after vacuuming a whole database for + anti-transaction-wraparound purposes, which means that it occurs + infrequently and is hard to track down. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve handling of URLs in <function>headline()</> function (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve handling of overlength headlines in <function>headline()</> + function (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent possible Assert failure or misconversion if an encoding + conversion is created with the wrong conversion function for the + specified pair of encodings (Tom, Heikki) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Avoid unnecessary locking of small tables in <command>VACUUM</> + (Heikki) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Ensure that the contents of a holdable cursor don't depend on the + contents of TOAST tables (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Previously, large field values in a cursor result might be represented + as TOAST pointers, which would fail if the referenced table got dropped + before the cursor is read, or if the large value is deleted and then + vacuumed away. This cannot happen with an ordinary cursor, + but it could with a cursor that is held past its creating transaction. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix uninitialized variables in <filename>contrib/tsearch2</>'s + <function>get_covers()</> function (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>configure</> script to properly report failure when + unable to obtain linkage information for PL/Perl (Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make all documentation reference <literal>pgsql-bugs</> and/or + <literal>pgsql-hackers</> as appropriate, instead of the + now-decommissioned <literal>pgsql-ports</> and <literal>pgsql-patches</> + mailing lists (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2009a (for + Kathmandu and historical DST corrections in Switzerland, Cuba) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-1-15"> + <title>Release 8.1.15</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2008-11-03</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.14. + For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-1">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.1.15</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.2, + see the release notes for 8.1.2. Also, if you were running a previous + 8.1.X release, it is recommended to <command>REINDEX</> all GiST + indexes after the upgrade. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix GiST index corruption due to marking the wrong index entry + <quote>dead</> after a deletion (Teodor) + </para> + + <para> + This would result in index searches failing to find rows they + should have found. Corrupted indexes can be fixed with + <command>REINDEX</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix backend crash when the client encoding cannot represent a localized + error message (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + We have addressed similar issues before, but it would still fail if + the <quote>character has no equivalent</> message itself couldn't + be converted. The fix is to disable localization and send the plain + ASCII error message when we detect such a situation. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible crash when deeply nested functions are invoked from + a trigger (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix mis-expansion of rule queries when a sub-<literal>SELECT</> appears + in a function call in <literal>FROM</>, a multi-row <literal>VALUES</> + list, or a <literal>RETURNING</> list (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The usual symptom of this problem is an <quote>unrecognized node type</> + error. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Ensure an error is reported when a newly-defined PL/pgSQL trigger + function is invoked as a normal function (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent possible collision of <structfield>relfilenode</> numbers + when moving a table to another tablespace with <command>ALTER SET + TABLESPACE</> (Heikki) + </para> + + <para> + The command tried to re-use the existing filename, instead of + picking one that is known unused in the destination directory. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix incorrect tsearch2 headline generation when single query + item matches first word of text (Sushant Sinha) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix improper display of fractional seconds in interval values when + using a non-ISO datestyle in an <option>--enable-integer-datetimes</> + build (Ron Mayer) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Ensure <function>SPI_getvalue</> and <function>SPI_getbinval</> + behave correctly when the passed tuple and tuple descriptor have + different numbers of columns (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This situation is normal when a table has had columns added or removed, + but these two functions didn't handle it properly. + The only likely consequence is an incorrect error indication. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>ecpg</>'s parsing of <command>CREATE ROLE</> (Michael) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix recent breakage of <literal>pg_ctl restart</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2008i (for + DST law changes in Argentina, Brazil, Mauritius, Syria) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-1-14"> + <title>Release 8.1.14</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2008-09-22</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.13. + For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-1">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.1.14</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.2, + see the release notes for 8.1.2. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Widen local lock counters from 32 to 64 bits (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This responds to reports that the counters could overflow in + sufficiently long transactions, leading to unexpected <quote>lock is + already held</> errors. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible duplicate output of tuples during a GiST index scan (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add checks in executor startup to ensure that the tuples produced by an + <command>INSERT</> or <command>UPDATE</> will match the target table's + current rowtype (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + <command>ALTER COLUMN TYPE</>, followed by re-use of a previously + cached plan, could produce this type of situation. The check protects + against data corruption and/or crashes that could ensue. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <literal>AT TIME ZONE</> to first try to interpret its timezone + argument as a timezone abbreviation, and only try it as a full timezone + name if that fails, rather than the other way around as formerly (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The timestamp input functions have always resolved ambiguous zone names + in this order. Making <literal>AT TIME ZONE</> do so as well improves + consistency, and fixes a compatibility bug introduced in 8.1: + in ambiguous cases we now behave the same as 8.0 and before did, + since in the older versions <literal>AT TIME ZONE</> accepted + <emphasis>only</> abbreviations. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix datetime input functions to correctly detect integer overflow when + running on a 64-bit platform (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve performance of writing very long log messages to syslog (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix bug in backwards scanning of a cursor on a <literal>SELECT DISTINCT + ON</> query (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix planner bug with nested sub-select expressions (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + If the outer sub-select has no direct dependency on the parent query, + but the inner one does, the outer value might not get recalculated + for new parent query rows. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix planner to estimate that <literal>GROUP BY</> expressions yielding + boolean results always result in two groups, regardless of the + expressions' contents (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This is very substantially more accurate than the regular <literal>GROUP + BY</> estimate for certain boolean tests like <replaceable>col</> + <literal>IS NULL</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix PL/PgSQL to not fail when a <literal>FOR</> loop's target variable + is a record containing composite-type fields (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix PL/Tcl to behave correctly with Tcl 8.5, and to be more careful + about the encoding of data sent to or from Tcl (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix PL/Python to work with Python 2.5 + </para> + + <para> + This is a back-port of fixes made during the 8.2 development cycle. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve <application>pg_dump</> and <application>pg_restore</>'s + error reporting after failure to send a SQL command (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>pg_ctl</> to properly preserve postmaster + command-line arguments across a <literal>restart</> (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2008f (for + DST law changes in Argentina, Bahamas, Brazil, Mauritius, Morocco, + Pakistan, Palestine, and Paraguay) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-1-13"> + <title>Release 8.1.13</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2008-06-12</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains one serious and one minor bug fix over 8.1.12. + For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-1">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.1.13</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.2, + see the release notes for 8.1.2. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <function>pg_get_ruledef()</> parenthesize negative constants (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Before this fix, a negative constant in a view or rule might be dumped + as, say, <literal>-42::integer</>, which is subtly incorrect: it should + be <literal>(-42)::integer</> due to operator precedence rules. + Usually this would make little difference, but it could interact with + another recent patch to cause + <productname>PostgreSQL</> to reject what had been a valid + <command>SELECT DISTINCT</> view query. Since this could result in + <application>pg_dump</> output failing to reload, it is being treated + as a high-priority fix. The only released versions in which dump + output is actually incorrect are 8.3.1 and 8.2.7. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>ALTER AGGREGATE ... OWNER TO</> update + <structname>pg_shdepend</> (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This oversight could lead to problems if the aggregate was later + involved in a <command>DROP OWNED</> or <command>REASSIGN OWNED</> + operation. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-1-12"> + <title>Release 8.1.12</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>never released</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.11. + For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-1">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.1.12</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.2, + see the release notes for 8.1.2. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <command>ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN ... PRIMARY KEY</> so that the new + column is correctly checked to see if it's been initialized to all + non-nulls (Brendan Jurd) + </para> + + <para> + Previous versions neglected to check this requirement at all. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible <command>CREATE TABLE</> failure when inheriting the + <quote>same</> constraint from multiple parent relations that + inherited that constraint from a common ancestor (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix conversions between ISO-8859-5 and other encodings to handle + Cyrillic <quote>Yo</> characters (<literal>e</> and <literal>E</> with + two dots) (Sergey Burladyan) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix a few datatype input functions + that were allowing unused bytes in their results to contain + uninitialized, unpredictable values (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This could lead to failures in which two apparently identical literal + values were not seen as equal, resulting in the parser complaining + about unmatched <literal>ORDER BY</> and <literal>DISTINCT</> + expressions. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix a corner case in regular-expression substring matching + (<literal>substring(<replaceable>string</> from + <replaceable>pattern</>)</literal>) (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The problem occurs when there is a match to the pattern overall but + the user has specified a parenthesized subexpression and that + subexpression hasn't got a match. An example is + <literal>substring('foo' from 'foo(bar)?')</>. + This should return NULL, since <literal>(bar)</> isn't matched, but + it was mistakenly returning the whole-pattern match instead (ie, + <literal>foo</>). + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2008c (for + DST law changes in Morocco, Iraq, Choibalsan, Pakistan, Syria, Cuba, + Argentina/San_Luis, and Chile) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix incorrect result from <application>ecpg</>'s + <function>PGTYPEStimestamp_sub()</> function (Michael) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix core dump in <filename>contrib/xml2</>'s + <function>xpath_table()</> function when the input query returns a + NULL value (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <filename>contrib/xml2</>'s makefile to not override + <literal>CFLAGS</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <literal>DatumGetBool</> macro to not fail with <application>gcc</> + 4.3 (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This problem affects <quote>old style</> (V0) C functions that + return boolean. The fix is already in 8.3, but the need to + back-patch it was not realized at the time. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix longstanding <command>LISTEN</>/<command>NOTIFY</> + race condition (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + In rare cases a session that had just executed a + <command>LISTEN</> might not get a notification, even though + one would be expected because the concurrent transaction executing + <command>NOTIFY</> was observed to commit later. + </para> + + <para> + A side effect of the fix is that a transaction that has executed + a not-yet-committed <command>LISTEN</> command will not see any + row in <structname>pg_listener</> for the <command>LISTEN</>, + should it choose to look; formerly it would have. This behavior + was never documented one way or the other, but it is possible that + some applications depend on the old behavior. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Disallow <command>LISTEN</> and <command>UNLISTEN</> within a + prepared transaction (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This was formerly allowed but trying to do it had various unpleasant + consequences, notably that the originating backend could not exit + as long as an <command>UNLISTEN</> remained uncommitted. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix rare crash when an error occurs during a query using a hash index + (Heikki) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix input of datetime values for February 29 in years BC (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The former coding was mistaken about which years were leap years. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <quote>unrecognized node type</> error in some variants of + <command>ALTER OWNER</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>pg_ctl</> to correctly extract the postmaster's port + number from command-line options (Itagaki Takahiro, Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Previously, <literal>pg_ctl start -w</> could try to contact the + postmaster on the wrong port, leading to bogus reports of startup + failure. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Use <option>-fwrapv</> to defend against possible misoptimization + in recent <application>gcc</> versions (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This is known to be necessary when building <productname>PostgreSQL</> + with <application>gcc</> 4.3 or later. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix display of constant expressions in <literal>ORDER BY</> + and <literal>GROUP BY</> (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + An explictly casted constant would be shown incorrectly. This could + for example lead to corruption of a view definition during + dump and reload. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>libpq</> to handle NOTICE messages correctly + during COPY OUT (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This failure has only been observed to occur when a user-defined + datatype's output routine issues a NOTICE, but there is no + guarantee it couldn't happen due to other causes. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-1-11"> + <title>Release 8.1.11</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2008-01-07</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.10, + including fixes for significant security issues. + For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-1">. + </para> + + <para> + This is the last 8.1.X release for which the <productname>PostgreSQL</> + community will produce binary packages for <productname>Windows</>. + Windows users are encouraged to move to 8.2.X or later, + since there are Windows-specific fixes in 8.2.X that + are impractical to back-port. 8.1.X will continue to + be supported on other platforms. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.1.11</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.2, + see the release notes for 8.1.2. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent functions in indexes from executing with the privileges of + the user running <command>VACUUM</>, <command>ANALYZE</>, etc (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Functions used in index expressions and partial-index + predicates are evaluated whenever a new table entry is made. It has + long been understood that this poses a risk of trojan-horse code + execution if one modifies a table owned by an untrustworthy user. + (Note that triggers, defaults, check constraints, etc. pose the + same type of risk.) But functions in indexes pose extra danger + because they will be executed by routine maintenance operations + such as <command>VACUUM FULL</>, which are commonly performed + automatically under a superuser account. For example, a nefarious user + can execute code with superuser privileges by setting up a + trojan-horse index definition and waiting for the next routine vacuum. + The fix arranges for standard maintenance operations + (including <command>VACUUM</>, <command>ANALYZE</>, <command>REINDEX</>, + and <command>CLUSTER</>) to execute as the table owner rather than + the calling user, using the same privilege-switching mechanism already + used for <literal>SECURITY DEFINER</> functions. To prevent bypassing + this security measure, execution of <command>SET SESSION + AUTHORIZATION</> and <command>SET ROLE</> is now forbidden within a + <literal>SECURITY DEFINER</> context. (CVE-2007-6600) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Repair assorted bugs in the regular-expression package (Tom, Will Drewry) + </para> + + <para> + Suitably crafted regular-expression patterns could cause crashes, + infinite or near-infinite looping, and/or massive memory consumption, + all of which pose denial-of-service hazards for applications that + accept regex search patterns from untrustworthy sources. + (CVE-2007-4769, CVE-2007-4772, CVE-2007-6067) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Require non-superusers who use <filename>/contrib/dblink</> to use only + password authentication, as a security measure (Joe) + </para> + + <para> + The fix that appeared for this in 8.1.10 was incomplete, as it plugged + the hole for only some <filename>dblink</> functions. (CVE-2007-6601, + CVE-2007-3278) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2007k + (in particular, recent Argentina changes) (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve planner's handling of LIKE/regex estimation in non-C locales + (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix planner failure in some cases of <literal>WHERE false AND var IN + (SELECT ...)</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Preserve the tablespace of indexes that are + rebuilt by <command>ALTER TABLE ... ALTER COLUMN TYPE</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make archive recovery always start a new WAL timeline, rather than only + when a recovery stop time was used (Simon) + </para> + + <para> + This avoids a corner-case risk of trying to overwrite an existing + archived copy of the last WAL segment, and seems simpler and cleaner + than the original definition. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>VACUUM</> not use all of <varname>maintenance_work_mem</> + when the table is too small for it to be useful (Alvaro) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix potential crash in <function>translate()</> when using a multibyte + database encoding (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix overflow in <literal>extract(epoch from interval)</> for intervals + exceeding 68 years (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix PL/Perl to not fail when a UTF-8 regular expression is used + in a trusted function (Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix PL/Perl to cope when platform's Perl defines type <literal>bool</> + as <literal>int</> rather than <literal>char</> (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + While this could theoretically happen anywhere, no standard build of + Perl did things this way ... until <productname>Mac OS X</> 10.5. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix PL/Python to not crash on long exception messages (Alvaro) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>pg_dump</> to correctly handle inheritance child tables + that have default expressions different from their parent's (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>libpq</> crash when <varname>PGPASSFILE</> refers + to a file that is not a plain file (Martin Pitt) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <application>ecpg</> parser fixes (Michael) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <filename>contrib/pgcrypto</> defend against + <application>OpenSSL</> libraries that fail on keys longer than 128 + bits; which is the case at least on some Solaris versions (Marko Kreen) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <filename>contrib/tablefunc</>'s <function>crosstab()</> handle + NULL rowid as a category in its own right, rather than crashing (Joe) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <type>tsvector</> and <type>tsquery</> output routines to + escape backslashes correctly (Teodor, Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix crash of <function>to_tsvector()</> on huge input strings (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Require a specific version of <productname>Autoconf</> to be used + when re-generating the <command>configure</> script (Peter) + </para> + + <para> + This affects developers and packagers only. The change was made + to prevent accidental use of untested combinations of + <productname>Autoconf</> and <productname>PostgreSQL</> versions. + You can remove the version check if you really want to use a + different <productname>Autoconf</> version, but it's + your responsibility whether the result works or not. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-1-10"> + <title>Release 8.1.10</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2007-09-17</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.9. + For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-1">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.1.10</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.2, + see the release notes for 8.1.2. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent index corruption when a transaction inserts rows and + then aborts close to the end of a concurrent <command>VACUUM</> + on the same table (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>CREATE DOMAIN ... DEFAULT NULL</> work properly (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow the <type>interval</> data type to accept input consisting only of + milliseconds or microseconds (Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Speed up rtree index insertion (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix excessive logging of <acronym>SSL</> error messages (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix logging so that log messages are never interleaved when using + the syslogger process (Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix crash when <varname>log_min_error_statement</> logging runs out + of memory (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix incorrect handling of some foreign-key corner cases (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent <command>REINDEX</> and <command>CLUSTER</> from failing + due to attempting to process temporary tables of other sessions (Alvaro) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update the time zone database rules, particularly New Zealand's upcoming changes (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Windows socket improvements (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Suppress timezone name (<literal>%Z</>) in log timestamps on Windows + because of possible encoding mismatches (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Require non-superusers who use <filename>/contrib/dblink</> to use only + password authentication, as a security measure (Joe) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-1-9"> + <title>Release 8.1.9</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2007-04-23</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.8, + including a security fix. + For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-1">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.1.9</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.2, + see the release notes for 8.1.2. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support explicit placement of the temporary-table schema within + <varname>search_path</>, and disable searching it for functions + and operators (Tom) + </para> + <para> + This is needed to allow a security-definer function to set a + truly secure value of <varname>search_path</>. Without it, + an unprivileged SQL user can use temporary objects to execute code + with the privileges of the security-definer function (CVE-2007-2138). + See <command>CREATE FUNCTION</> for more information. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <filename>/contrib/tsearch2</> crash fixes (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Require <command>COMMIT PREPARED</> to be executed in the same + database as the transaction was prepared in (Heikki) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix potential-data-corruption bug in how <command>VACUUM FULL</> handles + <command>UPDATE</> chains (Tom, Pavan Deolasee) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Planner fixes, including improving outer join and bitmap scan + selection logic (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix PANIC during enlargement of a hash index (bug introduced in 8.1.6) + (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix POSIX-style timezone specs to follow new USA DST rules (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-1-8"> + <title>Release 8.1.8</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2007-02-07</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains one fix from 8.1.7. + For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-1">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.1.8</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.2, + see the release notes for 8.1.2. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove overly-restrictive check for type length in constraints and + functional indexes(Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-1-7"> + <title>Release 8.1.7</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2007-02-05</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.6, including + a security fix. + For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-1">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.1.7</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.2, + see the release notes for 8.1.2. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove security vulnerabilities that allowed connected users + to read backend memory (Tom) + </para> + <para> + The vulnerabilities involve suppressing the normal check that a SQL + function returns the data type it's declared to, and changing the + data type of a table column (CVE-2007-0555, CVE-2007-0556). These + errors can easily be exploited to cause a backend crash, and in + principle might be used to read database content that the user + should not be able to access. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix rare bug wherein btree index page splits could fail + due to choosing an infeasible split point (Heikki Linnakangas) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve <command>VACUUM</> performance for databases with many tables (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix autovacuum to avoid leaving non-permanent transaction IDs in + non-connectable databases (Alvaro) + </para> + + <para> + This bug affects the 8.1 branch only. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix for rare Assert() crash triggered by <literal>UNION</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Tighten security of multi-byte character processing for UTF8 sequences + over three bytes long (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix bogus <quote>permission denied</> failures occurring on Windows + due to attempts to fsync already-deleted files (Magnus, Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible crashes when an already-in-use PL/pgSQL function is + updated (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-1-6"> + <title>Release 8.1.6</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2007-01-08</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.5. + For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-1">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.1.6</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.2, + see the release notes for 8.1.2. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve handling of <function>getaddrinfo()</> on AIX (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This fixes a problem with starting the statistics collector, + among other things. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>pg_restore</> to handle a tar-format backup + that contains large objects (blobs) with comments (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <quote>failed to re-find parent key</> errors in + <command>VACUUM</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Clean out <filename>pg_internal.init</> cache files during server + restart (Simon) + </para> + + <para> + This avoids a hazard that the cache files might contain stale + data after PITR recovery. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix race condition for truncation of a large relation across a + gigabyte boundary by <command>VACUUM</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix bug causing needless deadlock errors on row-level locks (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix bugs affecting multi-gigabyte hash indexes (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible deadlock in Windows signal handling (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix error when constructing an <literal>ARRAY[]</> made up of multiple + empty elements (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix ecpg memory leak during connection (Michael) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix for Darwin (OS X) compilation (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <function>to_number()</> and <function>to_char(numeric)</> + are now <literal>STABLE</>, not <literal>IMMUTABLE</>, for + new <application>initdb</> installs (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This is because <varname>lc_numeric</> can potentially + change the output of these functions. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve index usage of regular expressions that use parentheses (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This improves <application>psql</> <literal>\d</> performance also. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update timezone database + </para> + + <para> + This affects Australian and Canadian daylight-savings rules in + particular. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-1-5"> + <title>Release 8.1.5</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2006-10-16</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.4. + For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-1">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.1.5</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.2, + see the release notes for 8.1.2. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Disallow aggregate functions in <command>UPDATE</> +commands, except within sub-SELECTs (Tom)</para> +<para>The behavior of such an aggregate was unpredictable, and in 8.1.X +could cause a crash, so it has been disabled. The SQL standard does not allow +this either.</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix core dump when an untyped literal is taken as +ANYARRAY</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix core dump in duration logging for extended query protocol +when a <command>COMMIT</> or <command>ROLLBACK</> is +executed</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix mishandling of AFTER triggers when query contains a SQL +function returning multiple rows (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <command>ALTER TABLE ... TYPE</> to recheck +<literal>NOT NULL</> for <literal>USING</> clause (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <function>string_to_array()</> to handle overlapping + matches for the separator string</para> +<para>For example, <literal>string_to_array('123xx456xxx789', 'xx')</>. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <function>to_timestamp()</> for +<literal>AM</>/<literal>PM</> formats (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix autovacuum's calculation that decides whether + <command>ANALYZE</> is needed (Alvaro)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix corner cases in pattern matching for + <application>psql</>'s <literal>\d</> commands</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix index-corrupting bugs in /contrib/ltree + (Teodor)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Numerous robustness fixes in <application>ecpg</> (Joachim +Wieland)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix backslash escaping in /contrib/dbmirror</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Minor fixes in /contrib/dblink and /contrib/tsearch2</para> +</listitem> +<listitem><para>Efficiency improvements in hash tables and bitmap index scans +(Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix instability of statistics collection on Windows (Tom, Andrew)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <varname>statement_timeout</> to use the proper +units on Win32 (Bruce)</para> +<para>In previous Win32 8.1.X versions, the delay was off by a factor of +100.</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fixes for <acronym>MSVC</> and <productname>Borland C++</> +compilers (Hiroshi Saito)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fixes for <systemitem class="osname">AIX</> and +<productname>Intel</> compilers (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix rare bug in continuous archiving (Tom)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-1-4"> + <title>Release 8.1.4</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2006-05-23</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.3, + including patches for extremely serious security issues. + For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-1">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.1.4</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.2, + see the release notes for 8.1.2. + </para> + + <para> + Full security against the SQL-injection attacks described in + CVE-2006-2313 and CVE-2006-2314 might require changes in application + code. If you have applications that embed untrustworthy strings + into SQL commands, you should examine them as soon as possible to + ensure that they are using recommended escaping techniques. In + most cases, applications should be using subroutines provided by + libraries or drivers (such as <application>libpq</>'s + <function>PQescapeStringConn()</>) to perform string escaping, + rather than relying on <foreignphrase>ad hoc</> code to do it. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Change the server to reject invalidly-encoded multibyte +characters in all cases (Tatsuo, Tom)</para> +<para>While <productname>PostgreSQL</> has been moving in this direction for +some time, the checks are now applied uniformly to all encodings and all +textual input, and are now always errors not merely warnings. This change +defends against SQL-injection attacks of the type described in CVE-2006-2313. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Reject unsafe uses of <literal>\'</> in string literals</para> +<para>As a server-side defense against SQL-injection attacks of the type +described in CVE-2006-2314, the server now only accepts <literal>''</> and not +<literal>\'</> as a representation of ASCII single quote in SQL string +literals. By default, <literal>\'</> is rejected only when +<varname>client_encoding</> is set to a client-only encoding (SJIS, BIG5, GBK, +GB18030, or UHC), which is the scenario in which SQL injection is possible. +A new configuration parameter <varname>backslash_quote</> is available to +adjust this behavior when needed. Note that full security against +CVE-2006-2314 might require client-side changes; the purpose of +<varname>backslash_quote</> is in part to make it obvious that insecure +clients are insecure. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Modify <application>libpq</>'s string-escaping routines to be +aware of encoding considerations and +<varname>standard_conforming_strings</></para> +<para>This fixes <application>libpq</>-using applications for the security +issues described in CVE-2006-2313 and CVE-2006-2314, and also future-proofs +them against the planned changeover to SQL-standard string literal syntax. +Applications that use multiple <productname>PostgreSQL</> connections +concurrently should migrate to <function>PQescapeStringConn()</> and +<function>PQescapeByteaConn()</> to ensure that escaping is done correctly +for the settings in use in each database connection. Applications that +do string escaping <quote>by hand</> should be modified to rely on library +routines instead. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix weak key selection in pgcrypto (Marko Kreen)</para> +<para>Errors in fortuna PRNG reseeding logic could cause a predictable +session key to be selected by <function>pgp_sym_encrypt()</> in some cases. +This only affects non-OpenSSL-using builds. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix some incorrect encoding conversion functions</para> +<para><function>win1251_to_iso</>, <function>win866_to_iso</>, +<function>euc_tw_to_big5</>, <function>euc_tw_to_mic</>, +<function>mic_to_euc_tw</> were all broken to varying +extents. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Clean up stray remaining uses of <literal>\'</> in strings +(Bruce, Jan)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Make autovacuum visible in <structname>pg_stat_activity</> +(Alvaro)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Disable <literal>full_page_writes</> (Tom)</para> +<para>In certain cases, having <literal>full_page_writes</> off would cause +crash recovery to fail. A proper fix will appear in 8.2; for now it's just +disabled. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Various planner fixes, particularly for bitmap index scans and +MIN/MAX optimization (Tom)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix incorrect optimization in merge join (Tom)</para> +<para>Outer joins could sometimes emit multiple copies of unmatched rows. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix crash from using and modifying a plpgsql function in the +same transaction</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix WAL replay for case where a B-Tree index has been +truncated</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix <literal>SIMILAR TO</> for patterns involving +<literal>|</> (Tom)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix <command>SELECT INTO</> and <command>CREATE TABLE AS</> to +create tables in the default tablespace, not the base directory (Kris +Jurka)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix server to use custom DH SSL parameters correctly (Michael +Fuhr)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Improve qsort performance (Dann Corbit)</para> +<para>Currently this code is only used on Solaris. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix for OS/X Bonjour on x86 systems (Ashley Clark)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix various minor memory leaks</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix problem with password prompting on some Win32 systems +(Robert Kinberg)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Improve <application>pg_dump</>'s handling of default values +for domains</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix <application>pg_dumpall</> to handle identically-named +users and groups reasonably (only possible when dumping from a pre-8.1 server) +(Tom)</para> +<para>The user and group will be merged into a single role with +<literal>LOGIN</> permission. Formerly the merged role wouldn't have +<literal>LOGIN</> permission, making it unusable as a user. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix <application>pg_restore</> <literal>-n</> to work as +documented (Tom)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-1-3"> + <title>Release 8.1.3</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2006-02-14</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.2, + including one very serious security issue. + For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-1">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.1.3</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.2, + see the release notes for 8.1.2. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> + +<listitem><para>Fix bug that allowed any logged-in user to <command>SET +ROLE</> to any other database user id (CVE-2006-0553)</para> +<para>Due to inadequate validity checking, a user could exploit the special +case that <command>SET ROLE</> normally uses to restore the previous role +setting after an error. This allowed ordinary users to acquire superuser +status, for example. +The escalation-of-privilege risk exists only in 8.1.0-8.1.2. +However, in all releases back to 7.3 there is a related bug in <command>SET +SESSION AUTHORIZATION</> that allows unprivileged users to crash the server, +if it has been compiled with Asserts enabled (which is not the default). +Thanks to Akio Ishida for reporting this problem. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix bug with row visibility logic in self-inserted +rows (Tom)</para> +<para>Under rare circumstances a row inserted by the current command +could be seen as already valid, when it should not be. Repairs bug +created in 8.0.4, 7.4.9, and 7.3.11 releases. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix race condition that could lead to <quote>file already +exists</> errors during pg_clog and pg_subtrans file creation +(Tom)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix cases that could lead to crashes if a cache-invalidation +message arrives at just the wrong time (Tom)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Properly check <literal>DOMAIN</> constraints for +<literal>UNKNOWN</> parameters in prepared statements +(Neil)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Ensure <command>ALTER COLUMN TYPE</> will process +<literal>FOREIGN KEY</>, <literal>UNIQUE</>, and <literal>PRIMARY KEY</> +constraints in the proper order (Nakano Yoshihisa)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fixes to allow restoring dumps that have cross-schema +references to custom operators or operator classes (Tom)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Allow <application>pg_restore</> to continue properly after a +<command>COPY</> failure; formerly it tried to treat the remaining +<command>COPY</> data as SQL commands (Stephen Frost)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix <application>pg_ctl</> <literal>unregister</> crash +when the data directory is not specified (Magnus)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix <application>libpq</> <function>PQprint</> HTML tags +(Christoph Zwerschke)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix <application>ecpg</> crash on AMD64 and PPC +(Neil)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Allow <literal>SETOF</> and <literal>%TYPE</> to be used +together in function result type declarations</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Recover properly if error occurs during argument passing +in <application>PL/python</> (Neil)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix memory leak in <function>plperl_return_next</> +(Neil)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix <application>PL/perl</>'s handling of locales on +Win32 to match the backend (Andrew)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Various optimizer fixes (Tom)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix crash when <literal>log_min_messages</> is set to +<literal>DEBUG3</> or above in <filename>postgresql.conf</> on Win32 +(Bruce)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix <application>pgxs</> <literal>-L</> library path +specification for Win32, Cygwin, OS X, AIX (Bruce)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Check that SID is enabled while checking for Win32 admin +privileges (Magnus)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Properly reject out-of-range date inputs (Kris +Jurka)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Portability fix for testing presence of <function>finite</> +and <function>isinf</> during configure (Tom)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Improve speed of <command>COPY IN</> via libpq, by +avoiding a kernel call per data line (Alon Goldshuv)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Improve speed of <filename>/contrib/tsearch2</> index +creation (Tom)</para></listitem> + +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-1-2"> + <title>Release 8.1.2</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2006-01-09</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.1. + For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-1">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.1.2</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. + However, you might need to <command>REINDEX</> indexes on textual + columns after updating, if you are affected by the locale or + <application>plperl</> issues described below. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> + +<listitem><para>Fix Windows code so that postmaster will continue rather +than exit if there is no more room in ShmemBackendArray (Magnus)</para> +<para>The previous behavior could lead to a denial-of-service situation if too +many connection requests arrive close together. This applies +<emphasis>only</> to the Windows port.</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix bug introduced in 8.0 that could allow ReadBuffer +to return an already-used page as new, potentially causing loss of +recently-committed data (Tom)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix for protocol-level Describe messages issued +outside a transaction or in a failed transaction (Tom)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix character string comparison for locales that consider +different character combinations as equal, such as Hungarian (Tom)</para> +<para>This might require <command>REINDEX</> to fix existing indexes on +textual columns.</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Set locale environment variables during postmaster startup +to ensure that <application>plperl</> won't change the locale later</para> +<para>This fixes a problem that occurred if the <application>postmaster</> was +started with environment variables specifying a different locale than what +<application>initdb</> had been told. Under these conditions, any use of +<application>plperl</> was likely to lead to corrupt indexes. You might need +<command>REINDEX</> to fix existing indexes on +textual columns if this has happened to you.</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Allow more flexible relocation of installation +directories (Tom)</para> +<para>Previous releases supported relocation only if all installation +directory paths were the same except for the last component.</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Prevent crashes caused by the use of +<literal>ISO-8859-5</> and <literal>ISO-8859-9</> encodings +(Tatsuo)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix longstanding bug in strpos() and regular expression +handling in certain rarely used Asian multi-byte character sets (Tatsuo) +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix bug where COPY CSV mode considered any +<literal>\.</> to terminate the copy data</para> <para>The new code +requires <literal>\.</> to appear alone on a line, as per +documentation.</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Make COPY CSV mode quote a literal data value of +<literal>\.</> to ensure it cannot be interpreted as the +end-of-data marker (Bruce)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Various fixes for functions returning <literal>RECORD</>s +(Tom) </para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix processing of <filename>postgresql.conf</> so a +final line with no newline is processed properly (Tom) +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix bug in <filename>/contrib/pgcrypto</> gen_salt, +which caused it not to use all available salt space for MD5 and +XDES algorithms (Marko Kreen, Solar Designer)</para> +<para>Salts for Blowfish and standard DES are unaffected.</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix autovacuum crash when processing expression indexes +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix <filename>/contrib/dblink</> to throw an error, +rather than crashing, when the number of columns specified is different from +what's actually returned by the query (Joe)</para></listitem> + +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-1-1"> + <title>Release 8.1.1</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2005-12-12</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.0. + For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-1">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.1.1</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Fix incorrect optimizations of outer-join conditions +(Tom)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix problems with wrong reported column names in cases +involving sub-selects flattened by the optimizer (Tom)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix update failures in scenarios involving CHECK constraints, +toasted columns, <emphasis>and</> indexes (Tom)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix bgwriter problems after recovering from errors +(Tom)</para> +<para> +The background writer was found to leak buffer pins after write errors. +While not fatal in itself, this might lead to mysterious blockages of +later VACUUM commands. +</para> +</listitem> + +<listitem><para>Prevent failure if client sends Bind protocol message +when current transaction is already aborted</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para><filename>/contrib/tsearch2</> and <filename>/contrib/ltree</> +fixes (Teodor)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix problems with translated error messages in +languages that require word reordering, such as Turkish; also problems with +unexpected truncation of output strings and wrong display of the smallest +possible bigint value (Andrew, Tom)</para> +<para> +These problems only appeared on platforms that were using our +<filename>port/snprintf.c</> code, which includes BSD variants if +<literal>--enable-nls</> was given, and perhaps others. In addition, +a different form of the translated-error-message problem could appear +on Windows depending on which version of <filename>libintl</> was used. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Re-allow <literal>AM</>/<literal>PM</>, <literal>HH</>, +<literal>HH12</>, and <literal>D</> format specifiers for +<function>to_char(time)</> and <function>to_char(interval)</>. +(<function>to_char(interval)</> should probably use +<literal>HH24</>.) (Bruce)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>AIX, HPUX, and MSVC compile fixes (Tom, Hiroshi +Saito)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Optimizer improvements (Tom)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Retry file reads and writes after Windows +NO_SYSTEM_RESOURCES error (Qingqing Zhou)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Prevent <application>autovacuum</> from crashing during +ANALYZE of expression index (Alvaro)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix problems with ON COMMIT DELETE ROWS temp +tables</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix problems when a trigger alters the output of a SELECT +DISTINCT query</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Add 8.1.0 release note item on how to migrate invalid +<literal>UTF-8</> byte sequences (Paul Lindner)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-1"> + <title>Release 8.1</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2005-11-08</simpara> + </note> + + <sect2> + <title>Overview</title> + + <para> + Major changes in this release: + </para> + + <variablelist> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Improve concurrent access to the shared buffer cache (Tom) + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + Access to the shared buffer cache was identified as a + significant scalability problem, particularly on multi-CPU + systems. In this release, the way that locking is done in the + buffer manager has been overhauled to reduce lock contention + and improve scalability. The buffer manager has also been + changed to use a <quote>clock sweep</quote> replacement + policy. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Allow index scans to use an intermediate in-memory bitmap (Tom) + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + In previous releases, only a single index could be used to do + lookups on a table. With this feature, if a query has + <command>WHERE tab.col1 = 4 and tab.col2 = 9</>, and there is + no multicolumn index on <literal>col1</> and <literal>col2</>, + but there is an index on <literal>col1</> and another on + <literal>col2</>, it is possible to search both indexes and + combine the results in memory, then do heap fetches for only + the rows matching both the <literal>col1</> and + <literal>col2</> restrictions. This is very useful in + environments that have a lot of unstructured queries where it + is impossible to create indexes that match all possible access + conditions. Bitmap scans are useful even with a single index, + as they reduce the amount of random access needed; a bitmap + index scan is efficient for retrieving fairly large fractions + of the complete table, whereas plain index scans are not. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Add two-phase commit (Heikki Linnakangas, Alvaro, Tom) + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + Two-phase commit allows transactions to be "prepared" on several + computers, and once all computers have successfully prepared + their transactions (none failed), all transactions can be + committed. Even if a machine crashes after a prepare, the + prepared transaction can be committed after the machine is + restarted. New syntax includes <command>PREPARE TRANSACTION</> and + <command>COMMIT/ROLLBACK PREPARED</>. A new system view + <literal>pg_prepared_xacts</> has also been added. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Create a new role system that replaces users and groups + (Stephen Frost) + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + Roles are a combination of users and groups. Like users, they + can have login capability, and like groups, a role can have + other roles as members. Roles basically remove the distinction + between users and groups. For example, a role can: + </para> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Have login capability (optionally) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Own objects + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Hold access permissions for database objects + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Inherit permissions from other roles it is a member of + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + <para> + Once a user logs into a role, she obtains capabilities of + the login role plus any inherited roles, and can use + <command>SET ROLE</> to switch to other roles she is a member of. + This feature is a generalization of the SQL standard's concept of + roles. + This change also replaces <structname>pg_shadow</> and + <structname>pg_group</> by new role-capable catalogs + <structname>pg_authid</> and <structname>pg_auth_members</>. The old + tables are redefined as read-only views on the new role tables. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Automatically use indexes for <function>MIN()</> and + <function>MAX()</> (Tom) + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + In previous releases, the only way to use an index for + <function>MIN()</> or <function>MAX()</> was to rewrite the + query as <command>SELECT col FROM tab ORDER BY col LIMIT 1</>. + Index usage now happens automatically. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Move <filename>/contrib/pg_autovacuum</> into the main server + (Alvaro) + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + Integrating autovacuum into the server allows it to be + automatically started and stopped in sync with the database + server, and allows autovacuum to be configured from + <filename>postgresql.conf</>. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Add shared row level locks using <command>SELECT ... FOR SHARE</> + (Alvaro) + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + While <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>'s MVCC locking + allows <command>SELECT</> to never be blocked by writers and + therefore does not need shared row locks for typical operations, + shared locks are useful for applications that require shared row + locking. In particular this reduces the locking requirements + imposed by referential integrity checks. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Add dependencies on shared objects, specifically roles + (Alvaro) + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + This extension of the dependency mechanism prevents roles from + being dropped while there are still database objects they own. + Formerly it was possible to accidentally <quote>orphan</> objects by + deleting their owner. While this could be recovered from, it + was messy and unpleasant. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Improve performance for partitioned tables (Simon) + </term> + + <listitem> + <para> + The new <varname>constraint_exclusion</varname> configuration + parameter avoids lookups on child tables where constraints indicate + that no matching rows exist in the child table. + </para> + <para> + This allows for a basic type of table partitioning. If child tables + store separate key ranges and this is enforced using appropriate + <command>CHECK</> constraints, the optimizer will skip child + table accesses when the constraint guarantees no matching rows + exist in the child table. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + </variablelist> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.1</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore using <application>pg_dump</application> is required + for those wishing to migrate data from any previous release. + </para> + + <para> + The 8.0 release announced that the <function>to_char()</> function + for intervals would be removed in 8.1. However, since no better API + has been suggested, <function>to_char(interval)</> has been enhanced in + 8.1 and will remain in the server. + </para> + + <para> + Observe the following incompatibilities: + </para> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + <varname>add_missing_from</> is now false by default (Neil) + </para> + <para> + By default, we now generate an error if a table is used in a query + without a <literal>FROM</> reference. The old behavior is still + available, but the parameter must be set to 'true' to obtain it. + </para> + + <para> + It might be necessary to set <varname>add_missing_from</> to true + in order to load an existing dump file, if the dump contains any + views or rules created using the implicit-<literal>FROM</> syntax. + This should be a one-time annoyance, because + <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> 8.1 will convert + such views and rules to standard explicit-<literal>FROM</> syntax. + Subsequent dumps will therefore not have the problem. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Cause input of a zero-length string (<literal>''</literal>) for + <type>float4</type>/<type>float8</type>/<type>oid</type> + to throw an error, rather than treating it as a zero (Neil) + </para> + <para> + This change is consistent with the current handling of + zero-length strings for integers. The schedule for this change + was announced in 8.0. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <varname>default_with_oids</> is now false by default (Neil) + </para> + <para> + With this option set to false, user-created tables no longer + have an OID column unless <command>WITH OIDS</> is specified in + <command>CREATE TABLE</>. Though OIDs have existed in all + releases of <productname>PostgreSQL</>, their use is limited + because they are only four bytes long and the counter is shared + across all installed databases. The preferred way of uniquely + identifying rows is via sequences and the <type>SERIAL</> type, + which have been supported since <productname>PostgreSQL</> 6.4. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>E''</> syntax so eventually ordinary strings can + treat backslashes literally (Bruce) + </para> + <para> + Currently <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> processes a + backslash in a string literal as introducing a special escape sequence, + e.g. <literal>\n</> or <literal>\010</>. + While this allows easy entry of special values, it is + nonstandard and makes porting of applications from other + databases more difficult. For this reason, the + <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> project is planning to + remove the special meaning of backslashes in strings. For + backward compatibility and for users who want special backslash + processing, a new string syntax has been created. This new string + syntax is formed by writing an <literal>E</> immediately preceding the + single quote that starts the string, e.g. <literal>E'hi\n'</>. While + this release does not change the handling of backslashes in strings, it + does add new configuration parameters to help users migrate applications + for future releases: + </para> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + <varname>standard_conforming_strings</> — does this release + treat backslashes literally in ordinary strings? + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <varname>escape_string_warning</> — warn about backslashes in + ordinary (non-E) strings + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + <para> + The <varname>standard_conforming_strings</> value is read-only. + Applications can retrieve the value to know how backslashes are + processed. (Presence of the parameter can also be taken as an + indication that <literal>E''</> string syntax is supported.) + In a future release, <varname>standard_conforming_strings</> + will be true, meaning backslashes will be treated literally in + non-E strings. To prepare for this change, use <literal>E''</> + strings in places that need special backslash processing, and + turn on <varname>escape_string_warning</> to find additional + strings that need to be converted to use <literal>E''</>. + Also, use two single-quotes (<literal>''</>) to embed a literal + single-quote in a string, rather than the + <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>-supported syntax of + backslash single-quote (<literal>\'</>). The former is + standards-conforming and does not require the use of the + <literal>E''</> string syntax. You can also use the + <literal>$$</> string syntax, which does not treat backslashes + specially. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>REINDEX DATABASE</> reindex all indexes in the + database (Tom) + </para> + <para> + Formerly, <command>REINDEX DATABASE</> reindexed only + system tables. This new behavior seems more intuitive. A new + command <command>REINDEX SYSTEM</> provides the old functionality + of reindexing just the system tables. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Read-only large object descriptors now obey MVCC snapshot semantics + </para> + <para> + When a large object is opened with <literal>INV_READ</> (and not + <literal>INV_WRITE</>), the data read from the descriptor will now + reflect a <quote>snapshot</> of the large object's state at the + time of the transaction snapshot in use by the query that called + <function>lo_open()</>. To obtain the old behavior of always + returning the latest committed data, include <literal>INV_WRITE</> + in the mode flags for <function>lo_open()</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add proper dependencies for arguments of sequence functions (Tom) + </para> + <para> + In previous releases, sequence names passed to <function>nextval()</>, + <function>currval()</>, and <function>setval()</> were stored as + simple text strings, meaning that renaming or dropping a + sequence used in a <literal>DEFAULT</> clause made the clause + invalid. This release stores all newly-created sequence function + arguments as internal OIDs, allowing them to track sequence + renaming, and adding dependency information that prevents + improper sequence removal. It also makes such <literal>DEFAULT</> + clauses immune to schema renaming and search path changes. + </para> + <para> + Some applications might rely on the old behavior of + run-time lookup for sequence names. This can still be done by + explicitly casting the argument to <type>text</>, for example + <literal>nextval('myseq'::text)</>. + </para> + <para> + Pre-8.1 database dumps loaded into 8.1 will use the old text-based + representation and therefore will not have the features of + OID-stored arguments. However, it is possible to update a + database containing text-based <literal>DEFAULT</> clauses. + First, save this query into a file, such as <filename>fixseq.sql</>: +<programlisting> +SELECT 'ALTER TABLE ' || + pg_catalog.quote_ident(n.nspname) || '.' || + pg_catalog.quote_ident(c.relname) || + ' ALTER COLUMN ' || pg_catalog.quote_ident(a.attname) || + ' SET DEFAULT ' || + regexp_replace(d.adsrc, + $$val\(\(('[^']*')::text\)::regclass$$, + $$val(\1$$, + 'g') || + ';' +FROM pg_namespace n, pg_class c, pg_attribute a, pg_attrdef d +WHERE n.oid = c.relnamespace AND + c.oid = a.attrelid AND + a.attrelid = d.adrelid AND + a.attnum = d.adnum AND + d.adsrc ~ $$val\(\('[^']*'::text\)::regclass$$; +</programlisting> + Next, run the query against a database to find what + adjustments are required, like this for database <literal>db1</>: +<programlisting> +psql -t -f fixseq.sql db1 +</programlisting> + This will show the <command>ALTER TABLE</> commands needed to + convert the database to the newer OID-based representation. + If the commands look reasonable, run this to update the database: +<programlisting> +psql -t -f fixseq.sql db1 | psql -e db1 +</programlisting> + This process must be repeated in each database to be updated. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + In <application>psql</application>, treat unquoted + <literal>\{digit}+</> sequences as octal (Bruce) + </para> + <para> + In previous releases, <literal>\{digit}+</> sequences were + treated as decimal, and only <literal>\0{digit}+</> were treated + as octal. This change was made for consistency. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove grammar productions for prefix and postfix <literal>%</> + and <literal>^</> operators + (Tom) + </para> + <para> + These have never been documented and complicated the use of the + modulus operator (<literal>%</>) with negative numbers. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <literal>&<</> and <literal>&></> for polygons + consistent with the box "over" operators (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <command>CREATE LANGUAGE</> can ignore the provided arguments + in favor of information from <structname>pg_pltemplate</> + (Tom) + </para> + <para> + A new system catalog <structname>pg_pltemplate</> has been defined + to carry information about the preferred definitions of procedural + languages (such as whether they have validator functions). When + an entry exists in this catalog for the language being created, + <command>CREATE LANGUAGE</> will ignore all its parameters except the + language name and instead use the catalog information. This measure + was taken because of increasing problems with obsolete language + definitions being loaded by old dump files. As of 8.1, + <application>pg_dump</> will dump procedural language definitions as + just <command>CREATE LANGUAGE <replaceable>name</></command>, relying + on a template entry to exist at load time. We expect this will be a + more future-proof representation. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <function>pg_cancel_backend(int)</function> return a + <type>boolean</type> rather than an <type>integer</type> (Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Some users are having problems loading UTF-8 data into 8.1.X. + This is because previous versions allowed invalid UTF-8 byte + sequences to be entered into the database, and this release + properly accepts only valid UTF-8 sequences. One way to correct a + dumpfile is to run the command <command>iconv -c -f UTF-8 -t + UTF-8 -o cleanfile.sql dumpfile.sql</>. The <literal>-c</> option + removes invalid character sequences. A diff of the two files will + show the sequences that are invalid. <command>iconv</> reads the + entire input file into memory so it might be necessary to use + <application>split</> to break up the dump into multiple smaller + files for processing. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Additional Changes</title> + + <para> + Below you will find a detailed account of the additional changes + between <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> 8.1 and the + previous major release. + </para> + + <sect3> + <title>Performance Improvements</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve GiST and R-tree index performance (Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve the optimizer, including auto-resizing of hash joins + (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Overhaul internal API in several areas + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Change WAL record CRCs from 64-bit to 32-bit (Tom) + </para> + <para> + We determined that the extra cost of computing 64-bit CRCs was + significant, and the gain in reliability too marginal to justify it. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent writing large empty gaps in WAL pages (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve spinlock behavior on SMP machines, particularly Opterons (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow nonconsecutive index columns to be used in a multicolumn + index (Tom) + </para> + <para> + For example, this allows an index on columns a,b,c to be used in + a query with <command>WHERE a = 4 and c = 10</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Skip WAL logging for <command>CREATE TABLE AS</> / + <command>SELECT INTO</> (Simon) + </para> + <para> + Since a crash during <command>CREATE TABLE AS</> would cause the + table to be dropped during recovery, there is no reason to WAL + log as the table is loaded. (Logging still happens if WAL + archiving is enabled, however.) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow concurrent GiST index access (Teodor, Oleg) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add configuration parameter <varname>full_page_writes</> to + control writing full pages to WAL (Bruce) + </para> + <para> + To prevent partial disk writes from corrupting the database, + <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> writes a complete copy of + each database disk page to WAL the first time it is modified + after a checkpoint. This option turns off that functionality for more + speed. This is safe to use with battery-backed disk caches where + partial page writes cannot happen. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Use <literal>O_DIRECT</> if available when using + <literal>O_SYNC</> for <varname>wal_sync_method</varname> + (Itagaki Takahiro) + </para> + <para> + <literal>O_DIRECT</> causes disk writes to bypass the kernel + cache, and for WAL writes, this improves performance. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve <command>COPY FROM</> performance (Alon Goldshuv) + </para> + <para> + This was accomplished by reading <command>COPY</> input in + larger chunks, rather than character by character. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve the performance of <function>COUNT()</function>, + <function>SUM</function>, <function>AVG()</function>, + <function>STDDEV()</function>, and + <function>VARIANCE()</function> (Neil, Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Server Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent problems due to transaction ID (XID) wraparound (Tom) + </para> + <para> + The server will now warn when the transaction counter approaches + the wraparound point. If the counter becomes too close to wraparound, + the server will stop accepting queries. This ensures that data is + not lost before needed vacuuming is performed. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix problems with object IDs (OIDs) conflicting with existing system + objects after the OID counter has wrapped around (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add warning about the need to increase + <varname>max_fsm_relations</> and <varname>max_fsm_pages</> + during <command>VACUUM</> (Ron Mayer) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <varname>temp_buffers</> configuration parameter to allow + users to determine the size of the local buffer area for + temporary table access (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add session start time and client IP address to + <literal>pg_stat_activity</> (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Adjust <literal>pg_stat</> views for bitmap scans (Tom) + </para> + <para> + The meanings of some of the fields have changed slightly. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Enhance <literal>pg_locks</> view (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Log queries for client-side <command>PREPARE</> and + <command>EXECUTE</> (Simon) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow Kerberos name and user name case sensitivity to be + specified in <filename>postgresql.conf</> (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add configuration parameter <varname>krb_server_hostname</> so + that the server host name can be specified as part of service + principal (Todd Kover) + </para> + <para> + If not set, any service principal matching an entry in the + keytab can be used. This is new Kerberos matching behavior in + this release. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <varname>log_line_prefix</> options for millisecond + timestamps (<literal>%m</>) and remote host (<literal>%h</>) (Ed + L.) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add WAL logging for GiST indexes (Teodor, Oleg) + </para> + <para> + GiST indexes are now safe for crash and point-in-time recovery. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove old <filename>*.backup</> files when we do + <function>pg_stop_backup()</> (Bruce) + </para> + <para> + This prevents a large number of <filename>*.backup</> files from + existing in <filename>pg_xlog/</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add configuration parameters to control TCP/IP keep-alive + times for idle, interval, and count (Oliver Jowett) + </para> + + <para> + These values can be changed to allow more rapid detection of + lost client connections. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add per-user and per-database connection limits (Petr Jelinek) + </para> + <para> + Using <command>ALTER USER</> and <command>ALTER DATABASE</>, + limits can now be enforced on the maximum number of sessions that + can concurrently connect as a specific user or to a specific database. + Setting the limit to zero disables user or database connections. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow more than two gigabytes of shared memory and per-backend + work memory on 64-bit machines (Koichi Suzuki) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + New system catalog <structname>pg_pltemplate</> allows overriding + obsolete procedural-language definitions in dump files (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + + <sect3> + <title>Query Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add temporary views (Koju Iijima, Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <command>HAVING</> without any aggregate functions or + <command>GROUP BY</> so that the query returns a single group (Tom) + </para> + <para> + Previously, such a case would treat the <command>HAVING</> + clause the same as a <command>WHERE</> clause. This was not per spec. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <command>USING</> clause to allow additional tables to be + specified to <command>DELETE</> (Euler Taveira de Oliveira, Neil) + </para> + <para> + In prior releases, there was no clear method for specifying + additional tables to be used for joins in a <command>DELETE</> + statement. <command>UPDATE</> already has a <literal>FROM</> + clause for this purpose. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add support for <literal>\x</> hex escapes in backend and ecpg + strings (Bruce) + </para> + <para> + This is just like the standard C <literal>\x</> escape syntax. + Octal escapes were already supported. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <command>BETWEEN SYMMETRIC</> query syntax (Pavel Stehule) + </para> + <para> + This feature allows <command>BETWEEN</> comparisons without + requiring the first value to be less than the second. For + example, <command>2 BETWEEN [ASYMMETRIC] 3 AND 1</> returns + false, while <command>2 BETWEEN SYMMETRIC 3 AND 1</> returns + true. <command>BETWEEN ASYMMETRIC</> was already supported. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <command>NOWAIT</> option to <command>SELECT ... FOR + UPDATE/SHARE</> (Hans-Juergen Schoenig) + </para> + <para> + While the <varname>statement_timeout</> configuration + parameter allows a query taking more than a certain amount of + time to be cancelled, the <command>NOWAIT</> option allows a + query to be canceled as soon as a <command>SELECT ... FOR + UPDATE/SHARE</> command cannot immediately acquire a row lock. + </para> + </listitem> + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + + <sect3> + <title>Object Manipulation Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Track dependencies of shared objects (Alvaro) + </para> + <para> + <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> allows global tables + (users, databases, tablespaces) to reference information in + multiple databases. This addition adds dependency information + for global tables, so, for example, user ownership can be + tracked across databases, so a user who owns something in any + database can no longer be removed. Dependency tracking already + existed for database-local objects. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow limited <command>ALTER OWNER</> commands to be performed + by the object owner (Stephen Frost) + </para> + <para> + Prior releases allowed only superusers to change object owners. + Now, ownership can be transferred if the user executing the command + owns the object and would be able to create it as the new owner + (that is, the user is a member of the new owning role and that role + has the CREATE permission that would be needed to create the object + afresh). + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <command>ALTER</> object <command>SET SCHEMA</> capability + for some object types (tables, functions, types) (Bernd Helmle) + </para> + <para> + This allows objects to be moved to different schemas. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <command>ALTER TABLE ENABLE/DISABLE TRIGGER</command> to + disable triggers (Satoshi Nagayasu) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + + <sect3> + <title>Utility Command Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <command>TRUNCATE</> to truncate multiple tables in a + single command (Alvaro) + </para> + <para> + Because of referential integrity checks, it is not allowed to + truncate a table that is part of a referential integrity + constraint. Using this new functionality, <command>TRUNCATE</> + can be used to truncate such tables, if both tables involved in + a referential integrity constraint are truncated in a single + <command>TRUNCATE</> command. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Properly process carriage returns and line feeds in + <command>COPY CSV</> mode (Andrew) + </para> + <para> + In release 8.0, carriage returns and line feeds in <command>CSV + COPY TO</> were processed in an inconsistent manner. (This was + documented on the TODO list.) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <command>COPY WITH CSV HEADER</> to allow a header line as + the first line in <command>COPY</> (Andrew) + </para> + <para> + This allows handling of the common <command>CSV</> usage of + placing the column names on the first line of the data file. For + <command>COPY TO</>, the first line contains the column names, + and for <command>COPY FROM</>, the first line is ignored. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + On Windows, display better sub-second precision in + <command>EXPLAIN ANALYZE</> (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add trigger duration display to <command>EXPLAIN ANALYZE</> + (Tom) + </para> + <para> + Prior releases included trigger execution time as part of the + total execution time, but did not show it separately. It is now + possible to see how much time is spent in each trigger. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add support for <literal>\x</> hex escapes in <command>COPY</> + (Sergey Ten) + </para> + <para> + Previous releases only supported octal escapes. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>SHOW ALL</> include variable descriptions + (Matthias Schmidt) + </para> + <para> + <command>SHOW</> varname still only displays the variable's + value and does not include the description. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <application>initdb</application> create a new standard + database called <literal>postgres</>, and convert utilities to + use <literal>postgres</> rather than <literal>template1</> for + standard lookups (Dave) + </para> + <para> + In prior releases, <literal>template1</> was used both as a + default connection for utilities like + <application>createuser</application>, and as a template for + new databases. This caused <command>CREATE DATABASE</> to + sometimes fail, because a new database cannot be created if + anyone else is in the template database. With this change, the + default connection database is now <literal>postgres</>, + meaning it is much less likely someone will be using + <literal>template1</> during <command>CREATE DATABASE</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Create new <application>reindexdb</application> command-line + utility by moving <filename>/contrib/reindexdb</> into the + server (Euler Taveira de Oliveira) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + + <sect3> + <title>Data Type and Function Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>MAX()</> and <function>MIN()</> aggregates for + array types (Koju Iijima) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <function>to_date()</> and <function>to_timestamp()</> to + behave reasonably when <literal>CC</> and <literal>YY</> fields + are both used (Karel Zak) + </para> + <para> + If the format specification contains <literal>CC</> and a year + specification is <literal>YYY</> or longer, ignore the + <literal>CC</>. If the year specification is <literal>YY</> or + shorter, interpret <literal>CC</> as the previous century. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>md5(bytea)</> (Abhijit Menon-Sen) + </para> + <para> + <function>md5(text)</> already existed. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add support for <command>numeric ^ numeric</> based on + <function>power(numeric, numeric)</> + </para> + <para> + The function already existed, but there was no operator assigned + to it. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <type>NUMERIC</> modulus by properly truncating the quotient + during computation (Bruce) + </para> + <para> + In previous releases, modulus for large values sometimes + returned negative results due to rounding of the quotient. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add a function <function>lastval()</> (Dennis Björklund) + </para> + <para> + <function>lastval()</> is a simplified version of + <function>currval()</>. It automatically determines the proper + sequence name based on the most recent <function>nextval()</> or + <function>setval()</> call performed by the current session. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>to_timestamp(DOUBLE PRECISION) (Michael Glaesemann)</> + </para> + <para> + Converts Unix seconds since 1970 to a <type>TIMESTAMP WITH + TIMEZONE</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>pg_postmaster_start_time()</> function (Euler + Taveira de Oliveira, Matthias Schmidt) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow the full use of time zone names in <command>AT TIME + ZONE</>, not just the short list previously available (Magnus) + </para> + <para> + Previously, only a predefined list of time zone names were + supported by <command>AT TIME ZONE</>. Now any supported time + zone name can be used, e.g.: + <programlisting> + SELECT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP AT TIME ZONE 'Europe/London'; + </programlisting> + In the above query, the time zone used is adjusted based on the + daylight saving time rules that were in effect on the supplied + date. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>GREATEST()</> and <function>LEAST()</> variadic + functions (Pavel Stehule) + </para> + <para> + These functions take a variable number of arguments and return + the greatest or least value among the arguments. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>pg_column_size()</> (Mark Kirkwood) + </para> + <para> + This returns storage size of a column, which might be compressed. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>regexp_replace()</> (Atsushi Ogawa) + </para> + <para> + This allows regular expression replacement, like sed. An optional + flag argument allows selection of global (replace all) and + case-insensitive modes. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix interval division and multiplication (Bruce) + </para> + <para> + Previous versions sometimes returned unjustified results, like + <command>'4 months'::interval / 5</> returning <command>'1 mon + -6 days'</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix roundoff behavior in timestamp, time, and interval output (Tom) + </para> + <para> + This fixes some cases in which the seconds field would be shown as + <literal>60</> instead of incrementing the higher-order fields. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add a separate day field to type <type>interval</> so a one day + interval can be distinguished from a 24 hour interval (Michael + Glaesemann) + </para> + <para> + Days that contain a daylight saving time adjustment are not 24 + hours long, but typically 23 or 25 hours. This change creates a + conceptual distinction between intervals of <quote>so many days</> + and intervals of <quote>so many hours</>. Adding + <literal>1 day</> to a timestamp now gives the same local time on + the next day even if a daylight saving time adjustment occurs + between, whereas adding <literal>24 hours</> will give a different + local time when this happens. For example, under US DST rules: + <programlisting> + '2005-04-03 00:00:00-05' + '1 day' = '2005-04-04 00:00:00-04' + '2005-04-03 00:00:00-05' + '24 hours' = '2005-04-04 01:00:00-04' + </programlisting> + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>justify_days()</> and <function>justify_hours()</> + (Michael Glaesemann) + </para> + <para> + These functions, respectively, adjust days to an appropriate + number of full months and days, and adjust hours to an + appropriate number of full days and hours. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Move <filename>/contrib/dbsize</> into the backend, and rename + some of the functions (Dave Page, Andreas Pflug) + </para> + <para> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + <function>pg_tablespace_size()</> + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <function>pg_database_size()</> + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <function>pg_relation_size()</> + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <function>pg_total_relation_size()</> + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <function>pg_size_pretty()</> + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </para> + <para> + <function>pg_total_relation_size()</> includes indexes and TOAST + tables. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add functions for read-only file access to the cluster directory + (Dave Page, Andreas Pflug) + </para> + <para> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + <function>pg_stat_file()</> + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <function>pg_read_file()</> + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <function>pg_ls_dir()</> + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>pg_reload_conf()</> to force reloading of the + configuration files (Dave Page, Andreas Pflug) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>pg_rotate_logfile()</> to force rotation of the + server log file (Dave Page, Andreas Pflug) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Change <literal>pg_stat_*</> views to include TOAST tables (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + + <sect3> + <title>Encoding and Locale Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Rename some encodings to be more consistent and to follow + international standards (Bruce) + </para> + <para> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + <literal>UNICODE</> is now <literal>UTF8</> + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <literal>ALT</> is now <literal>WIN866</> + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <literal>WIN</> is now <literal>WIN1251</> + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <literal>TCVN</> is now <literal>WIN1258</> + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </para> + + <para> + The original names still work. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add support for <literal>WIN1252</> encoding (Roland Volkmann) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add support for four-byte <literal>UTF8</> characters (John + Hansen) + </para> + <para> + Previously only one, two, and three-byte <literal>UTF8</> characters + were supported. This is particularly important for support for + some Chinese character sets. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow direct conversion between <literal>EUC_JP</> and + <literal>SJIS</> to improve performance (Atsushi Ogawa) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow the UTF8 encoding to work on Windows (Magnus) + </para> + <para> + This is done by mapping UTF8 to the Windows-native UTF16 + implementation. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + + <sect3> + <title>General Server-Side Language Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <command>ALTER LANGUAGE RENAME</> (Sergey Yatskevich) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow function characteristics, like strictness and volatility, + to be modified via <command>ALTER FUNCTION</> (Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Increase the maximum number of function arguments to 100 (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow SQL and PL/PgSQL functions to use <command>OUT</> and + <command>INOUT</> parameters (Tom) + </para> + <para> + <command>OUT</> is an alternate way for a function to return + values. Instead of using <command>RETURN</>, values can be + returned by assigning to parameters declared as <command>OUT</> or + <command>INOUT</>. This is notationally simpler in some cases, + particularly so when multiple values need to be returned. + While returning multiple values from a function + was possible in previous releases, this greatly simplifies the + process. (The feature will be extended to other server-side + languages in future releases.) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Move language handler functions into the <literal>pg_catalog</> schema + </para> + <para> + This makes it easier to drop the public schema if desired. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>SPI_getnspname()</function> to SPI (Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>PL/PgSQL Server-Side Language Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Overhaul the memory management of PL/PgSQL functions (Neil) + </para> + <para> + The parsetree of each function is now stored in a separate + memory context. This allows this memory to be easily reclaimed + when it is no longer needed. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Check function syntax at <command>CREATE FUNCTION</> time, + rather than at runtime (Neil) + </para> + <para> + Previously, most syntax errors were reported only when the + function was executed. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <command>OPEN</> to open non-<command>SELECT</> queries + like <command>EXPLAIN</> and <command>SHOW</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + No longer require functions to issue a <command>RETURN</> + statement (Tom) + </para> + <para> + This is a byproduct of the newly added <command>OUT</> and + <command>INOUT</> functionality. <command>RETURN</> can + be omitted when it is not needed to provide the function's + return value. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add support for an optional <command>INTO</> clause to + PL/PgSQL's <command>EXECUTE</> statement (Pavel Stehule, Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>CREATE TABLE AS</> set <command>ROW_COUNT</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Define <literal>SQLSTATE</> and <literal>SQLERRM</> to return + the <literal>SQLSTATE</> and error message of the current + exception (Pavel Stehule, Neil) + </para> + <para> + These variables are only defined inside exception blocks. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow the parameters to the <command>RAISE</> statement to be + expressions (Pavel Stehule, Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add a loop <command>CONTINUE</> statement (Pavel Stehule, Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow block and loop labels (Pavel Stehule) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + + <sect3> + <title>PL/Perl Server-Side Language Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow large result sets to be returned efficiently (Abhijit + Menon-Sen) + </para> + <para> + This allows functions to use <function>return_next()</> to avoid + building the entire result set in memory. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow one-row-at-a-time retrieval of query results (Abhijit Menon-Sen) + </para> + <para> + This allows functions to use <function>spi_query()</> and + <function>spi_fetchrow()</> to avoid accumulating the entire + result set in memory. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Force PL/Perl to handle strings as <literal>UTF8</> if the + server encoding is <literal>UTF8</> (David Kamholz) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add a validator function for PL/Perl (Andrew) + </para> + <para> + This allows syntax errors to be reported at definition time, + rather than execution time. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow PL/Perl to return a Perl array when the function returns + an array type (Andrew) + </para> + <para> + This basically maps <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> arrays + to Perl arrays. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow Perl nonfatal warnings to generate <command>NOTICE</> + messages (Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow Perl's <literal>strict</> mode to be enabled (Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + + <sect3> + <title><application>psql</> Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <command>\set ON_ERROR_ROLLBACK</> to allow statements in + a transaction to error without affecting the rest of the + transaction (Greg Sabino Mullane) + </para> + <para> + This is basically implemented by wrapping every statement in a + sub-transaction. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add support for <literal>\x</> hex strings in + <application>psql</> variables (Bruce) + </para> + <para> + Octal escapes were already supported. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add support for <command>troff -ms</> output format (Roger + Leigh) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow the history file location to be controlled by + <envar>HISTFILE</> (Andreas Seltenreich) + </para> + <para> + This allows configuration of per-database history storage. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent <command>\x</> (expanded mode) from affecting + the output of <command>\d tablename</> (Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <option>-L</> option to <application>psql</application> to + log sessions (Lorne Sunley) + </para> + <para> + This option was added because some operating systems do not have + simple command-line activity logging functionality. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>\d</> show the tablespaces of indexes (Qingqing + Zhou) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <application>psql</application> help (<command>\h</>) to + make a best guess on the proper help information (Greg Sabino + Mullane) + </para> + <para> + This allows the user to just add <command>\h</> to the front of + the syntax error query and get help on the supported syntax. + Previously any additional query text beyond the command name + had to be removed to use <command>\h</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <command>\pset numericlocale</> to allow numbers to be + output in a locale-aware format (Eugen Nedelcu) + </para> + <para> + For example, using <literal>C</> locale <literal>100000</> would + be output as <literal>100,000.0</> while a European locale might + output this value as <literal>100.000,0</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make startup banner show both server version number and + <application>psql</>'s version number, when they are different (Bruce) + </para> + <para> + Also, a warning will be shown if the server and <application>psql</> + are from different major releases. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + + <sect3> + <title><application>pg_dump</> Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <option>-n</> / <option>--schema</> switch to + <application>pg_restore</> (Richard van den Berg) + </para> + <para> + This allows just the objects in a specified schema to be restored. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <application>pg_dump</> to dump large objects even in + text mode (Tom) + </para> + <para> + With this change, large objects are now always dumped; the former + <option>-b</> switch is a no-op. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <application>pg_dump</> to dump a consistent snapshot of + large objects (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Dump comments for large objects (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <option>--encoding</> to <application>pg_dump</> + (Magnus Hagander) + </para> + <para> + This allows a database to be dumped in an encoding that is + different from the server's encoding. This is valuable when + transferring the dump to a machine with a different encoding. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Rely on <structname>pg_pltemplate</> for procedural languages (Tom) + </para> + <para> + If the call handler for a procedural language is in the + <literal>pg_catalog</> schema, <application>pg_dump</> does not + dump the handler. Instead, it dumps the language using just + <command>CREATE LANGUAGE <replaceable>name</></command>, + relying on the <structname>pg_pltemplate</> catalog to provide + the language's creation parameters at load time. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + + <sect3> + <title><application>libpq</application> Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add a <envar>PGPASSFILE</> environment variable to specify the + password file's filename (Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>lo_create()</>, that is similar to + <function>lo_creat()</> but allows the OID of the large object + to be specified (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <application>libpq</application> consistently return an error + to the client application on <function>malloc()</function> + failure (Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + + <sect3> + <title>Source Code Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>pgxs</> to support building against a relocated + installation + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add spinlock support for the Itanium processor using Intel + compiler (Vikram Kalsi) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add Kerberos 5 support for Windows (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add Chinese FAQ (laser@pgsqldb.com) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Rename Rendezvous to Bonjour to match OS/X feature renaming + (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add support for <literal>fsync_writethrough</literal> on + Darwin (Chris Campbell) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Streamline the passing of information within the server, the + optimizer, and the lock system (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <application>pg_config</> to be compiled using MSVC (Andrew) + </para> + <para> + This is required to build DBD::Pg using <application>MSVC</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove support for Kerberos V4 (Magnus) + </para> + <para> + Kerberos 4 had security vulnerabilities and is no longer + maintained. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Code cleanups (Coverity static analysis performed by + EnterpriseDB) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Modify <filename>postgresql.conf</> to use documentation defaults + <literal>on</>/<literal>off</> rather than + <literal>true</>/<literal>false</> (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Enhance <application>pg_config</> to be able to report more + build-time values (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <application>libpq</application> to be built thread-safe + on Windows (Dave Page) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow IPv6 connections to be used on Windows (Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add Server Administration documentation about I/O subsystem + reliability (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Move private declarations from <filename>gist.h</filename> to + <filename>gist_private.h</filename> (Neil) + </para> + + <para> + In previous releases, <filename>gist.h</> contained both the + public GiST API (intended for use by authors of GiST index + implementations) as well as some private declarations used by + the implementation of GiST itself. The latter have been moved + to a separate file, <filename>gist_private.h</>. Most GiST + index implementations should be unaffected. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Overhaul GiST memory management (Neil) + </para> + + <para> + GiST methods are now always invoked in a short-lived memory + context. Therefore, memory allocated via <function>palloc()</> + will be reclaimed automatically, so GiST index implementations + do not need to manually release allocated memory via + <function>pfree()</>. + </para> + </listitem> + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + + <sect3> + <title>Contrib Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <filename>/contrib/pg_buffercache</> contrib module (Mark + Kirkwood) + </para> + <para> + This displays the contents of the buffer cache, for debugging and + performance tuning purposes. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove <filename>/contrib/array</> because it is obsolete (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Clean up the <filename>/contrib/lo</> module (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Move <filename>/contrib/findoidjoins</> to + <filename>/src/tools</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove the <literal><<</>, <literal>>></>, + <literal>&<</>, and <literal>&></> operators from + <filename>/contrib/cube</> + </para> + <para> + These operators were not useful. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve <filename>/contrib/btree_gist</> (Janko Richter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve <filename>/contrib/pgbench</> (Tomoaki Sato, Tatsuo) + </para> + <para> + There is now a facility for testing with SQL command scripts given + by the user, instead of only a hard-wired command sequence. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve <filename>/contrib/pgcrypto</> (Marko Kreen) + </para> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Implementation of OpenPGP symmetric-key and public-key encryption + </para> + <para> + Both RSA and Elgamal public-key algorithms are supported. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Stand alone build: include SHA256/384/512 hashes, Fortuna PRNG + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + OpenSSL build: support 3DES, use internal AES with OpenSSL < 0.9.7 + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Take build parameters (OpenSSL, zlib) from <filename>configure</> result + </para> + <para> + There is no need to edit the <filename>Makefile</> anymore. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove support for <filename>libmhash</> and <filename>libmcrypt</> + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + </sect2> + </sect1> diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/release-8.2.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/release-8.2.sgml new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..b636d99886a --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/src/sgml/release-8.2.sgml @@ -0,0 +1,4802 @@ +<!-- $PostgreSQL: pgsql/doc/src/sgml/release-8.2.sgml,v 1.1 2009/05/02 20:17:19 tgl Exp $ --> +<!-- See header comment in release.sgml about typical markup --> + + <sect1 id="release-8-2-13"> + <title>Release 8.2.13</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2009-03-16</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.2.12. + For information about new features in the 8.2 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-2">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.2.13</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.2.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.2.11, + see the release notes for 8.2.11. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent error recursion crashes when encoding conversion fails (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This change extends fixes made in the last two minor releases for + related failure scenarios. The previous fixes were narrowly tailored + for the original problem reports, but we have now recognized that + <emphasis>any</> error thrown by an encoding conversion function could + potentially lead to infinite recursion while trying to report the + error. The solution therefore is to disable translation and encoding + conversion and report the plain-ASCII form of any error message, + if we find we have gotten into a recursive error reporting situation. + (CVE-2009-0922) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Disallow <command>CREATE CONVERSION</> with the wrong encodings + for the specified conversion function (Heikki) + </para> + + <para> + This prevents one possible scenario for encoding conversion failure. + The previous change is a backstop to guard against other kinds of + failures in the same area. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix core dump when <function>to_char()</> is given format codes that + are inappropriate for the type of the data argument (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible failure in <filename>contrib/tsearch2</> when C locale is + used with a multi-byte encoding (Teodor) + </para> + + <para> + Crashes were possible on platforms where <type>wchar_t</> is narrower + than <type>int</>; Windows in particular. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix extreme inefficiency in <filename>contrib/tsearch2</> parser's + handling of an email-like string containing multiple <literal>@</> + characters (Heikki) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix decompilation of <literal>CASE WHEN</> with an implicit coercion + (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This mistake could lead to Assert failures in an Assert-enabled build, + or an <quote>unexpected CASE WHEN clause</> error message in other + cases, when trying to examine or dump a view. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible misassignment of the owner of a TOAST table's rowtype (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + If <command>CLUSTER</> or a rewriting variant of <command>ALTER TABLE</> + were executed by someone other than the table owner, the + <structname>pg_type</> entry for the table's TOAST table would end up + marked as owned by that someone. This caused no immediate problems, + since the permissions on the TOAST rowtype aren't examined by any + ordinary database operation. However, it could lead to unexpected + failures if one later tried to drop the role that issued the command + (in 8.1 or 8.2), or <quote>owner of data type appears to be invalid</> + warnings from <application>pg_dump</> after having done so (in 8.3). + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix PL/pgSQL to not treat <literal>INTO</> after <command>INSERT</> as + an INTO-variables clause anywhere in the string, not only at the start; + in particular, don't fail for <command>INSERT INTO</> within + <command>CREATE RULE</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Clean up PL/pgSQL error status variables fully at block exit + (Ashesh Vashi and Dave Page) + </para> + + <para> + This is not a problem for PL/pgSQL itself, but the omission could cause + the PL/pgSQL Debugger to crash while examining the state of a function. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Retry failed calls to <function>CallNamedPipe()</> on Windows + (Steve Marshall, Magnus) + </para> + + <para> + It appears that this function can sometimes fail transiently; + we previously treated any failure as a hard error, which could + confuse <command>LISTEN</>/<command>NOTIFY</> as well as other + operations. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>MUST</> (Mauritius Island Summer Time) to the default list + of known timezone abbreviations (Xavier Bugaud) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-2-12"> + <title>Release 8.2.12</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2009-02-02</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.2.11. + For information about new features in the 8.2 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-2">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.2.12</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.2.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.2.11, + see the release notes for 8.2.11. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve handling of URLs in <function>headline()</> function (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve handling of overlength headlines in <function>headline()</> + function (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent possible Assert failure or misconversion if an encoding + conversion is created with the wrong conversion function for the + specified pair of encodings (Tom, Heikki) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible Assert failure if a statement executed in PL/pgSQL is + rewritten into another kind of statement, for example if an + <command>INSERT</> is rewritten into an <command>UPDATE</> (Heikki) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Ensure that a snapshot is available to datatype input functions (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This primarily affects domains that are declared with <literal>CHECK</> + constraints involving user-defined stable or immutable functions. Such + functions typically fail if no snapshot has been set. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make it safer for SPI-using functions to be used within datatype I/O; + in particular, to be used in domain check constraints (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Avoid unnecessary locking of small tables in <command>VACUUM</> + (Heikki) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix a problem that made <literal>UPDATE RETURNING tableoid</> + return zero instead of the correct OID (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix planner misestimation of selectivity when transitive equality + is applied to an outer-join clause (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This could result in bad plans for queries like + <literal>... from a left join b on a.a1 = b.b1 where a.a1 = 42 ...</> + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve optimizer's handling of long <literal>IN</> lists (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This change avoids wasting large amounts of time on such lists + when constraint exclusion is enabled. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Ensure that the contents of a holdable cursor don't depend on the + contents of TOAST tables (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Previously, large field values in a cursor result might be represented + as TOAST pointers, which would fail if the referenced table got dropped + before the cursor is read, or if the large value is deleted and then + vacuumed away. This cannot happen with an ordinary cursor, + but it could with a cursor that is held past its creating transaction. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix memory leak when a set-returning function is terminated without + reading its whole result (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <filename>contrib/dblink</>'s + <function>dblink_get_result(text,bool)</> function (Joe) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible garbage output from <filename>contrib/sslinfo</> functions + (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>configure</> script to properly report failure when + unable to obtain linkage information for PL/Perl (Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make all documentation reference <literal>pgsql-bugs</> and/or + <literal>pgsql-hackers</> as appropriate, instead of the + now-decommissioned <literal>pgsql-ports</> and <literal>pgsql-patches</> + mailing lists (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2009a (for + Kathmandu and historical DST corrections in Switzerland, Cuba) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-2-11"> + <title>Release 8.2.11</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2008-11-03</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.2.10. + For information about new features in the 8.2 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-2">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.2.11</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.2.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.2.7, + see the release notes for 8.2.7. Also, if you were running a previous + 8.2.X release, it is recommended to <command>REINDEX</> all GiST + indexes after the upgrade. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix GiST index corruption due to marking the wrong index entry + <quote>dead</> after a deletion (Teodor) + </para> + + <para> + This would result in index searches failing to find rows they + should have found. Corrupted indexes can be fixed with + <command>REINDEX</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix backend crash when the client encoding cannot represent a localized + error message (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + We have addressed similar issues before, but it would still fail if + the <quote>character has no equivalent</> message itself couldn't + be converted. The fix is to disable localization and send the plain + ASCII error message when we detect such a situation. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible crash when deeply nested functions are invoked from + a trigger (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve optimization of <replaceable>expression</> <literal>IN</> + (<replaceable>expression-list</>) queries (Tom, per an idea from Robert + Haas) + </para> + + <para> + Cases in which there are query variables on the right-hand side had been + handled less efficiently in 8.2.x and 8.3.x than in prior versions. + The fix restores 8.1 behavior for such cases. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix mis-expansion of rule queries when a sub-<literal>SELECT</> appears + in a function call in <literal>FROM</>, a multi-row <literal>VALUES</> + list, or a <literal>RETURNING</> list (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The usual symptom of this problem is an <quote>unrecognized node type</> + error. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix memory leak during rescan of a hashed aggregation plan (Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Ensure an error is reported when a newly-defined PL/pgSQL trigger + function is invoked as a normal function (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent possible collision of <structfield>relfilenode</> numbers + when moving a table to another tablespace with <command>ALTER SET + TABLESPACE</> (Heikki) + </para> + + <para> + The command tried to re-use the existing filename, instead of + picking one that is known unused in the destination directory. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix incorrect tsearch2 headline generation when single query + item matches first word of text (Sushant Sinha) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix improper display of fractional seconds in interval values when + using a non-ISO datestyle in an <option>--enable-integer-datetimes</> + build (Ron Mayer) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Ensure <function>SPI_getvalue</> and <function>SPI_getbinval</> + behave correctly when the passed tuple and tuple descriptor have + different numbers of columns (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This situation is normal when a table has had columns added or removed, + but these two functions didn't handle it properly. + The only likely consequence is an incorrect error indication. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>ecpg</>'s parsing of <command>CREATE ROLE</> (Michael) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix recent breakage of <literal>pg_ctl restart</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Ensure <filename>pg_control</> is opened in binary mode + (Itagaki Takahiro) + </para> + + <para> + <application>pg_controldata</> and <application>pg_resetxlog</> + did this incorrectly, and so could fail on Windows. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2008i (for + DST law changes in Argentina, Brazil, Mauritius, Syria) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-2-10"> + <title>Release 8.2.10</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2008-09-22</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.2.9. + For information about new features in the 8.2 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-2">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.2.10</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.2.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.2.7, + see the release notes for 8.2.7. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix bug in btree WAL recovery code (Heikki) + </para> + + <para> + Recovery failed if the WAL ended partway through a page split operation. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix potential miscalculation of <structfield>datfrozenxid</> (Alvaro) + </para> + + <para> + This error may explain some recent reports of failure to remove old + <structname>pg_clog</> data. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Widen local lock counters from 32 to 64 bits (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This responds to reports that the counters could overflow in + sufficiently long transactions, leading to unexpected <quote>lock is + already held</> errors. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible duplicate output of tuples during a GiST index scan (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix missed permissions checks when a view contains a simple + <literal>UNION ALL</> construct (Heikki) + </para> + + <para> + Permissions for the referenced tables were checked properly, but not + permissions for the view itself. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add checks in executor startup to ensure that the tuples produced by an + <command>INSERT</> or <command>UPDATE</> will match the target table's + current rowtype (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + <command>ALTER COLUMN TYPE</>, followed by re-use of a previously + cached plan, could produce this type of situation. The check protects + against data corruption and/or crashes that could ensue. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible repeated drops during <command>DROP OWNED</> (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This would typically result in strange errors such as <quote>cache + lookup failed for relation NNN</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <literal>AT TIME ZONE</> to first try to interpret its timezone + argument as a timezone abbreviation, and only try it as a full timezone + name if that fails, rather than the other way around as formerly (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The timestamp input functions have always resolved ambiguous zone names + in this order. Making <literal>AT TIME ZONE</> do so as well improves + consistency, and fixes a compatibility bug introduced in 8.1: + in ambiguous cases we now behave the same as 8.0 and before did, + since in the older versions <literal>AT TIME ZONE</> accepted + <emphasis>only</> abbreviations. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix datetime input functions to correctly detect integer overflow when + running on a 64-bit platform (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent integer overflows during units conversion when displaying a + configuration parameter that has units (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve performance of writing very long log messages to syslog (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow spaces in the suffix part of an LDAP URL in + <filename>pg_hba.conf</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix bug in backwards scanning of a cursor on a <literal>SELECT DISTINCT + ON</> query (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix planner bug with nested sub-select expressions (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + If the outer sub-select has no direct dependency on the parent query, + but the inner one does, the outer value might not get recalculated + for new parent query rows. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix planner to estimate that <literal>GROUP BY</> expressions yielding + boolean results always result in two groups, regardless of the + expressions' contents (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This is very substantially more accurate than the regular <literal>GROUP + BY</> estimate for certain boolean tests like <replaceable>col</> + <literal>IS NULL</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix PL/PgSQL to not fail when a <literal>FOR</> loop's target variable + is a record containing composite-type fields (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix PL/Tcl to behave correctly with Tcl 8.5, and to be more careful + about the encoding of data sent to or from Tcl (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + On Windows, work around a Microsoft bug by preventing + <application>libpq</> from trying to send more than 64kB per system call + (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve <application>pg_dump</> and <application>pg_restore</>'s + error reporting after failure to send a SQL command (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>pg_ctl</> to properly preserve postmaster + command-line arguments across a <literal>restart</> (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2008f (for + DST law changes in Argentina, Bahamas, Brazil, Mauritius, Morocco, + Pakistan, Palestine, and Paraguay) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-2-9"> + <title>Release 8.2.9</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2008-06-12</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains one serious and one minor bug fix over 8.2.8. + For information about new features in the 8.2 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-2">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.2.9</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.2.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.2.7, + see the release notes for 8.2.7. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <function>pg_get_ruledef()</> parenthesize negative constants (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Before this fix, a negative constant in a view or rule might be dumped + as, say, <literal>-42::integer</>, which is subtly incorrect: it should + be <literal>(-42)::integer</> due to operator precedence rules. + Usually this would make little difference, but it could interact with + another recent patch to cause + <productname>PostgreSQL</> to reject what had been a valid + <command>SELECT DISTINCT</> view query. Since this could result in + <application>pg_dump</> output failing to reload, it is being treated + as a high-priority fix. The only released versions in which dump + output is actually incorrect are 8.3.1 and 8.2.7. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>ALTER AGGREGATE ... OWNER TO</> update + <structname>pg_shdepend</> (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This oversight could lead to problems if the aggregate was later + involved in a <command>DROP OWNED</> or <command>REASSIGN OWNED</> + operation. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-2-8"> + <title>Release 8.2.8</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>never released</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.2.7. + For information about new features in the 8.2 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-2">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.2.8</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.2.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.2.7, + see the release notes for 8.2.7. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <literal>ERRORDATA_STACK_SIZE exceeded</literal> crash that + occurred on Windows when using UTF-8 database encoding and a different + client encoding (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <command>ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN ... PRIMARY KEY</> so that the new + column is correctly checked to see if it's been initialized to all + non-nulls (Brendan Jurd) + </para> + + <para> + Previous versions neglected to check this requirement at all. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible <command>CREATE TABLE</> failure when inheriting the + <quote>same</> constraint from multiple parent relations that + inherited that constraint from a common ancestor (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <function>pg_get_ruledef()</> to show the alias, if any, attached + to the target table of an <command>UPDATE</> or <command>DELETE</> + (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix GIN bug that could result in a <literal>too many LWLocks + taken</literal> failure (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Avoid possible crash when decompressing corrupted data + (Zdenek Kotala) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Repair two places where SIGTERM exit of a backend could leave corrupted + state in shared memory (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Neither case is very important if SIGTERM is used to shut down the + whole database cluster together, but there was a problem if someone + tried to SIGTERM individual backends. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix conversions between ISO-8859-5 and other encodings to handle + Cyrillic <quote>Yo</> characters (<literal>e</> and <literal>E</> with + two dots) (Sergey Burladyan) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix several datatype input functions, notably <function>array_in()</>, + that were allowing unused bytes in their results to contain + uninitialized, unpredictable values (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This could lead to failures in which two apparently identical literal + values were not seen as equal, resulting in the parser complaining + about unmatched <literal>ORDER BY</> and <literal>DISTINCT</> + expressions. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix a corner case in regular-expression substring matching + (<literal>substring(<replaceable>string</> from + <replaceable>pattern</>)</literal>) (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The problem occurs when there is a match to the pattern overall but + the user has specified a parenthesized subexpression and that + subexpression hasn't got a match. An example is + <literal>substring('foo' from 'foo(bar)?')</>. + This should return NULL, since <literal>(bar)</> isn't matched, but + it was mistakenly returning the whole-pattern match instead (ie, + <literal>foo</>). + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2008c (for + DST law changes in Morocco, Iraq, Choibalsan, Pakistan, Syria, Cuba, and + Argentina/San_Luis) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix incorrect result from <application>ecpg</>'s + <function>PGTYPEStimestamp_sub()</> function (Michael) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix broken GiST comparison function for <filename>contrib/tsearch2</>'s + <type>tsquery</> type (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible crashes in <filename>contrib/cube</> functions (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix core dump in <filename>contrib/xml2</>'s + <function>xpath_table()</> function when the input query returns a + NULL value (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <filename>contrib/xml2</>'s makefile to not override + <literal>CFLAGS</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <literal>DatumGetBool</> macro to not fail with <application>gcc</> + 4.3 (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This problem affects <quote>old style</> (V0) C functions that + return boolean. The fix is already in 8.3, but the need to + back-patch it was not realized at the time. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-2-7"> + <title>Release 8.2.7</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2008-03-17</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.2.6. + For information about new features in the 8.2 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-2">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.2.7</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.2.X. + However, you might need to <command>REINDEX</> indexes on textual + columns after updating, if you are affected by the Windows locale + issue described below. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix character string comparison for Windows locales that consider + different character combinations as equal (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This fix applies only on Windows and only when using UTF-8 + database encoding. The same fix was made for all other cases + over two years ago, but Windows with UTF-8 uses a separate code + path that was not updated. If you are using a locale that + considers some non-identical strings as equal, you may need to + <command>REINDEX</> to fix existing indexes on textual columns. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Repair potential deadlock between concurrent <command>VACUUM FULL</> + operations on different system catalogs (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix longstanding <command>LISTEN</>/<command>NOTIFY</> + race condition (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + In rare cases a session that had just executed a + <command>LISTEN</> might not get a notification, even though + one would be expected because the concurrent transaction executing + <command>NOTIFY</> was observed to commit later. + </para> + + <para> + A side effect of the fix is that a transaction that has executed + a not-yet-committed <command>LISTEN</> command will not see any + row in <structname>pg_listener</> for the <command>LISTEN</>, + should it choose to look; formerly it would have. This behavior + was never documented one way or the other, but it is possible that + some applications depend on the old behavior. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Disallow <command>LISTEN</> and <command>UNLISTEN</> within a + prepared transaction (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This was formerly allowed but trying to do it had various unpleasant + consequences, notably that the originating backend could not exit + as long as an <command>UNLISTEN</> remained uncommitted. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Disallow dropping a temporary table within a + prepared transaction (Heikki) + </para> + + <para> + This was correctly disallowed by 8.1, but the check was inadvertently + broken in 8.2. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix rare crash when an error occurs during a query using a hash index + (Heikki) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix memory leaks in certain usages of set-returning functions (Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix input of datetime values for February 29 in years BC (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The former coding was mistaken about which years were leap years. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <quote>unrecognized node type</> error in some variants of + <command>ALTER OWNER</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Ensure <structname>pg_stat_activity</>.<structfield>waiting</> flag + is cleared when a lock wait is aborted (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix handling of process permissions on Windows Vista (Dave, Magnus) + </para> + + <para> + In particular, this fix allows starting the server as the Administrator + user. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2008a + (in particular, recent Chile changes); adjust timezone abbreviation + <literal>VET</> (Venezuela) to mean UTC-4:30, not UTC-4:00 (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>pg_ctl</> to correctly extract the postmaster's port + number from command-line options (Itagaki Takahiro, Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Previously, <literal>pg_ctl start -w</> could try to contact the + postmaster on the wrong port, leading to bogus reports of startup + failure. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Use <option>-fwrapv</> to defend against possible misoptimization + in recent <application>gcc</> versions (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This is known to be necessary when building <productname>PostgreSQL</> + with <application>gcc</> 4.3 or later. + </para> + </listitem> + + + <listitem> + <para> + Correctly enforce <varname>statement_timeout</> values longer + than <literal>INT_MAX</> microseconds (about 35 minutes) (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This bug affects only builds with <option>--enable-integer-datetimes</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <quote>unexpected PARAM_SUBLINK ID</> planner error when + constant-folding simplifies a sub-select (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix logical errors in constraint-exclusion handling of <literal>IS + NULL</> and <literal>NOT</> expressions (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The planner would sometimes exclude partitions that should not + have been excluded because of the possibility of NULL results. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix another cause of <quote>failed to build any N-way joins</> + planner errors (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This could happen in cases where a clauseless join needed to be + forced before a join clause could be exploited. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix incorrect constant propagation in outer-join planning (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The planner could sometimes incorrectly conclude that a variable + could be constrained to be equal to a constant, leading + to wrong query results. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix display of constant expressions in <literal>ORDER BY</> + and <literal>GROUP BY</> (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + An explictly casted constant would be shown incorrectly. This could + for example lead to corruption of a view definition during + dump and reload. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>libpq</> to handle NOTICE messages correctly + during COPY OUT (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This failure has only been observed to occur when a user-defined + datatype's output routine issues a NOTICE, but there is no + guarantee it couldn't happen due to other causes. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-2-6"> + <title>Release 8.2.6</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2008-01-07</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.2.5, + including fixes for significant security issues. + For information about new features in the 8.2 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-2">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.2.6</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.2.X. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent functions in indexes from executing with the privileges of + the user running <command>VACUUM</>, <command>ANALYZE</>, etc (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Functions used in index expressions and partial-index + predicates are evaluated whenever a new table entry is made. It has + long been understood that this poses a risk of trojan-horse code + execution if one modifies a table owned by an untrustworthy user. + (Note that triggers, defaults, check constraints, etc. pose the + same type of risk.) But functions in indexes pose extra danger + because they will be executed by routine maintenance operations + such as <command>VACUUM FULL</>, which are commonly performed + automatically under a superuser account. For example, a nefarious user + can execute code with superuser privileges by setting up a + trojan-horse index definition and waiting for the next routine vacuum. + The fix arranges for standard maintenance operations + (including <command>VACUUM</>, <command>ANALYZE</>, <command>REINDEX</>, + and <command>CLUSTER</>) to execute as the table owner rather than + the calling user, using the same privilege-switching mechanism already + used for <literal>SECURITY DEFINER</> functions. To prevent bypassing + this security measure, execution of <command>SET SESSION + AUTHORIZATION</> and <command>SET ROLE</> is now forbidden within a + <literal>SECURITY DEFINER</> context. (CVE-2007-6600) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Repair assorted bugs in the regular-expression package (Tom, Will Drewry) + </para> + + <para> + Suitably crafted regular-expression patterns could cause crashes, + infinite or near-infinite looping, and/or massive memory consumption, + all of which pose denial-of-service hazards for applications that + accept regex search patterns from untrustworthy sources. + (CVE-2007-4769, CVE-2007-4772, CVE-2007-6067) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Require non-superusers who use <filename>/contrib/dblink</> to use only + password authentication, as a security measure (Joe) + </para> + + <para> + The fix that appeared for this in 8.2.5 was incomplete, as it plugged + the hole for only some <filename>dblink</> functions. (CVE-2007-6601, + CVE-2007-3278) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix bugs in WAL replay for GIN indexes (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix GIN index build to work properly when + <varname>maintenance_work_mem</> is 4GB or more (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2007k + (in particular, recent Argentina changes) (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve planner's handling of LIKE/regex estimation in non-C locales + (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix planning-speed problem for deep outer-join nests, as well as + possible poor choice of join order (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix planner failure in some cases of <literal>WHERE false AND var IN + (SELECT ...)</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>CREATE TABLE ... SERIAL</> and + <command>ALTER SEQUENCE ... OWNED BY</> not change the + <function>currval()</> state of the sequence (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Preserve the tablespace and storage parameters of indexes that are + rebuilt by <command>ALTER TABLE ... ALTER COLUMN TYPE</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make archive recovery always start a new WAL timeline, rather than only + when a recovery stop time was used (Simon) + </para> + + <para> + This avoids a corner-case risk of trying to overwrite an existing + archived copy of the last WAL segment, and seems simpler and cleaner + than the original definition. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>VACUUM</> not use all of <varname>maintenance_work_mem</> + when the table is too small for it to be useful (Alvaro) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix potential crash in <function>translate()</> when using a multibyte + database encoding (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <function>corr()</> return the correct result for negative + correlation values (Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix overflow in <literal>extract(epoch from interval)</> for intervals + exceeding 68 years (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix PL/Perl to not fail when a UTF-8 regular expression is used + in a trusted function (Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix PL/Perl to cope when platform's Perl defines type <literal>bool</> + as <literal>int</> rather than <literal>char</> (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + While this could theoretically happen anywhere, no standard build of + Perl did things this way ... until <productname>Mac OS X</> 10.5. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix PL/Python to work correctly with Python 2.5 on 64-bit machines + (Marko Kreen) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix PL/Python to not crash on long exception messages (Alvaro) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>pg_dump</> to correctly handle inheritance child tables + that have default expressions different from their parent's (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>libpq</> crash when <varname>PGPASSFILE</> refers + to a file that is not a plain file (Martin Pitt) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <application>ecpg</> parser fixes (Michael) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <filename>contrib/pgcrypto</> defend against + <application>OpenSSL</> libraries that fail on keys longer than 128 + bits; which is the case at least on some Solaris versions (Marko Kreen) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <filename>contrib/tablefunc</>'s <function>crosstab()</> handle + NULL rowid as a category in its own right, rather than crashing (Joe) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <type>tsvector</> and <type>tsquery</> output routines to + escape backslashes correctly (Teodor, Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix crash of <function>to_tsvector()</> on huge input strings (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Require a specific version of <productname>Autoconf</> to be used + when re-generating the <command>configure</> script (Peter) + </para> + + <para> + This affects developers and packagers only. The change was made + to prevent accidental use of untested combinations of + <productname>Autoconf</> and <productname>PostgreSQL</> versions. + You can remove the version check if you really want to use a + different <productname>Autoconf</> version, but it's + your responsibility whether the result works or not. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update <function>gettimeofday</> configuration check so that + <productname>PostgreSQL</> can be built on newer versions of + <productname>MinGW</> (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-2-5"> + <title>Release 8.2.5</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2007-09-17</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.2.4. + For information about new features in the 8.2 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-2">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.2.5</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.2.X. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent index corruption when a transaction inserts rows and + then aborts close to the end of a concurrent <command>VACUUM</> + on the same table (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <literal>ALTER DOMAIN ADD CONSTRAINT</> for cases involving + domains over domains (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>CREATE DOMAIN ... DEFAULT NULL</> work properly (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix some planner problems with outer joins, notably poor + size estimation for <literal>t1 LEFT JOIN t2 WHERE t2.col IS NULL</> + (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow the <type>interval</> data type to accept input consisting only of + milliseconds or microseconds (Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow timezone name to appear before the year in <type>timestamp</> input (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fixes for <acronym>GIN</> indexes used by <filename>/contrib/tsearch2</> (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Speed up rtree index insertion (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix excessive logging of <acronym>SSL</> error messages (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix logging so that log messages are never interleaved when using + the syslogger process (Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix crash when <varname>log_min_error_statement</> logging runs out + of memory (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix incorrect handling of some foreign-key corner cases (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <function>stddev_pop(numeric)</> and <function>var_pop(numeric)</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent <command>REINDEX</> and <command>CLUSTER</> from failing + due to attempting to process temporary tables of other sessions (Alvaro) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update the time zone database rules, particularly New Zealand's upcoming changes (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Windows socket and semaphore improvements (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>pg_ctl -w</> work properly in Windows service mode (Dave Page) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix memory allocation bug when using <application>MIT Kerberos</> on Windows (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Suppress timezone name (<literal>%Z</>) in log timestamps on Windows + because of possible encoding mismatches (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Require non-superusers who use <filename>/contrib/dblink</> to use only + password authentication, as a security measure (Joe) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Restrict <filename>/contrib/pgstattuple</> functions to superusers, for security reasons (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Do not let <filename>/contrib/intarray</> try to make its GIN opclass + the default (this caused problems at dump/restore) (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-2-4"> + <title>Release 8.2.4</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2007-04-23</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.2.3, + including a security fix. + For information about new features in the 8.2 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-2">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.2.4</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.2.X. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support explicit placement of the temporary-table schema within + <varname>search_path</>, and disable searching it for functions + and operators (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This is needed to allow a security-definer function to set a + truly secure value of <varname>search_path</>. Without it, + an unprivileged SQL user can use temporary objects to execute code + with the privileges of the security-definer function (CVE-2007-2138). + See <command>CREATE FUNCTION</> for more information. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <varname>shared_preload_libraries</> for Windows + by forcing reload in each backend (Korry Douglas) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <function>to_char()</> so it properly upper/lower cases localized day or month + names (Pavel Stehule) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <filename>/contrib/tsearch2</> crash fixes (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Require <command>COMMIT PREPARED</> to be executed in the same + database as the transaction was prepared in (Heikki) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <command>pg_dump</> to do binary backups larger than two gigabytes + on Windows (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + New traditional (Taiwan) Chinese <acronym>FAQ</> (Zhou Daojing) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent the statistics collector from writing to disk too frequently (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix potential-data-corruption bug in how <command>VACUUM FULL</> handles + <command>UPDATE</> chains (Tom, Pavan Deolasee) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix bug in domains that use array types (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <command>pg_dump</> so it can dump a serial column's sequence + using <option>-t</> when not also dumping the owning table + (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Planner fixes, including improving outer join and bitmap scan + selection logic (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible wrong answers or crash when a PL/pgSQL function tries + to <literal>RETURN</> from within an <literal>EXCEPTION</> block + (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix PANIC during enlargement of a hash index (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix POSIX-style timezone specs to follow new USA DST rules (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-2-3"> + <title>Release 8.2.3</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2007-02-07</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains two fixes from 8.2.2. + For information about new features in the 8.2 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-2">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.2.3</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.2.X. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove overly-restrictive check for type length in constraints and + functional indexes(Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix optimization so MIN/MAX in subqueries can again use indexes (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-2-2"> + <title>Release 8.2.2</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2007-02-05</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.2.1, including + a security fix. + For information about new features in the 8.2 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-2">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.2.2</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.2.X. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove security vulnerabilities that allowed connected users + to read backend memory (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The vulnerabilities involve suppressing the normal check that a SQL + function returns the data type it's declared to, and changing the + data type of a table column (CVE-2007-0555, CVE-2007-0556). These + errors can easily be exploited to cause a backend crash, and in + principle might be used to read database content that the user + should not be able to access. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix not-so-rare-anymore bug wherein btree index page splits could fail + due to choosing an infeasible split point (Heikki Linnakangas) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix Borland C compile scripts (L Bayuk) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Properly handle <function>to_char('CC')</> for years ending in + <literal>00</> (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Year 2000 is in the twentieth century, not the twenty-first. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <filename>/contrib/tsearch2</> localization improvements (Tatsuo, Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix incorrect permission check in + <literal>information_schema.key_column_usage</> view (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The symptom is <quote>relation with OID nnnnn does not exist</> errors. + To get this fix without using <command>initdb</>, use <command>CREATE OR + REPLACE VIEW</> to install the corrected definition found in + <filename>share/information_schema.sql</>. Note you will need to do + this in each database. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve <command>VACUUM</> performance for databases with many tables (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix for rare Assert() crash triggered by <literal>UNION</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix potentially incorrect results from index searches using + <literal>ROW</> inequality conditions (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Tighten security of multi-byte character processing for UTF8 sequences + over three bytes long (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix bogus <quote>permission denied</> failures occurring on Windows + due to attempts to fsync already-deleted files (Magnus, Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix bug that could cause the statistics collector + to hang on Windows (Magnus) + </para> + + <para> + This would in turn lead to autovacuum not working. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible crashes when an already-in-use PL/pgSQL function is + updated (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve PL/pgSQL handling of domain types (Sergiy Vyshnevetskiy, Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible errors in processing PL/pgSQL exception blocks (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-2-1"> + <title>Release 8.2.1</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2007-01-08</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.2. + For information about new features in the 8.2 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-2">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.2.1</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.2. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix crash with <literal>SELECT</> ... <literal>LIMIT ALL</> (also + <literal>LIMIT NULL</>) (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <filename>Several /contrib/tsearch2</> fixes (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + On Windows, make log messages coming from the operating system use + <acronym>ASCII</> encoding (Hiroshi Saito) + </para> + + <para> + This fixes a conversion problem when there is a mismatch between + the encoding of the operating system and database server. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix Windows linking of <application>pg_dump</> using + <filename>win32.mak</> + (Hiroshi Saito) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix planner mistakes for outer join queries (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix several problems in queries involving sub-SELECTs (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix potential crash in SPI during subtransaction abort (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This affects all PL functions since they all use SPI. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve build speed of <acronym>PDF</> documentation (Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Re-add <acronym>JST</> (Japan) timezone abbreviation (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve optimization decisions related to index scans (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Have <application>psql</> print multi-byte combining characters as + before, rather than output as <literal>\u</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve index usage of regular expressions that use parentheses (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This improves <application>psql</> <literal>\d</> performance also. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <application>pg_dumpall</> assume that databases have public + <literal>CONNECT</> privilege, when dumping from a pre-8.2 server (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This preserves the previous behavior that anyone can connect to a + database if allowed by <filename>pg_hba.conf</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-2"> + <title>Release 8.2</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2006-12-05</simpara> + </note> + + <sect2> + <title>Overview</title> + + <para> + This release adds many functionality and performance improvements that + were requested by users, including: + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Query language enhancements including <command>INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE + RETURNING</command>, multirow <literal>VALUES</literal> lists, and + optional target-table alias in + <command>UPDATE</>/<command>DELETE</command> + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Index creation without blocking concurrent + <command>INSERT</>/<command>UPDATE</>/<command>DELETE</> + operations + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Many query optimization improvements, including support for + reordering outer joins + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improved sorting performance with lower memory usage + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + More efficient locking with better concurrency + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + More efficient vacuuming + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Easier administration of warm standby servers + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + New <literal>FILLFACTOR</literal> support for tables and indexes + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Monitoring, logging, and performance tuning additions + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + More control over creating and dropping objects + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Table inheritance relationships can be defined + for and removed from pre-existing tables + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <command>COPY TO</command> can copy the output of an arbitrary + <command>SELECT</command> statement + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Array improvements, including nulls in arrays + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Aggregate-function improvements, including multiple-input + aggregates and SQL:2003 statistical functions + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Many <filename>contrib/</filename> improvements + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.2</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore using <application>pg_dump</application> is + required for those wishing to migrate data from any previous + release. + </para> + + <para> + Observe the following incompatibilities: + </para> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Set <link + linkend="guc-escape-string-warning"><varname>escape_string_warning</></link> + to <literal>on</> by default (Bruce) + </para> + + <para> + This issues a warning if backslash escapes are used in + <link linkend="sql-syntax-strings">non-escape (non-<literal>E''</>) + strings</link>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Change the <link linkend="sql-syntax-row-constructors">row + constructor syntax</link> (<literal>ROW(...)</>) so that + list elements <literal>foo.*</> will be expanded to a list + of their member fields, rather than creating a nested + row type field as formerly (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The new behavior is substantially more useful since it + allows, for example, triggers to check for data changes + with <literal>IF row(new.*) IS DISTINCT FROM row(old.*)</>. + The old behavior is still available by omitting <literal>.*</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <link linkend="row-wise-comparison">row comparisons</link> + follow <acronym>SQL</> standard semantics and allow them + to be used in index scans (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Previously, row = and <> comparisons followed the + standard but < <= > >= did not. A row comparison + can now be used as an index constraint for a multicolumn + index matching the row value. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <link linkend="functions-comparison">row <literal>IS <optional>NOT</> NULL</literal></link> + tests follow <acronym>SQL</> standard semantics (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The former behavior conformed to the standard for simple cases + with <literal>IS NULL</>, but <literal>IS NOT NULL</> would return + true if any row field was non-null, whereas the standard says it + should return true only when all fields are non-null. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <link linkend="SQL-SET-CONSTRAINTS"><command>SET + CONSTRAINT</></link> affect only one constraint (Kris Jurka) + </para> + + <para> + In previous releases, <command>SET CONSTRAINT</> modified + all constraints with a matching name. In this release, + the schema search path is used to modify only the first + matching constraint. A schema specification is also + supported. This more nearly conforms to the SQL standard. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove <literal>RULE</> permission for tables, for security reasons + (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + As of this release, only a table's owner can create or modify + rules for the table. For backwards compatibility, + <command>GRANT</>/<command>REVOKE RULE</> is still accepted, + but it does nothing. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Array comparison improvements (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Now array dimensions are also compared. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Change <link linkend="functions-array">array concatenation</link> + to match documented behavior (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This changes the previous behavior where concatenation + would modify the array lower bound. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make command-line options of <application>postmaster</> + and <link linkend="app-postgres"><application>postgres</></link> + identical (Peter) + </para> + + <para> + This allows the postmaster to pass arguments to each backend + without using <literal>-o</>. Note that some options are now + only available as long-form options, because there were conflicting + single-letter options. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Deprecate use of <application>postmaster</> symbolic link (Peter) + </para> + + <para> + <application>postmaster</> and <application>postgres</> + commands now act identically, with the behavior determined + by command-line options. The <application>postmaster</> symbolic link is + kept for compatibility, but is not really needed. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Change <link + linkend="guc-log-duration"><varname>log_duration</></link> + to output even if the query is not output (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + In prior releases, <varname>log_duration</> only printed if + the query appeared earlier in the log. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <link + linkend="functions-formatting"><function>to_char(time)</></link> + and <link + linkend="functions-formatting"><function>to_char(interval)</></link> + treat <literal>HH</> and <literal>HH12</> as 12-hour + intervals + </para> + + <para> + Most applications should use <literal>HH24</> unless they + want a 12-hour display. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Zero unmasked bits in conversion from <link + linkend="datatype-inet"><type>INET</></link> to <link + linkend="datatype-inet"><type>CIDR</></link> (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This ensures that the converted value is actually valid for + <type>CIDR</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove <varname>australian_timezones</> configuration variable + (Joachim Wieland) + </para> + + <para> + This variable has been superseded by a more general facility + for configuring timezone abbreviations. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve cost estimation for nested-loop index scans (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This might eliminate the need to set unrealistically small + values of <link + linkend="guc-random-page-cost"><varname>random_page_cost</></link>. + If you have been using a very small <varname>random_page_cost</>, + please recheck your test cases. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Change behavior of <command>pg_dump</> <literal>-n</> and + <literal>-t</> options. (Greg Sabino Mullane) + </para> + <para> + See the <command>pg_dump</> manual page for details. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Change <link linkend="libpq"><application>libpq</></link> + <function>PQdsplen()</> to return a useful value (Martijn + van Oosterhout) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Declare <link linkend="libpq"><application>libpq</></link> + <function>PQgetssl()</> as returning <literal>void *</>, + rather than <literal>SSL *</> (Martijn van Oosterhout) + </para> + + <para> + This allows applications to use the function without including + the OpenSSL headers. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + C-language loadable modules must now include a + <link linkend="xfunc-c-dynload"><literal>PG_MODULE_MAGIC</></link> + macro call for version compatibility checking + (Martijn van Oosterhout) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + For security's sake, modules used by a PL/PerlU function are no + longer available to PL/Perl functions (Andrew) + </para> + <note> + <para> + This also implies that data can no longer be shared between a PL/Perl + function and a PL/PerlU function. + Some Perl installations have not been compiled with the correct flags + to allow multiple interpreters to exist within a single process. + In this situation PL/Perl and PL/PerlU cannot both be used in a + single backend. The solution is to get a Perl installation which + supports multiple interpreters. + </para> + </note> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + In <filename>contrib/xml2/</>, rename <function>xml_valid()</> to + <function>xml_is_well_formed()</> (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + <function>xml_valid()</> will remain for backward compatibility, + but its behavior will change to do schema checking in a future + release. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove <filename>contrib/ora2pg/</>, now at <ulink + url="http://www.samse.fr/GPL/ora2pg"></ulink> + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove contrib modules that have been migrated to PgFoundry: + <filename>adddepend</>, <filename>dbase</>, <filename>dbmirror</>, + <filename>fulltextindex</>, <filename>mac</>, <filename>userlock</> + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove abandoned contrib modules: + <filename>mSQL-interface</>, <filename>tips</> + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove <acronym>QNX</> and <acronym>BEOS</> ports (Bruce) + </para> + + <para> + These ports no longer had active maintainers. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <para> + Below you will find a detailed account of the + changes between <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> 8.2 and + the previous major release. + </para> + + <sect3> + <title>Performance Improvements</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow the planner to reorder <link linkend="queries-join">outer + joins</link> in some circumstances (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + In previous releases, outer joins would always be evaluated in + the order written in the query. This change allows the + query optimizer to consider reordering outer joins, in cases where + it can determine that the join order can be changed without + altering the meaning of the query. This can make a + considerable performance difference for queries involving + multiple outer joins or mixed inner and outer joins. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve efficiency of <link + linkend="functions-comparisons"><literal>IN</> + (list-of-expressions)</link> clauses (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve sorting speed and reduce memory usage (Simon, Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve subtransaction performance (Alvaro, Itagaki Takahiro, + Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>FILLFACTOR</> to <link + linkend="SQL-CREATETABLE">table</link> and <link + linkend="SQL-CREATEINDEX">index</link> creation (ITAGAKI + Takahiro) + </para> + + <para> + This leaves extra free space in each table or index page, + allowing improved performance as the database grows. This + is particularly valuable to maintain clustering. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Increase default values for <link + linkend="guc-shared-buffers"><varname>shared_buffers</></link> + and <varname>max_fsm_pages</> + (Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve locking performance by breaking the lock manager tables into + sections + (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This allows locking to be more fine-grained, reducing + contention. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Reduce locking requirements of sequential scans (Qingqing + Zhou) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Reduce locking required for database creation and destruction + (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve the optimizer's selectivity estimates for <link + linkend="functions-like"><literal>LIKE</></link>, <link + linkend="functions-like"><literal>ILIKE</></link>, and + <link linkend="functions-posix-regexp">regular expression</link> + operations (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve planning of joins to <link linkend="ddl-inherit">inherited + tables</link> and <link linkend="queries-union"><literal>UNION + ALL</></link> views (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <link linkend="guc-constraint-exclusion">constraint + exclusion</link> to be applied to <link + linkend="ddl-inherit">inherited</link> <command>UPDATE</> and + <command>DELETE</> queries (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + <command>SELECT</> already honored constraint exclusion. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve planning of constant <literal>WHERE</> clauses, such as + a condition that depends only on variables inherited from an + outer query level (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Protocol-level unnamed prepared statements are re-planned + for each set of <literal>BIND</> values (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This improves performance because the exact parameter values + can be used in the plan. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Speed up vacuuming of B-Tree indexes (Heikki Linnakangas, + Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Avoid extra scan of tables without indexes during <link + linkend="SQL-VACUUM"><command>VACUUM</></link> (Greg Stark) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve multicolumn <link linkend="GiST"><acronym>GiST</></link> + indexing (Oleg, Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove dead index entries before B-Tree page split (Junji + Teramoto) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Server Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow a forced switch to a new transaction log file (Simon, Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This is valuable for keeping warm standby slave servers + in sync with the master. Transaction log file switching now also happens + automatically during <link + linkend="functions-admin"><function>pg_stop_backup()</></link>. + This ensures that all + transaction log files needed for recovery can be archived immediately. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <acronym>WAL</> informational functions (Simon) + </para> + + <para> + Add functions for interrogating the current transaction log insertion + point and determining <acronym>WAL</> filenames from the + hex <acronym>WAL</> locations displayed by <link + linkend="functions-admin"><function>pg_stop_backup()</></link> + and related functions. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve recovery from a crash during <acronym>WAL</> replay (Simon) + </para> + + <para> + The server now does periodic checkpoints during <acronym>WAL</> + recovery, so if there is a crash, future <acronym>WAL</> + recovery is shortened. This also eliminates the need for + warm standby servers to replay the entire log since the + base backup if they crash. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve reliability of long-term <acronym>WAL</> replay + (Heikki, Simon, Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Formerly, trying to roll forward through more than 2 billion + transactions would not work due to XID wraparound. This meant + warm standby servers had to be reloaded + from fresh base backups periodically. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <link + linkend="guc-archive-timeout"><varname>archive_timeout</></link> + to force transaction log file switches at a given interval (Simon) + </para> + + <para> + This enforces a maximum replication delay for warm standby servers. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add native <link linkend="auth-ldap"><acronym>LDAP</></link> + authentication (Magnus Hagander) + </para> + + <para> + This is particularly useful for platforms that do not + support <acronym>PAM</>, such as Windows. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <link linkend="sql-grant-description-objects"><literal>GRANT + CONNECT ON DATABASE</></link> (Gevik Babakhani) + </para> + + <para> + This gives SQL-level control over database access. It works as + an additional filter on top of the existing + <link linkend="auth-pg-hba-conf"><filename>pg_hba.conf</></link> + controls. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add support for <link linkend="ssl-tcp"><acronym>SSL</> + Certificate Revocation List</link> (<acronym>CRL</>) files + (Libor Hohoš) + </para> + + <para> + The server and <application>libpq</> both recognize <acronym>CRL</> + files now. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <link linkend="GiST"><acronym>GiST</></link> indexes are + now clusterable (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove routine autovacuum server log entries (Bruce) + </para> + + <para> + <link + linkend="monitoring-stats-views-table"><literal>pg_stat_activity</></link> + now shows autovacuum activity. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Track maximum XID age within individual tables, instead of whole databases (Alvaro) + </para> + + <para> + This reduces the overhead involved in preventing transaction + ID wraparound, by avoiding unnecessary VACUUMs. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add last vacuum and analyze timestamp columns to the stats + collector (Larry Rosenman) + </para> + + <para> + These values now appear in the <link + linkend="monitoring-stats-views-table"><literal>pg_stat_*_tables</></link> + system views. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve performance of statistics monitoring, especially + <varname>stats_command_string</> + (Tom, Bruce) + </para> + + <para> + This release enables <varname>stats_command_string</> by + default, now that its overhead is minimal. This means + <link + linkend="monitoring-stats-views-table"><literal>pg_stat_activity</></link> + will now show all active queries by default. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add a <literal>waiting</> column to <link + linkend="monitoring-stats-views-table"><literal>pg_stat_activity</></link> + (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This allows <structname>pg_stat_activity</> to show all the + information included in the <application>ps</> display. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add configuration parameter <link + linkend="guc-update-process-title"><varname>update_process_title</></link> + to control whether the <application>ps</> display is updated + for every command (Bruce) + </para> + + <para> + On platforms where it is expensive to update the <application>ps</> + display, it might be worthwhile to turn this off and rely solely on + <structname>pg_stat_activity</> for status information. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow units to be specified in configuration settings + (Peter) + </para> + + <para> + For example, you can now set <link + linkend="guc-shared-buffers"><varname>shared_buffers</></link> + to <literal>32MB</> rather than mentally converting sizes. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add support for <link linkend="config-setting">include + directives</link> in <filename>postgresql.conf</> (Joachim + Wieland) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve logging of protocol-level prepare/bind/execute + messages (Bruce, Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Such logging now shows statement names, bind parameter + values, and the text of the query being executed. Also, + the query text is properly included in logged error messages + when enabled by <varname>log_min_error_statement</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent <link + linkend="guc-max-stack-depth"><varname>max_stack_depth</></link> + from being set to unsafe values + </para> + + <para> + On platforms where we can determine the actual kernel stack depth + limit (which is most), make sure that the initial default value of + <varname>max_stack_depth</> is safe, and reject attempts to set it + to unsafely large values. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Enable highlighting of error location in query in more + cases (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The server is now able to report a specific error location for + some semantic errors (such as unrecognized column name), rather + than just for basic syntax errors as before. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <quote>failed to re-find parent key</> errors in + <command>VACUUM</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Clean out <filename>pg_internal.init</> cache files during server + restart (Simon) + </para> + + <para> + This avoids a hazard that the cache files might contain stale + data after PITR recovery. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix race condition for truncation of a large relation across a + gigabyte boundary by <command>VACUUM</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix bug causing needless deadlock errors on row-level locks (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix bugs affecting multi-gigabyte hash indexes (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Each backend process is now its own process group leader (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This allows query cancel to abort subprocesses invoked from a + backend or archive/recovery process. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Query Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <link linkend="SQL-INSERT"><command>INSERT</></link>/<link + linkend="SQL-UPDATE"><command>UPDATE</></link>/<link + linkend="SQL-DELETE"><command>DELETE</></link> + <literal>RETURNING</> (Jonah Harris, Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This allows these commands to return values, such as the + computed serial key for a new row. In the <command>UPDATE</> + case, values from the updated version of the row are returned. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add support for multiple-row <link + linkend="queries-values"><literal>VALUES</></link> clauses, + per SQL standard (Joe, Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This allows <command>INSERT</> to insert multiple rows of + constants, or queries to generate result sets using constants. + For example, <literal>INSERT ... VALUES (...), (...), + ....</>, and <literal>SELECT * FROM (VALUES (...), (...), + ....) AS alias(f1, ...)</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <link linkend="SQL-UPDATE"><command>UPDATE</></link> + and <link linkend="SQL-DELETE"><command>DELETE</></link> + to use an alias for the target table (Atsushi Ogawa) + </para> + + <para> + The SQL standard does not permit an alias in these commands, but + many database systems allow one anyway for notational convenience. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <link linkend="SQL-UPDATE"><command>UPDATE</></link> + to set multiple columns with a list of values (Susanne + Ebrecht) + </para> + + <para> + This is basically a short-hand for assigning the columns + and values in pairs. The syntax is <literal>UPDATE tab + SET (<replaceable>column</>, ...) = (<replaceable>val</>, ...)</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make row comparisons work per standard (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The forms <, <=, >, >= now compare rows lexicographically, + that is, compare the first elements, if equal compare the second + elements, and so on. Formerly they expanded to an AND condition + across all the elements, which was neither standard nor very useful. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <link linkend="SQL-TRUNCATE"><literal>CASCADE</></link> + option to <command>TRUNCATE</> (Joachim Wieland) + </para> + + <para> + This causes <command>TRUNCATE</> to automatically include all tables + that reference the specified table(s) via foreign keys. While + convenient, this is a dangerous tool — use with caution! + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support <literal>FOR UPDATE</> and <literal>FOR SHARE</> + in the same <link linkend="SQL-INSERT"><literal>SELECT</></link> + command (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <link linkend="functions-comparisons"><literal>IS NOT + DISTINCT FROM</></link> (Pavel Stehule) + </para> + + <para> + This operator is similar to equality (<literal>=</>), but + evaluates to true when both left and right operands are + <literal>NULL</>, and to false when just one is, rather than + yielding <literal>NULL</> in these cases. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve the length output used by <link + linkend="queries-union"><literal>UNION</></link>/<literal>INTERSECT</>/<literal>EXCEPT</> + (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + When all corresponding columns are of the same defined length, that + length is used for the result, rather than a generic length. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <link linkend="functions-like"><literal>ILIKE</></link> + to work for multi-byte encodings (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Internally, <literal>ILIKE</> now calls <function>lower()</> + and then uses <literal>LIKE</>. Locale-specific regular + expression patterns still do not work in these encodings. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Enable <link + linkend="guc-standard-conforming-strings"><varname>standard_conforming_strings</></link> + to be turned <literal>on</> (Kevin Grittner) + </para> + + <para> + This allows backslash escaping in strings to be disabled, + making <productname>PostgreSQL</> more + standards-compliant. The default is <literal>off</> for backwards + compatibility, but future releases will default this to <literal>on</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Do not flatten subqueries that contain <literal>volatile</> + functions in their target lists (Jaime Casanova) + </para> + + <para> + This prevents surprising behavior due to multiple evaluation + of a <literal>volatile</> function (such as <function>random()</> + or <function>nextval()</>). It might cause performance + degradation in the presence of functions that are unnecessarily + marked as <literal>volatile</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add system views <link + linkend="view-pg-prepared-statements"><literal>pg_prepared_statements</></link> + and <link + linkend="view-pg-cursors"><literal>pg_cursors</></link> + to show prepared statements and open cursors (Joachim Wieland, Neil) + </para> + + <para> + These are very useful in pooled connection setups. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support portal parameters in <link + linkend="SQL-EXPLAIN"><command>EXPLAIN</></link> and <link + linkend="SQL-EXECUTE"><command>EXECUTE</></link> (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This allows, for example, <acronym>JDBC</> <literal>?</> parameters to + work in these commands. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + If <acronym>SQL</>-level <link + linkend="SQL-PREPARE"><command>PREPARE</></link> parameters + are unspecified, infer their types from the content of the + query (Neil) + </para> + + <para> + Protocol-level <command>PREPARE</> already did this. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <literal>LIMIT</> and <literal>OFFSET</> to exceed + two billion (Dhanaraj M) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Object Manipulation Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>TABLESPACE</> clause to <link + linkend="SQL-CREATETABLEAS"><command>CREATE TABLE AS</></link> + (Neil) + </para> + + <para> + This allows a tablespace to be specified for the new table. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>ON COMMIT</> clause to <link + linkend="SQL-CREATETABLEAS"><command>CREATE TABLE AS</></link> + (Neil) + </para> + + <para> + This allows temporary tables to be truncated or dropped on + transaction commit. The default behavior is for the table + to remain until the session ends. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>INCLUDING CONSTRAINTS</> to <link + linkend="SQL-CREATETABLE"><command>CREATE TABLE LIKE</></link> + (Greg Stark) + </para> + + <para> + This allows easy copying of <literal>CHECK</> constraints to a new + table. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow the creation of placeholder (shell) <link + linkend="SQL-CREATETYPE">types</link> (Martijn van Oosterhout) + </para> + + <para> + A shell type declaration creates a type name, without specifying + any of the details of the type. Making a shell type is useful + because it allows cleaner declaration of the type's input/output + functions, which must exist before the type can be defined <quote>for + real</>. The syntax is <command>CREATE TYPE <replaceable + class="parameter">typename</replaceable></>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <link linkend="SQL-CREATEAGGREGATE">Aggregate functions</link> + now support multiple input parameters (Sergey Koposov, Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add new aggregate creation <link + linkend="SQL-CREATEAGGREGATE">syntax</link> (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The new syntax is <command>CREATE AGGREGATE + <replaceable>aggname</> (<replaceable>input_type</>) + (<replaceable>parameter_list</>)</command>. This more + naturally supports the new multi-parameter aggregate + functionality. The previous syntax is still supported. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <link + linkend="SQL-ALTERROLE"><command>ALTER ROLE PASSWORD NULL</></link> + to remove a previously set role password (Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <command>DROP</> object <literal>IF EXISTS</> for many + object types (Andrew) + </para> + + <para> + This allows <command>DROP</> operations on non-existent + objects without generating an error. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <link linkend="SQL-DROP-OWNED"><literal>DROP OWNED</></link> + to drop all objects owned by a role (Alvaro) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <link linkend="SQL-REASSIGN-OWNED"><literal>REASSIGN + OWNED</></link> to reassign ownership of all objects owned + by a role (Alvaro) + </para> + + <para> + This, and <literal>DROP OWNED</> above, facilitate dropping + roles. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <link linkend="SQL-GRANT"><command>GRANT ON SEQUENCE</></link> + syntax (Bruce) + </para> + + <para> + This was added for setting sequence-specific permissions. + <literal>GRANT ON TABLE</> for sequences is still supported + for backward compatibility. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <link linkend="SQL-GRANT"><literal>USAGE</></link> + permission for sequences that allows only <function>currval()</> + and <function>nextval()</>, not <function>setval()</> + (Bruce) + </para> + + <para> + <literal>USAGE</> permission allows more fine-grained + control over sequence access. Granting <literal>USAGE</> + allows users to increment + a sequence, but prevents them from setting the sequence to + an arbitrary value using <function>setval()</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <link linkend="SQL-ALTERTABLE"><literal>ALTER TABLE + [ NO ] INHERIT</></link> (Greg Stark) + </para> + + <para> + This allows inheritance to be adjusted dynamically, rather than + just at table creation and destruction. This is very valuable + when using inheritance to implement table partitioning. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <link linkend="SQL-COMMENT">comments</link> on global + objects to be stored globally (Kris Jurka) + </para> + + <para> + Previously, comments attached to databases were stored in individual + databases, making them ineffective, and there was no provision + at all for comments on roles or tablespaces. This change adds a new + shared catalog <link + linkend="catalog-pg-shdescription"><structname>pg_shdescription</structname></link> + and stores comments on databases, roles, and tablespaces therein. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Utility Command Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add option to allow indexes to be created without blocking + concurrent writes to the table (Greg Stark, Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The new syntax is <link linkend="SQL-CREATEINDEX"><command>CREATE + INDEX CONCURRENTLY</></link>. The default behavior is + still to block table modification while a index is being + created. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Provide <link linkend="functions-advisory-locks">advisory + locking</link> functionality (Abhijit Menon-Sen, Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This is a new locking API designed to replace what used to be + in /contrib/userlock. The userlock code is now on pgfoundry. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <link linkend="SQL-COPY"><command>COPY</></link> to + dump a <command>SELECT</> query (Zoltan Boszormenyi, Karel + Zak) + </para> + + <para> + This allows <command>COPY</> to dump arbitrary <acronym>SQL</> + queries. The syntax is <literal>COPY (SELECT ...) TO</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make the <link linkend="SQL-COPY"><command>COPY</></link> + command return a command tag that includes the number of + rows copied (Volkan YAZICI) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <link linkend="SQL-VACUUM"><command>VACUUM</></link> + to expire rows without being affected by other concurrent + <command>VACUUM</> operations (Hannu Krossing, Alvaro, Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <link linkend="APP-INITDB"><application>initdb</></link> + detect the operating system locale and set the default + <varname>DateStyle</> accordingly (Peter) + </para> + + <para> + This makes it more likely that the installed + <filename>postgresql.conf</> <varname>DateStyle</> value will + be as desired. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Reduce number of progress messages displayed by <application>initdb</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Date/Time Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow full timezone names in <link + linkend="datatype-datetime"><type>timestamp</></link> input values + (Joachim Wieland) + </para> + + <para> + For example, <literal>'2006-05-24 21:11 + America/New_York'::timestamptz</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support configurable timezone abbreviations (Joachim Wieland) + </para> + + <para> + A desired set of timezone abbreviations can be chosen via the + configuration parameter <link + linkend="guc-timezone-abbreviations"><varname>timezone_abbreviations</></link>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <link + linkend="view-pg-timezone-abbrevs"><varname>pg_timezone_abbrevs</></link> + and <link + linkend="view-pg-timezone-names"><varname>pg_timezone_names</></link> + views to show supported timezones (Magnus Hagander) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <link + linkend="functions-datetime-table"><function>clock_timestamp()</></link>, + <link + linkend="functions-datetime-table"><function>statement_timestamp()</></link>, + and <link + linkend="functions-datetime-table"><function>transaction_timestamp()</></link> + (Bruce) + </para> + + <para> + <function>clock_timestamp()</> is the current wall-clock time, + <function>statement_timestamp()</> is the time the current + statement arrived at the server, and + <function>transaction_timestamp()</> is an alias for + <function>now()</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <link + linkend="functions-formatting"><function>to_char()</></link> + to print localized month and day names (Euler Taveira de + Oliveira) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <link + linkend="functions-formatting"><function>to_char(time)</></link> + and <link + linkend="functions-formatting"><function>to_char(interval)</></link> + to output <acronym>AM</>/<acronym>PM</> specifications + (Bruce) + </para> + + <para> + Intervals and times are treated as 24-hour periods, e.g. + <literal>25 hours</> is considered <acronym>AM</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add new function <link + linkend="functions-datetime-table"><function>justify_interval()</></link> + to adjust interval units (Mark Dilger) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow timezone offsets up to 14:59 away from GMT + </para> + + <para> + Kiribati uses GMT+14, so we'd better accept that. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Interval computation improvements (Michael Glaesemann, Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Other Data Type and Function Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow arrays to contain <literal>NULL</> elements (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow assignment to array elements not contiguous with the existing + entries (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The intervening array positions will be filled with nulls. + This is per SQL standard. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + New built-in <link linkend="functions-array">operators</link> + for array-subset comparisons (<literal>@></>, + <literal><@</>, <literal>&&</>) (Teodor, Tom) + </para> + + <para> + These operators can be indexed for many data types using + <acronym>GiST</> or <acronym>GIN</> indexes. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add convenient arithmetic <link + linkend="cidr-inet-operators-table">operations</link> on + <type>INET</>/<type>CIDR</> values (Stephen R. van den + Berg) + </para> + + <para> + The new operators are <literal>&</> (and), <literal>|</> + (or), <literal>~</> (not), <type>inet</> <literal>+</> <type>int8</>, + <type>inet</> <literal>-</> <type>int8</>, and + <type>inet</> <literal>-</> <type>inet</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add new <link + linkend="functions-aggregate-statistics-table">aggregate functions</link> + from SQL:2003 (Neil) + </para> + + <para> + The new functions are <function>var_pop()</>, + <function>var_samp()</>, <function>stddev_pop()</>, and + <function>stddev_samp()</>. <function>var_samp()</> and + <function>stddev_samp()</> are merely renamings of the + existing aggregates <function>variance()</> and + <function>stddev()</>. The latter names remain available + for backward compatibility. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add SQL:2003 statistical <link + linkend="functions-aggregate-statistics-table">aggregates</link> + (Sergey Koposov) + </para> + + <para> + New functions: <function>regr_intercept()</>, + <function>regr_slope()</>, <function>regr_r2()</>, + <function>corr()</>, <function>covar_samp()</>, + <function>covar_pop()</>, <function>regr_avgx()</>, + <function>regr_avgy()</>, <function>regr_sxy()</>, + <function>regr_sxx()</>, <function>regr_syy()</>, + <function>regr_count()</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <link linkend="SQL-CREATEDOMAIN">domains</link> to be + based on other domains (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Properly enforce domain <link + linkend="ddl-constraints"><literal>CHECK</></link> constraints + everywhere (Neil, Tom) + </para> + + <para> + For example, the result of a user-defined function that is + declared to return a domain type is now checked against the + domain's constraints. This closes a significant hole in the domain + implementation. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix problems with dumping renamed <link + linkend="datatype-serial"><type>SERIAL</></link> columns + (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The fix is to dump a <type>SERIAL</> column by explicitly + specifying its <literal>DEFAULT</> and sequence elements, + and reconstructing the <type>SERIAL</> column on reload + using a new <link linkend="SQL-ALTERSEQUENCE"><command>ALTER + SEQUENCE OWNED BY</></link> command. This also allows + dropping a <type>SERIAL</> column specification. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add a server-side sleep function <link + linkend="functions-datetime-delay"><function>pg_sleep()</></link> + (Joachim Wieland) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add all comparison operators for the <link + linkend="datatype-oid"><type>tid</></link> (tuple id) data + type (Mark Kirkwood, Greg Stark, Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>PL/PgSQL Server-Side Language Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>TG_table_name</> and <literal>TG_table_schema</> to + trigger parameters (Andrew) + </para> + + <para> + <literal>TG_relname</> is now deprecated. Comparable + changes have been made in the trigger parameters for the other + PLs as well. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <literal>FOR</> statements to return values to scalars + as well as records and row types (Pavel Stehule) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add a <literal>BY</> clause to the <literal>FOR</> loop, + to control the iteration increment (Jaime Casanova) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>STRICT</> to <link + linkend="plpgsql-statements-sql-onerow"><command>SELECT + INTO</></link> (Matt Miller) + </para> + + <para> + <literal>STRICT</> mode throws an exception if more or less + than one row is returned by the <command>SELECT</>, for + <productname>Oracle PL/SQL</> compatibility. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>PL/Perl Server-Side Language Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>table_name</> and <literal>table_schema</> to + trigger parameters (Adam Sjøgren) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add prepared queries (Dmitry Karasik) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <literal>$_TD</> trigger data a global variable (Andrew) + </para> + + <para> + Previously, it was lexical, which caused unexpected sharing + violations. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Run PL/Perl and PL/PerlU in separate interpreters, for security + reasons (Andrew) + </para> + <para> + In consequence, they can no longer share data nor loaded modules. + Also, if Perl has not been compiled with the requisite flags to + allow multiple interpreters, only one of these languages can be used + in any given backend process. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>PL/Python Server-Side Language Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Named parameters are passed as ordinary variables, as well as in the + <literal>args[]</> array (Sven Suursoho) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>table_name</> and <literal>table_schema</> to + trigger parameters (Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow returning of composite types and result sets (Sven Suursoho) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Return result-set as <literal>list</>, <literal>iterator</>, + or <literal>generator </>(Sven Suursoho) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow functions to return <literal>void</> (Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Python 2.5 is now supported (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title><link linkend="APP-PSQL"><application>psql</></link> Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add new command <literal>\password</> for changing role + password with client-side password encryption (Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <literal>\c</> to connect to a new host and port + number (David, Volkan YAZICI) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add tablespace display to <literal>\l+</> (Philip Yarra) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve <literal>\df</> slash command to include the argument + names and modes (<literal>OUT</> or <literal>INOUT</>) of + the function (David Fetter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support binary <command>COPY</> (Andreas Pflug) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add option to run the entire session in a single transaction + (Simon) + </para> + + <para> + Use option <literal>-1</> or <literal>--single-transaction</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support for automatically retrieving <command>SELECT</> + results in batches using a cursor (Chris Mair) + </para> + + <para> + This is enabled using <command>\set FETCH_COUNT + <replaceable>n</></command>. This + feature allows large result sets to be retrieved in + <application>psql</> without attempting to buffer the entire + result set in memory. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make multi-line values align in the proper column + (Martijn van Oosterhout) + </para> + + <para> + Field values containing newlines are now displayed in a more + readable fashion. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Save multi-line statements as a single entry, rather than + one line at a time (Sergey E. Koposov) + </para> + + <para> + This makes up-arrow recall of queries easier. (This is + not available on Windows, because that platform uses the native + command-line editing present in the operating system.) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make the line counter 64-bit so it can handle files with more + than two billion lines (David Fetter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Report both the returned data and the command status tag + for <command>INSERT</>/<command>UPDATE</>/<command>DELETE + RETURNING</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title><link linkend="APP-PGDUMP"><application>pg_dump</></link> Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow complex selection of objects to be included or excluded + by <application>pg_dump</> (Greg Sabino Mullane) + </para> + + <para> + <application>pg_dump</> now supports multiple <literal>-n</> + (schema) and <literal>-t</> (table) options, and adds + <literal>-N</> and <literal>-T</> options to exclude objects. + Also, the arguments of these switches can now be wild-card expressions + rather than single object names, for example + <literal>-t 'foo*'</>, and a schema can be part of + a <literal>-t</> or <literal>-T</> switch, for example + <literal>-t schema1.table1</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <link linkend="APP-PGRESTORE"><application>pg_restore</></link> + <literal>--no-data-for-failed-tables</> option to suppress + loading data if table creation failed (i.e., the table already + exists) (Martin Pitt) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <link linkend="APP-PGRESTORE"><application>pg_restore</></link> + option to run the entire session in a single transaction + (Simon) + </para> + + <para> + Use option <literal>-1</> or <literal>--single-transaction</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title><link linkend="libpq"><application>libpq</></link> Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <link + linkend="libpq-misc"><function>PQencryptPassword()</></link> + to encrypt passwords (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This allows passwords to be sent pre-encrypted for commands + like <link linkend="SQL-ALTERROLE"><command>ALTER ROLE ... + PASSWORD</></link>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add function <link + linkend="libpq-threading"><function>PQisthreadsafe()</></link> + (Bruce) + </para> + + <para> + This allows applications to query the thread-safety status + of the library. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <link + linkend="libpq-exec-main"><function>PQdescribePrepared()</></link>, + <link + linkend="libpq-exec-main"><function>PQdescribePortal()</></link>, + and related functions to return information about previously + prepared statements and open cursors (Volkan YAZICI) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <link linkend="libpq-ldap"><acronym>LDAP</></link> lookups + from <link + linkend="libpq-pgservice"><filename>pg_service.conf</></link> + (Laurenz Albe) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow a hostname in <link + linkend="libpq-pgpass"><filename>~/.pgpass</></link> + to match the default socket directory (Bruce) + </para> + + <para> + A blank hostname continues to match any Unix-socket connection, + but this addition allows entries that are specific to one of + several postmasters on the machine. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title><link linkend="ecpg"><application>ecpg</></link> Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <link linkend="SQL-SHOW"><command>SHOW</></link> to + put its result into a variable (Joachim Wieland) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <link linkend="SQL-COPY"><command>COPY TO STDOUT</></link> + (Joachim Wieland) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add regression tests (Joachim Wieland, Michael) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Major source code cleanups (Joachim Wieland, Michael) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title><application>Windows</> Port</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <acronym>MSVC</> to compile the <productname>PostgreSQL</> + server (Magnus, Hiroshi Saito) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <acronym>MSVC</> support for utility commands and <link + linkend="APP-PGDUMP"><application>pg_dump</></link> (Hiroshi + Saito) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add support for Windows code pages <literal>1253</>, + <literal>1254</>, <literal>1255</>, and <literal>1257</> + (Kris Jurka) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Drop privileges on startup, so that the server can be started from + an administrative account (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Stability fixes (Qingqing Zhou, Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add native semaphore implementation (Qingqing Zhou) + </para> + + <para> + The previous code mimicked SysV semaphores. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Source Code Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <link linkend="GIN"><acronym>GIN</></link> (Generalized + Inverted iNdex) index access method (Teodor, Oleg) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove R-tree indexing (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Rtree has been re-implemented using <link + linkend="GiST"><acronym>GiST</></link>. Among other + differences, this means that rtree indexes now have support + for crash recovery via write-ahead logging (WAL). + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Reduce libraries needlessly linked into the backend (Martijn + van Oosterhout, Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add a configure flag to allow libedit to be preferred over + <acronym>GNU</> readline (Bruce) + </para> + + <para> + Use configure <link + linkend="configure"><literal>--with-libedit-preferred</></link>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow installation into directories containing spaces + (Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve ability to relocate installation directories (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add support for <productname>Solaris x86_64</> using the + <productname>Solaris</> compiler (Pierre Girard, Theo + Schlossnagle, Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <application>DTrace</> support (Robert Lor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>PG_VERSION_NUM</> for use by third-party + applications wanting to test the backend version in C using > + and < comparisons (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>XLOG_BLCKSZ</> as independent from <literal>BLCKSZ</> + (Mark Wong) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>LWLOCK_STATS</> define to report locking + activity (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Emit warnings for unknown <application>configure</> options + (Martijn van Oosterhout) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add server support for <quote>plugin</> libraries + that can be used for add-on tasks such as debugging and performance + measurement (Korry Douglas) + </para> + + <para> + This consists of two features: a table of <quote>rendezvous + variables</> that allows separately-loaded shared libraries to + communicate, and a new configuration parameter <link + linkend="guc-local-preload-libraries"><varname>local_preload_libraries</></link> + that allows libraries to be loaded into specific sessions without + explicit cooperation from the client application. This allows + external add-ons to implement features such as a PL/PgSQL debugger. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Rename existing configuration parameter + <varname>preload_libraries</> to <link + linkend="guc-shared-preload-libraries"><varname>shared_preload_libraries</></link> + (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This was done for clarity in comparison to + <varname>local_preload_libraries</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add new configuration parameter <link + linkend="guc-server-version-num"><varname>server_version_num</></link> + (Greg Sabino Mullane) + </para> + + <para> + This is like <varname>server_version</varname>, but is an + integer, e.g. <literal>80200</>. This allows applications to + make version checks more easily. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add a configuration parameter <link + linkend="guc-seq-page-cost"><varname>seq_page_cost</></link> + (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Re-implement the <link linkend="regress">regression test</link> script as a C program + (Magnus, Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow loadable modules to allocate shared memory and + lightweight locks (Marc Munro) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add automatic initialization and finalization of dynamically + loaded libraries (Ralf Engelschall, Tom) + </para> + + <para> + New <link linkend="xfunc-c-dynload">functions</link> + <function>_PG_init()</> and <function>_PG_fini()</> are + called if the library defines such symbols. Hence we no + longer need to specify an initialization function in + <varname>shared_preload_libraries</>; we can assume that + the library used the <function>_PG_init()</> convention + instead. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <link + linkend="xfunc-c-dynload"><literal>PG_MODULE_MAGIC</></link> + header block to all shared object files (Martijn van + Oosterhout) + </para> + + <para> + The magic block prevents version mismatches between loadable object + files and servers. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add shared library support for AIX (Laurenz Albe) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + New <link linkend="datatype-xml"><acronym>XML</></link> + documentation section (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Contrib Changes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Major tsearch2 improvements (Oleg, Teodor) + </para> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + multibyte encoding support, including <acronym>UTF8</> + </para> + </listitem> + <listitem> + <para> + query rewriting support + </para> + </listitem> + <listitem> + <para> + improved ranking functions + </para> + </listitem> + <listitem> + <para> + thesaurus dictionary support + </para> + </listitem> + <listitem> + <para> + Ispell dictionaries now recognize <application>MySpell</> + format, used by <application>OpenOffice</> + </para> + </listitem> + <listitem> + <para> + <acronym>GIN</> support + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add adminpack module containing <application>Pgadmin</> administration + functions (Dave) + </para> + + <para> + These functions provide additional file system access + routines not present in the default <productname>PostgreSQL</> + server. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add sslinfo module (Victor Wagner) + </para> + + <para> + Reports information about the current connection's <acronym>SSL</> + certificate. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add pgrowlocks module (Tatsuo) + </para> + + <para> + This shows row locking information for a specified table. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add hstore module (Oleg, Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add isn module, replacing isbn_issn (Jeremy Kronuz) + </para> + + <para> + This new implementation supports <acronym>EAN13</>, <acronym>UPC</>, + <acronym>ISBN</> (books), <acronym>ISMN</> (music), and + <acronym>ISSN</> (serials). + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add index information functions to pgstattuple (ITAGAKI Takahiro, + Satoshi Nagayasu) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add pg_freespacemap module to display free space map information + (Mark Kirkwood) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + pgcrypto now has all planned functionality (Marko Kreen) + </para> + <itemizedlist> + <listitem> + <para> + Include iMath library in pgcrypto to have the public-key encryption + functions always available. + </para> + </listitem> + <listitem> + <para> + Add SHA224 algorithm that was missing in OpenBSD code. + </para> + </listitem> + <listitem> + <para> + Activate builtin code for SHA224/256/384/512 hashes on older + OpenSSL to have those algorithms always available. + </para> + </listitem> + <listitem> + <para> + New function gen_random_bytes() that returns cryptographically strong + randomness. Useful for generating encryption keys. + </para> + </listitem> + <listitem> + <para> + Remove digest_exists(), hmac_exists() and cipher_exists() functions. + </para> + </listitem> + </itemizedlist> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improvements to cube module (Joshua Reich) + </para> + + <para> + New functions are <function>cube(float[])</>, + <function>cube(float[], float[])</>, and + <function>cube_subset(cube, int4[])</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add async query capability to dblink (Kai Londenberg, + Joe Conway) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + New operators for array-subset comparisons (<literal>@></>, + <literal><@</>, <literal>&&</>) (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Various contrib packages already had these operators for their + datatypes, but the naming wasn't consistent. We have now added + consistently named array-subset comparison operators to the core code + and all the contrib packages that have such functionality. + (The old names remain available, but are deprecated.) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add uninstall scripts for all contrib packages that have install + scripts (David, Josh Drake) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + </sect2> + </sect1> diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/release-8.3.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/release-8.3.sgml new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..dd16cd3f12b --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/src/sgml/release-8.3.sgml @@ -0,0 +1,4481 @@ +<!-- $PostgreSQL: pgsql/doc/src/sgml/release-8.3.sgml,v 1.1 2009/05/02 20:17:19 tgl Exp $ --> +<!-- See header comment in release.sgml about typical markup --> + + <sect1 id="release-8-3-7"> + <title>Release 8.3.7</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2009-03-16</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.3.6. + For information about new features in the 8.3 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-3">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.3.7</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.3.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.3.5, + see the release notes for 8.3.5. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent error recursion crashes when encoding conversion fails (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This change extends fixes made in the last two minor releases for + related failure scenarios. The previous fixes were narrowly tailored + for the original problem reports, but we have now recognized that + <emphasis>any</> error thrown by an encoding conversion function could + potentially lead to infinite recursion while trying to report the + error. The solution therefore is to disable translation and encoding + conversion and report the plain-ASCII form of any error message, + if we find we have gotten into a recursive error reporting situation. + (CVE-2009-0922) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Disallow <command>CREATE CONVERSION</> with the wrong encodings + for the specified conversion function (Heikki) + </para> + + <para> + This prevents one possible scenario for encoding conversion failure. + The previous change is a backstop to guard against other kinds of + failures in the same area. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <function>xpath()</> to not modify the path expression unless + necessary, and to make a saner attempt at it when necessary (Andrew) + </para> + + <para> + The SQL standard suggests that <function>xpath</> should work on data + that is a document fragment, but <application>libxml</> doesn't support + that, and indeed it's not clear that this is sensible according to the + XPath standard. <function>xpath</> attempted to work around this + mismatch by modifying both the data and the path expression, but the + modification was buggy and could cause valid searches to fail. Now, + <function>xpath</> checks whether the data is in fact a well-formed + document, and if so invokes <application>libxml</> with no change to the + data or path expression. Otherwise, a different modification method + that is somewhat less likely to fail is used. + </para> + + <note> + <para> + The new modification method is still not 100% satisfactory, and it + seems likely that no real solution is possible. This patch should + therefore be viewed as a band-aid to keep from breaking existing + applications unnecessarily. It is likely that + <productname>PostgreSQL</> 8.4 will simply reject use of + <function>xpath</> on data that is not a well-formed document. + </para> + </note> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix core dump when <function>to_char()</> is given format codes that + are inappropriate for the type of the data argument (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible failure in text search when C locale is used with + a multi-byte encoding (Teodor) + </para> + + <para> + Crashes were possible on platforms where <type>wchar_t</> is narrower + than <type>int</>; Windows in particular. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix extreme inefficiency in text search parser's handling of an + email-like string containing multiple <literal>@</> characters (Heikki) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix planner problem with sub-<command>SELECT</> in the output list + of a larger subquery (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The known symptom of this bug is a <quote>failed to locate grouping + columns</> error that is dependent on the datatype involved; + but there could be other issues as well. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix decompilation of <literal>CASE WHEN</> with an implicit coercion + (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This mistake could lead to Assert failures in an Assert-enabled build, + or an <quote>unexpected CASE WHEN clause</> error message in other + cases, when trying to examine or dump a view. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible misassignment of the owner of a TOAST table's rowtype (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + If <command>CLUSTER</> or a rewriting variant of <command>ALTER TABLE</> + were executed by someone other than the table owner, the + <structname>pg_type</> entry for the table's TOAST table would end up + marked as owned by that someone. This caused no immediate problems, + since the permissions on the TOAST rowtype aren't examined by any + ordinary database operation. However, it could lead to unexpected + failures if one later tried to drop the role that issued the command + (in 8.1 or 8.2), or <quote>owner of data type appears to be invalid</> + warnings from <application>pg_dump</> after having done so (in 8.3). + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Change <command>UNLISTEN</> to exit quickly if the current session has + never executed any <command>LISTEN</> command (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Most of the time this is not a particularly useful optimization, but + since <command>DISCARD ALL</> invokes <command>UNLISTEN</>, the previous + coding caused a substantial performance problem for applications that + made heavy use of <command>DISCARD ALL</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix PL/pgSQL to not treat <literal>INTO</> after <command>INSERT</> as + an INTO-variables clause anywhere in the string, not only at the start; + in particular, don't fail for <command>INSERT INTO</> within + <command>CREATE RULE</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Clean up PL/pgSQL error status variables fully at block exit + (Ashesh Vashi and Dave Page) + </para> + + <para> + This is not a problem for PL/pgSQL itself, but the omission could cause + the PL/pgSQL Debugger to crash while examining the state of a function. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Retry failed calls to <function>CallNamedPipe()</> on Windows + (Steve Marshall, Magnus) + </para> + + <para> + It appears that this function can sometimes fail transiently; + we previously treated any failure as a hard error, which could + confuse <command>LISTEN</>/<command>NOTIFY</> as well as other + operations. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>MUST</> (Mauritius Island Summer Time) to the default list + of known timezone abbreviations (Xavier Bugaud) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-3-6"> + <title>Release 8.3.6</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2009-02-02</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.3.5. + For information about new features in the 8.3 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-3">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.3.6</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.3.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.3.5, + see the release notes for 8.3.5. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>DISCARD ALL</> release advisory locks, in addition + to everything it already did (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This was decided to be the most appropriate behavior. This could + affect existing applications, however. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix whole-index GiST scans to work correctly (Teodor) + </para> + + <para> + This error could cause rows to be lost if a table is clustered + on a GiST index. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix crash of <literal>xmlconcat(NULL)</> (Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible crash in <literal>ispell</> dictionary if high-bit-set + characters are used as flags (Teodor) + </para> + + <para> + This is known to be done by one widely available Norwegian dictionary, + and the same condition may exist in others. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix misordering of <application>pg_dump</> output for composite types + (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The most likely problem was for user-defined operator classes to + be dumped after indexes or views that needed them. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve handling of URLs in <function>headline()</> function (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve handling of overlength headlines in <function>headline()</> + function (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent possible Assert failure or misconversion if an encoding + conversion is created with the wrong conversion function for the + specified pair of encodings (Tom, Heikki) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible Assert failure if a statement executed in PL/pgSQL is + rewritten into another kind of statement, for example if an + <command>INSERT</> is rewritten into an <command>UPDATE</> (Heikki) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Ensure that a snapshot is available to datatype input functions (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This primarily affects domains that are declared with <literal>CHECK</> + constraints involving user-defined stable or immutable functions. Such + functions typically fail if no snapshot has been set. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make it safer for SPI-using functions to be used within datatype I/O; + in particular, to be used in domain check constraints (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Avoid unnecessary locking of small tables in <command>VACUUM</> + (Heikki) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix a problem that sometimes kept <command>ALTER TABLE ENABLE/DISABLE + RULE</> from being recognized by active sessions (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix a problem that made <literal>UPDATE RETURNING tableoid</> + return zero instead of the correct OID (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow functions declared as taking <type>ANYARRAY</> to work on + the <structname>pg_statistic</> columns of that type (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This used to work, but was unintentionally broken in 8.3. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix planner misestimation of selectivity when transitive equality + is applied to an outer-join clause (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This could result in bad plans for queries like + <literal>... from a left join b on a.a1 = b.b1 where a.a1 = 42 ...</> + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve optimizer's handling of long <literal>IN</> lists (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This change avoids wasting large amounts of time on such lists + when constraint exclusion is enabled. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent synchronous scan during GIN index build (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Because GIN is optimized for inserting tuples in increasing TID order, + choosing to use a synchronous scan could slow the build by a factor of + three or more. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Ensure that the contents of a holdable cursor don't depend on the + contents of TOAST tables (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Previously, large field values in a cursor result might be represented + as TOAST pointers, which would fail if the referenced table got dropped + before the cursor is read, or if the large value is deleted and then + vacuumed away. This cannot happen with an ordinary cursor, + but it could with a cursor that is held past its creating transaction. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix memory leak when a set-returning function is terminated without + reading its whole result (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix encoding conversion problems in XML functions when the database + encoding isn't UTF-8 (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <filename>contrib/dblink</>'s + <function>dblink_get_result(text,bool)</> function (Joe) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible garbage output from <filename>contrib/sslinfo</> functions + (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix incorrect behavior of <filename>contrib/tsearch2</> compatibility + trigger when it's fired more than once in a command (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible mis-signaling in autovacuum (Heikki) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support running as a service on Windows 7 beta (Dave and Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>ecpg</>'s handling of varchar structs (Michael) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>configure</> script to properly report failure when + unable to obtain linkage information for PL/Perl (Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make all documentation reference <literal>pgsql-bugs</> and/or + <literal>pgsql-hackers</> as appropriate, instead of the + now-decommissioned <literal>pgsql-ports</> and <literal>pgsql-patches</> + mailing lists (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2009a (for + Kathmandu and historical DST corrections in Switzerland, Cuba) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-3-5"> + <title>Release 8.3.5</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2008-11-03</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.3.4. + For information about new features in the 8.3 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-3">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.3.5</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.3.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.3.1, + see the release notes for 8.3.1. Also, if you were running a previous + 8.3.X release, it is recommended to <command>REINDEX</> all GiST + indexes after the upgrade. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix GiST index corruption due to marking the wrong index entry + <quote>dead</> after a deletion (Teodor) + </para> + + <para> + This would result in index searches failing to find rows they + should have found. Corrupted indexes can be fixed with + <command>REINDEX</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix backend crash when the client encoding cannot represent a localized + error message (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + We have addressed similar issues before, but it would still fail if + the <quote>character has no equivalent</> message itself couldn't + be converted. The fix is to disable localization and send the plain + ASCII error message when we detect such a situation. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible crash in <type>bytea</>-to-XML mapping (Michael McMaster) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible crash when deeply nested functions are invoked from + a trigger (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve optimization of <replaceable>expression</> <literal>IN</> + (<replaceable>expression-list</>) queries (Tom, per an idea from Robert + Haas) + </para> + + <para> + Cases in which there are query variables on the right-hand side had been + handled less efficiently in 8.2.x and 8.3.x than in prior versions. + The fix restores 8.1 behavior for such cases. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix mis-expansion of rule queries when a sub-<literal>SELECT</> appears + in a function call in <literal>FROM</>, a multi-row <literal>VALUES</> + list, or a <literal>RETURNING</> list (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The usual symptom of this problem is an <quote>unrecognized node type</> + error. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix Assert failure during rescan of an <literal>IS NULL</> + search of a GiST index (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix memory leak during rescan of a hashed aggregation plan (Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Ensure an error is reported when a newly-defined PL/pgSQL trigger + function is invoked as a normal function (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Force a checkpoint before <command>CREATE DATABASE</> starts to copy + files (Heikki) + </para> + + <para> + This prevents a possible failure if files had recently been deleted + in the source database. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent possible collision of <structfield>relfilenode</> numbers + when moving a table to another tablespace with <command>ALTER SET + TABLESPACE</> (Heikki) + </para> + + <para> + The command tried to re-use the existing filename, instead of + picking one that is known unused in the destination directory. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix incorrect text search headline generation when single query + item matches first word of text (Sushant Sinha) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix improper display of fractional seconds in interval values when + using a non-ISO datestyle in an <option>--enable-integer-datetimes</> + build (Ron Mayer) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <literal>ILIKE</> compare characters case-insensitively + even when they're escaped (Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Ensure <command>DISCARD</> is handled properly by statement logging (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix incorrect logging of last-completed-transaction time during + PITR recovery (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Ensure <function>SPI_getvalue</> and <function>SPI_getbinval</> + behave correctly when the passed tuple and tuple descriptor have + different numbers of columns (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This situation is normal when a table has had columns added or removed, + but these two functions didn't handle it properly. + The only likely consequence is an incorrect error indication. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Mark <varname>SessionReplicationRole</> as <literal>PGDLLIMPORT</> + so it can be used by <application>Slony</> on Windows (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix small memory leak when using <application>libpq</>'s + <literal>gsslib</> parameter (Magnus) + </para> + + <para> + The space used by the parameter string was not freed at connection + close. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Ensure <application>libgssapi</> is linked into <application>libpq</> + if needed (Markus Schaaf) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>ecpg</>'s parsing of <command>CREATE ROLE</> (Michael) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix recent breakage of <literal>pg_ctl restart</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Ensure <filename>pg_control</> is opened in binary mode + (Itagaki Takahiro) + </para> + + <para> + <application>pg_controldata</> and <application>pg_resetxlog</> + did this incorrectly, and so could fail on Windows. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2008i (for + DST law changes in Argentina, Brazil, Mauritius, Syria) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-3-4"> + <title>Release 8.3.4</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2008-09-22</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.3.3. + For information about new features in the 8.3 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-3">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.3.4</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.3.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.3.1, + see the release notes for 8.3.1. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix bug in btree WAL recovery code (Heikki) + </para> + + <para> + Recovery failed if the WAL ended partway through a page split operation. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix potential use of wrong cutoff XID for HOT page pruning (Alvaro) + </para> + + <para> + This error created a risk of corruption in system + catalogs that are consulted by <command>VACUUM</>: dead tuple versions + might be removed too soon. The impact of this on actual database + operations would be minimal, since the system doesn't follow MVCC + rules while examining catalogs, but it might result in transiently + wrong output from <application>pg_dump</> or other client programs. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix potential miscalculation of <structfield>datfrozenxid</> (Alvaro) + </para> + + <para> + This error may explain some recent reports of failure to remove old + <structname>pg_clog</> data. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix incorrect HOT updates after <structname>pg_class</> is reindexed + (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Corruption of <structname>pg_class</> could occur if <literal>REINDEX + TABLE pg_class</> was followed in the same session by an <literal>ALTER + TABLE RENAME</> or <literal>ALTER TABLE SET SCHEMA</> command. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix missed <quote>combo cid</> case (Karl Schnaitter) + </para> + + <para> + This error made rows incorrectly invisible to a transaction in which they + had been deleted by multiple subtransactions that all aborted. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent autovacuum from crashing if the table it's currently + checking is deleted at just the wrong time (Alvaro) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Widen local lock counters from 32 to 64 bits (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This responds to reports that the counters could overflow in + sufficiently long transactions, leading to unexpected <quote>lock is + already held</> errors. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible duplicate output of tuples during a GiST index scan (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Regenerate foreign key checking queries from scratch when either + table is modified (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Previously, 8.3 would attempt to replan the query, but would work from + previously generated query text. This led to failures if a + table or column was renamed. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix missed permissions checks when a view contains a simple + <literal>UNION ALL</> construct (Heikki) + </para> + + <para> + Permissions for the referenced tables were checked properly, but not + permissions for the view itself. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add checks in executor startup to ensure that the tuples produced by an + <command>INSERT</> or <command>UPDATE</> will match the target table's + current rowtype (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This situation is believed to be impossible in 8.3, but it can happen in + prior releases, so a check seems prudent. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible repeated drops during <command>DROP OWNED</> (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This would typically result in strange errors such as <quote>cache + lookup failed for relation NNN</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix several memory leaks in XML operations (Kris Jurka, Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <function>xmlserialize()</> to raise error properly for + unacceptable target data type (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix a couple of places that mis-handled multibyte characters in text + search configuration file parsing (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Certain characters occurring in configuration files would always cause + <quote>invalid byte sequence for encoding</> failures. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Provide file name and line number location for all errors reported + in text search configuration files (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <literal>AT TIME ZONE</> to first try to interpret its timezone + argument as a timezone abbreviation, and only try it as a full timezone + name if that fails, rather than the other way around as formerly (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The timestamp input functions have always resolved ambiguous zone names + in this order. Making <literal>AT TIME ZONE</> do so as well improves + consistency, and fixes a compatibility bug introduced in 8.1: + in ambiguous cases we now behave the same as 8.0 and before did, + since in the older versions <literal>AT TIME ZONE</> accepted + <emphasis>only</> abbreviations. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix datetime input functions to correctly detect integer overflow when + running on a 64-bit platform (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent integer overflows during units conversion when displaying a + configuration parameter that has units (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve performance of writing very long log messages to syslog (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow spaces in the suffix part of an LDAP URL in + <filename>pg_hba.conf</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix bug in backwards scanning of a cursor on a <literal>SELECT DISTINCT + ON</> query (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix planner bug that could improperly push down <literal>IS NULL</> + tests below an outer join (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This was triggered by occurrence of <literal>IS NULL</> tests for + the same relation in all arms of an upper <literal>OR</> clause. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix planner bug with nested sub-select expressions (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + If the outer sub-select has no direct dependency on the parent query, + but the inner one does, the outer value might not get recalculated + for new parent query rows. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix planner to estimate that <literal>GROUP BY</> expressions yielding + boolean results always result in two groups, regardless of the + expressions' contents (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This is very substantially more accurate than the regular <literal>GROUP + BY</> estimate for certain boolean tests like <replaceable>col</> + <literal>IS NULL</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix PL/PgSQL to not fail when a <literal>FOR</> loop's target variable + is a record containing composite-type fields (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix PL/Tcl to behave correctly with Tcl 8.5, and to be more careful + about the encoding of data sent to or from Tcl (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve performance of <function>PQescapeBytea()</> (Rudolf Leitgeb) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + On Windows, work around a Microsoft bug by preventing + <application>libpq</> from trying to send more than 64kB per system call + (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>ecpg</> to handle variables properly in <command>SET</> + commands (Michael) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve <application>pg_dump</> and <application>pg_restore</>'s + error reporting after failure to send a SQL command (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>pg_ctl</> to properly preserve postmaster + command-line arguments across a <literal>restart</> (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix erroneous WAL file cutoff point calculation in + <application>pg_standby</> (Simon) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2008f (for + DST law changes in Argentina, Bahamas, Brazil, Mauritius, Morocco, + Pakistan, Palestine, and Paraguay) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-3-3"> + <title>Release 8.3.3</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2008-06-12</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains one serious and one minor bug fix over 8.3.2. + For information about new features in the 8.3 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-3">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.3.3</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.3.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.3.1, + see the release notes for 8.3.1. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <function>pg_get_ruledef()</> parenthesize negative constants (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Before this fix, a negative constant in a view or rule might be dumped + as, say, <literal>-42::integer</>, which is subtly incorrect: it should + be <literal>(-42)::integer</> due to operator precedence rules. + Usually this would make little difference, but it could interact with + another recent patch to cause + <productname>PostgreSQL</> to reject what had been a valid + <command>SELECT DISTINCT</> view query. Since this could result in + <application>pg_dump</> output failing to reload, it is being treated + as a high-priority fix. The only released versions in which dump + output is actually incorrect are 8.3.1 and 8.2.7. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>ALTER AGGREGATE ... OWNER TO</> update + <structname>pg_shdepend</> (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This oversight could lead to problems if the aggregate was later + involved in a <command>DROP OWNED</> or <command>REASSIGN OWNED</> + operation. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-3-2"> + <title>Release 8.3.2</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>never released</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.3.1. + For information about new features in the 8.3 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-3">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.3.2</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.3.X. + However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.3.1, + see the release notes for 8.3.1. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <literal>ERRORDATA_STACK_SIZE exceeded</literal> crash that + occurred on Windows when using UTF-8 database encoding and a different + client encoding (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix incorrect archive truncation point calculation for the + <literal>%r</> macro in <varname>recovery_command</> parameters + (Simon) + </para> + + <para> + This could lead to data loss if a warm-standby script relied on + <literal>%r</> to decide when to throw away WAL segment files. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <command>ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN ... PRIMARY KEY</> so that the new + column is correctly checked to see if it's been initialized to all + non-nulls (Brendan Jurd) + </para> + + <para> + Previous versions neglected to check this requirement at all. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <command>REASSIGN OWNED</> so that it works on procedural + languages too (Alvaro) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix problems with <command>SELECT FOR UPDATE/SHARE</> occurring as a + subquery in a query with a non-<command>SELECT</> top-level operation + (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible <command>CREATE TABLE</> failure when inheriting the + <quote>same</> constraint from multiple parent relations that + inherited that constraint from a common ancestor (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <function>pg_get_ruledef()</> to show the alias, if any, attached + to the target table of an <command>UPDATE</> or <command>DELETE</> + (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Restore the pre-8.3 behavior that an out-of-range block number in a + TID being used in a TidScan plan results in silently not matching any + rows (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + 8.3.0 and 8.3.1 threw an error instead. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix GIN bug that could result in a <literal>too many LWLocks + taken</literal> failure (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix broken GiST comparison function for <type>tsquery</> (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <function>tsvector_update_trigger()</> and <function>ts_stat()</> + to accept domains over the types they expect to work with (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix failure to support enum data types as foreign keys (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Avoid possible crash when decompressing corrupted data + (Zdenek Kotala) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix race conditions between delayed unlinks and <command>DROP + DATABASE</> (Heikki) + </para> + + <para> + In the worst case this could result in deleting a newly created table + in a new database that happened to get the same OID as the + recently-dropped one; but of course that is an extremely + low-probability scenario. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Repair two places where SIGTERM exit of a backend could leave corrupted + state in shared memory (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Neither case is very important if SIGTERM is used to shut down the + whole database cluster together, but there was a problem if someone + tried to SIGTERM individual backends. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible crash due to incorrect plan generated for an + <literal><replaceable>x</> IN (SELECT <replaceable>y</> + FROM ...)</literal> clause when <replaceable>x</> and <replaceable>y</> + have different data types; and make sure the behavior is semantically + correct when the conversion from <replaceable>y</>'s type to + <replaceable>x</>'s type is lossy (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix oversight that prevented the planner from substituting known Param + values as if they were constants (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This mistake partially disabled optimization of unnamed + extended-Query statements in 8.3.0 and 8.3.1: in particular the + LIKE-to-indexscan optimization would never be applied if the LIKE + pattern was passed as a parameter, and constraint exclusion + depending on a parameter value didn't work either. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix planner failure when an indexable <function>MIN</> or + <function>MAX</> aggregate is used with <literal>DISTINCT</> or + <literal>ORDER BY</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix planner to ensure it never uses a <quote>physical tlist</> for a + plan node that is feeding a Sort node (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This led to the sort having to push around more data than it really + needed to, since unused column values were included in the sorted + data. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Avoid unnecessary copying of query strings (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This fixes a performance problem introduced in 8.3.0 when a very large + number of commands are submitted as a single query string. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <function>TransactionIdIsCurrentTransactionId()</> use binary + search instead of linear search when checking child-transaction XIDs + (Heikki) + </para> + + <para> + This fixes some cases in which 8.3.0 was significantly + slower than earlier releases. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix conversions between ISO-8859-5 and other encodings to handle + Cyrillic <quote>Yo</> characters (<literal>e</> and <literal>E</> with + two dots) (Sergey Burladyan) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix several datatype input functions, notably <function>array_in()</>, + that were allowing unused bytes in their results to contain + uninitialized, unpredictable values (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This could lead to failures in which two apparently identical literal + values were not seen as equal, resulting in the parser complaining + about unmatched <literal>ORDER BY</> and <literal>DISTINCT</> + expressions. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix a corner case in regular-expression substring matching + (<literal>substring(<replaceable>string</> from + <replaceable>pattern</>)</literal>) (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The problem occurs when there is a match to the pattern overall but + the user has specified a parenthesized subexpression and that + subexpression hasn't got a match. An example is + <literal>substring('foo' from 'foo(bar)?')</>. + This should return NULL, since <literal>(bar)</> isn't matched, but + it was mistakenly returning the whole-pattern match instead (ie, + <literal>foo</>). + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent cancellation of an auto-vacuum that was launched to prevent + XID wraparound (Alvaro) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve <command>ANALYZE</>'s handling of in-doubt tuples (those + inserted or deleted by a not-yet-committed transaction) so that the + counts it reports to the stats collector are more likely to be correct + (Pavan Deolasee) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>initdb</> to reject a relative path for its + <literal>--xlogdir</> (<literal>-X</>) option (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <application>psql</> print tab characters as an appropriate + number of spaces, rather than <literal>\x09</literal> as was done in + 8.3.0 and 8.3.1 (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2008c (for + DST law changes in Morocco, Iraq, Choibalsan, Pakistan, Syria, Cuba, and + Argentina/San_Luis) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>ECPGget_PGconn()</> function to + <application>ecpglib</> (Michael) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix incorrect result from <application>ecpg</>'s + <function>PGTYPEStimestamp_sub()</> function (Michael) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix handling of continuation line markers in <application>ecpg</> + (Michael) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible crashes in <filename>contrib/cube</> functions (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix core dump in <filename>contrib/xml2</>'s + <function>xpath_table()</> function when the input query returns a + NULL value (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <filename>contrib/xml2</>'s makefile to not override + <literal>CFLAGS</>, and make it auto-configure properly for + <application>libxslt</> present or not (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-3-1"> + <title>Release 8.3.1</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2008-03-17</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.3.0. + For information about new features in the 8.3 major release, see + <xref linkend="release-8-3">. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.3.1</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.3.X. + However, you might need to <command>REINDEX</> indexes on textual + columns after updating, if you are affected by the Windows locale + issue described below. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix character string comparison for Windows locales that consider + different character combinations as equal (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This fix applies only on Windows and only when using UTF-8 + database encoding. The same fix was made for all other cases + over two years ago, but Windows with UTF-8 uses a separate code + path that was not updated. If you are using a locale that + considers some non-identical strings as equal, you may need to + <command>REINDEX</> to fix existing indexes on textual columns. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Repair corner-case bugs in <command>VACUUM FULL</> (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + A potential deadlock between concurrent <command>VACUUM FULL</> + operations on different system catalogs was introduced in 8.2. + This has now been corrected. 8.3 made this worse because the + deadlock could occur within a critical code section, making it + a PANIC rather than just ERROR condition. + </para> + + <para> + Also, a <command>VACUUM FULL</> that failed partway through + vacuuming a system catalog could result in cache corruption in + concurrent database sessions. + </para> + + <para> + Another <command>VACUUM FULL</> bug introduced in 8.3 could + result in a crash or out-of-memory report when dealing with + pages containing no live tuples. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix misbehavior of foreign key checks involving <type>character</> + or <type>bit</> columns (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + If the referencing column were of a different but compatible type + (for instance <type>varchar</>), the constraint was enforced incorrectly. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Avoid needless deadlock failures in no-op foreign-key checks (Stephan + Szabo, Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible core dump when re-planning a prepared query (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This bug affected only protocol-level prepare operations, not + SQL <command>PREPARE</>, and so tended to be seen only with + JDBC, DBI, and other client-side drivers that use prepared + statements heavily. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix possible failure when re-planning a query that calls an SPI-using + function (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix failure in row-wise comparisons involving columns of different + datatypes (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix longstanding <command>LISTEN</>/<command>NOTIFY</> + race condition (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + In rare cases a session that had just executed a + <command>LISTEN</> might not get a notification, even though + one would be expected because the concurrent transaction executing + <command>NOTIFY</> was observed to commit later. + </para> + + <para> + A side effect of the fix is that a transaction that has executed + a not-yet-committed <command>LISTEN</> command will not see any + row in <structname>pg_listener</> for the <command>LISTEN</>, + should it choose to look; formerly it would have. This behavior + was never documented one way or the other, but it is possible that + some applications depend on the old behavior. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Disallow <command>LISTEN</> and <command>UNLISTEN</> within a + prepared transaction (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This was formerly allowed but trying to do it had various unpleasant + consequences, notably that the originating backend could not exit + as long as an <command>UNLISTEN</> remained uncommitted. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Disallow dropping a temporary table within a + prepared transaction (Heikki) + </para> + + <para> + This was correctly disallowed by 8.1, but the check was inadvertently + broken in 8.2 and 8.3. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix rare crash when an error occurs during a query using a hash index + (Heikki) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix incorrect comparison of <type>tsquery</> values (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix incorrect behavior of <literal>LIKE</> with non-ASCII characters + in single-byte encodings (Rolf Jentsch) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Disable <function>xmlvalidate</> (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This function should have been removed before 8.3 release, but + was inadvertently left in the source code. It poses a small + security risk since unprivileged users could use it to read the + first few characters of any file accessible to the server. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix memory leaks in certain usages of set-returning functions (Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <function>encode(<replaceable>bytea</>, 'escape')</> convert all + high-bit-set byte values into <literal>\</><replaceable>nnn</> octal + escape sequences (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This is necessary to avoid encoding problems when the database + encoding is multi-byte. This change could pose compatibility issues + for applications that are expecting specific results from + <function>encode</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix input of datetime values for February 29 in years BC (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The former coding was mistaken about which years were leap years. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <quote>unrecognized node type</> error in some variants of + <command>ALTER OWNER</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Avoid tablespace permissions errors in <command>CREATE TABLE LIKE + INCLUDING INDEXES</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Ensure <structname>pg_stat_activity</>.<structfield>waiting</> flag + is cleared when a lock wait is aborted (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix handling of process permissions on Windows Vista (Dave, Magnus) + </para> + + <para> + In particular, this fix allows starting the server as the Administrator + user. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2008a + (in particular, recent Chile changes); adjust timezone abbreviation + <literal>VET</> (Venezuela) to mean UTC-4:30, not UTC-4:00 (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>ecpg</> problems with arrays (Michael) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <application>pg_ctl</> to correctly extract the postmaster's port + number from command-line options (Itagaki Takahiro, Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Previously, <literal>pg_ctl start -w</> could try to contact the + postmaster on the wrong port, leading to bogus reports of startup + failure. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Use <option>-fwrapv</> to defend against possible misoptimization + in recent <application>gcc</> versions (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This is known to be necessary when building <productname>PostgreSQL</> + with <application>gcc</> 4.3 or later. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Enable building <filename>contrib/uuid-ossp</> with MSVC (Hiroshi Saito) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-8-3"> + <title>Release 8.3</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2008-02-04</simpara> + </note> + + <sect2> + <title>Overview</title> + + <para> + With significant new functionality and performance enhancements, + this release represents a major leap forward for + <productname>PostgreSQL</>. This was made possible by a growing + community that has dramatically accelerated the pace of + development. This release adds the following major features: + </para> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Full text search is integrated into the core database system + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support for the SQL/XML standard, including new operators and an + <type>XML</type> data type + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Enumerated data types (<type>ENUM</type>) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Arrays of composite types + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Universally Unique Identifier (<type>UUID</>) data type + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add control over whether <literal>NULL</>s sort first or last + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Updatable cursors + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Server configuration parameters can now be set on a per-function + basis + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + User-defined types can now have type modifiers + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Automatically re-plan cached queries when table + definitions change or statistics are updated + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Numerous improvements in logging and statistics collection + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support Security Service Provider Interface (<acronym>SSPI</>) for + authentication on Windows + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support multiple concurrent autovacuum processes, and other + autovacuum improvements + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow the whole <productname>PostgreSQL</> distribution to be compiled + with <productname>Microsoft Visual C++</> + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + <para> + Major performance improvements are listed below. Most of + these enhancements are automatic and do not require user changes or + tuning: + </para> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Asynchronous commit delays writes to WAL during transaction commit + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Checkpoint writes can be spread over a longer time period to smooth + the I/O spike during each checkpoint + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Heap-Only Tuples (<acronym>HOT</>) accelerate space reuse for + most <command>UPDATE</>s and <command>DELETE</>s + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Just-in-time background writer strategy improves disk write + efficiency + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Using non-persistent transaction IDs for read-only transactions + reduces overhead and <command>VACUUM</> requirements + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Per-field and per-row storage overhead has been reduced + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Large sequential scans no longer force out frequently used + cached pages + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Concurrent large sequential scans can now share disk reads + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <literal>ORDER BY ... LIMIT</> can be done without sorting + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + <para> + The above items are explained in more detail in the sections below. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.3</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore using <application>pg_dump</application> is + required for those wishing to migrate data from any previous + release. + </para> + + <para> + Observe the following incompatibilities: + </para> + + <sect3> + <title>General</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Non-character data types are no longer automatically cast to + <type>TEXT</> (Peter, Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Previously, if a non-character value was supplied to an operator or + function that requires <type>text</> input, it was automatically + cast to <type>text</>, for most (though not all) built-in data types. + This no longer happens: an explicit cast to <type>text</> is now + required for all non-character-string types. For example, these + expressions formerly worked: + +<programlisting> +substr(current_date, 1, 4) +23 LIKE '2%' +</programlisting> + + but will now draw <quote>function does not exist</> and <quote>operator + does not exist</> errors respectively. Use an explicit cast instead: + +<programlisting> +substr(current_date::text, 1, 4) +23::text LIKE '2%' +</programlisting> + + (Of course, you can use the more verbose <literal>CAST()</> syntax too.) + The reason for the change is that these automatic casts too often caused + surprising behavior. An example is that in previous releases, this + expression was accepted but did not do what was expected: + +<programlisting> +current_date < 2017-11-17 +</programlisting> + + This is actually comparing a date to an integer, which should be + (and now is) rejected — but in the presence of automatic + casts both sides were cast to <type>text</> and a textual comparison + was done, because the <literal>text < text</> operator was able + to match the expression when no other <literal><</> operator could. + </para> + + <para> + Types <type>char(<replaceable>n</>)</type> and + <type>varchar(<replaceable>n</>)</type> still cast to <type>text</> + automatically. Also, automatic casting to <type>text</> still works for + inputs to the concatenation (<literal>||</>) operator, so long as least + one input is a character-string type. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Full text search features from <filename>contrib/tsearch2</> have + been moved into the core server, with some minor syntax changes + </para> + + <para> + <filename>contrib/tsearch2</> now contains a compatibility + interface. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <literal>ARRAY(SELECT ...)</literal>, where the <command>SELECT</> + returns no rows, now returns an empty array, rather than NULL + (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + The array type name for a base data type is no longer always the base + type's name with an underscore prefix + </para> + + <para> + The old naming convention is still honored when possible, but + application code should no longer depend on it. Instead + use the new <literal>pg_type.typarray</literal> column to + identify the array data type associated with a given type. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <literal>ORDER BY ... USING</> <replaceable>operator</> must now + use a less-than or greater-than <replaceable>operator</> that is + defined in a btree operator class + </para> + + <para> + This restriction was added to prevent inconsistent results. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <command>SET LOCAL</command> changes now persist until + the end of the outermost transaction, unless rolled back (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Previously <command>SET LOCAL</command>'s effects were lost + after subtransaction commit (<command>RELEASE SAVEPOINT</> + or exit from a PL/pgSQL exception block). + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Commands rejected in transaction blocks are now also rejected in + multiple-statement query strings (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + For example, <literal>"BEGIN; DROP DATABASE; COMMIT"</> will now be + rejected even if submitted as a single query message. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <command>ROLLBACK</> outside a transaction block now + issues <literal>NOTICE</> instead of <literal>WARNING</> (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent <command>NOTIFY</command>/<command>LISTEN</command>/<command>UNLISTEN</command> + from accepting schema-qualified names (Bruce) + </para> + + <para> + Formerly, these commands accepted <literal>schema.relation</> but + ignored the schema part, which was confusing. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <command>ALTER SEQUENCE</> no longer affects the sequence's + <function>currval()</> state (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Foreign keys now must match indexable conditions for + cross-data-type references (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This improves semantic consistency and helps avoid + performance problems. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Restrict object size functions to users who have reasonable + permissions to view such information (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + For example, <function>pg_database_size()</function> now requires + <literal>CONNECT</> permission, which is granted to everyone by + default. <function>pg_tablespace_size()</function> requires + <literal>CREATE</> permission in the tablespace, or is allowed if + the tablespace is the default tablespace for the database. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove the undocumented <literal>!!=</> (not in) operator (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + <literal>NOT IN (SELECT ...)</literal> is the proper way to + perform this operation. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Internal hashing functions are now more uniformly-distributed (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + If application code was computing and storing hash values using + internal <productname>PostgreSQL</> hashing functions, the hash + values must be regenerated. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + C-code conventions for handling variable-length data values + have changed (Greg Stark, Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The new <function>SET_VARSIZE()</> macro <emphasis>must</> be used + to set the length of generated <type>varlena</> values. Also, it + might be necessary to expand (<quote>de-TOAST</quote>) input values + in more cases. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Continuous archiving no longer reports each successful archive + operation to the server logs unless <literal>DEBUG</> level is used + (Simon) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Configuration Parameters</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Numerous changes in administrative server parameters + </para> + + <para> + <varname>bgwriter_lru_percent</>, + <varname>bgwriter_all_percent</>, + <varname>bgwriter_all_maxpages</>, + <varname>stats_start_collector</>, and + <varname>stats_reset_on_server_start</> are removed. + <varname>redirect_stderr</> is renamed to + <varname>logging_collector</>. + <varname>stats_command_string</> is renamed to + <varname>track_activities</>. + <varname>stats_block_level</> and <varname>stats_row_level</> + are merged into <varname>track_counts</>. + A new boolean configuration parameter, <varname>archive_mode</>, + controls archiving. Autovacuum's default settings have changed. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove <varname>stats_start_collector</varname> parameter (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + We now always start the collector process, unless <acronym>UDP</> + socket creation fails. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove <varname>stats_reset_on_server_start</varname> parameter (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This was removed because <function>pg_stat_reset()</function> + can be used for this purpose. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Commenting out a parameter in <filename>postgresql.conf</> now + causes it to revert to its default value (Joachim Wieland) + </para> + + <para> + Previously, commenting out an entry left the parameter's value unchanged + until the next server restart. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + + <sect3> + <title>Character Encodings</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add more checks for invalidly-encoded data (Andrew) + </para> + + <para> + This change plugs some holes that existed in literal backslash + escape string processing and <command>COPY</command> escape + processing. Now the de-escaped string is rechecked to see if the + result created an invalid multi-byte character. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Disallow database encodings that are inconsistent with the server's + locale setting (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + On most platforms, <literal>C</> locale is the only locale that + will work with any database encoding. Other locale settings imply + a specific encoding and will misbehave if the database encoding + is something different. (Typical symptoms include bogus textual + sort order and wrong results from <function>upper()</> or + <function>lower()</>.) The server now rejects attempts to create + databases that have an incompatible encoding. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Ensure that <function>chr()</function> cannot create + invalidly-encoded values (Andrew) + </para> + + <para> + In UTF8-encoded databases the argument of <function>chr()</function> is + now treated as a Unicode code point. In other multi-byte encodings + <function>chr()</function>'s argument must designate a 7-bit ASCII + character. Zero is no longer accepted. + <function>ascii()</function> has been adjusted to match. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Adjust <function>convert()</function> behavior to ensure encoding + validity (Andrew) + </para> + + <para> + The two argument form of <function>convert()</function> has been + removed. The three argument form now takes a <type>bytea</type> + first argument and returns a <type>bytea</type>. To cover the + loss of functionality, three new functions have been added: + </para> + + <itemizedlist> + <listitem> + <para> + <function>convert_from(bytea, name)</function> returns + <type>text</> — converts the first argument from the named + encoding to the database encoding + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <function>convert_to(text, name)</function> returns + <type>bytea</> — converts the first argument from the + database encoding to the named encoding + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <function>length(bytea, name)</function> returns + <type>integer</> — gives the length of the first + argument in characters in the named encoding + </para> + </listitem> + </itemizedlist> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove <literal>convert(argument USING conversion_name)</literal> + (Andrew) + </para> + + <para> + Its behavior did not match the SQL standard. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make JOHAB encoding client-only (Tatsuo) + </para> + + <para> + JOHAB is not safe as a server-side encoding. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <para> + Below you will find a detailed account of the + changes between <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> 8.3 and + the previous major release. + </para> + + <sect3> + <title>Performance</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Asynchronous commit delays writes to WAL during transaction commit + (Simon) + </para> + + <para> + This feature dramatically increases performance for short data-modifying + transactions. The disadvantage is that because disk writes are delayed, + if the database or operating system crashes before data is written to + the disk, committed data will be lost. This feature is useful for + applications that can accept some data loss. Unlike turning off + <varname>fsync</varname>, using asynchronous commit does not put + database consistency at risk; the worst case is that after a crash the + last few reportedly-committed transactions might not be committed after + all. + This feature is enabled by turning off <varname>synchronous_commit</> + (which can be done per-session or per-transaction, if some transactions + are critical and others are not). + <varname>wal_writer_delay</> can be adjusted to control the maximum + delay before transactions actually reach disk. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Checkpoint writes can be spread over a longer time period to smooth + the I/O spike during each checkpoint (Itagaki Takahiro and Heikki + Linnakangas) + </para> + + <para> + Previously all modified buffers were forced to disk as quickly as + possible during a + checkpoint, causing an I/O spike that decreased server performance. + This new approach spreads out disk writes during checkpoints, + reducing peak I/O usage. (User-requested and shutdown checkpoints + are still written as quickly as possible.) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Heap-Only Tuples (<acronym>HOT</>) accelerate space reuse for most + <command>UPDATE</>s and <command>DELETE</>s (Pavan Deolasee, with + ideas from many others) + </para> + + <para> + <command>UPDATE</>s and <command>DELETE</>s leave dead tuples + behind, as do failed <command>INSERT</>s. Previously only + <command>VACUUM</> could reclaim space taken by dead tuples. With + <acronym>HOT</> dead tuple space can be automatically reclaimed at + the time of <command>INSERT</> or <command>UPDATE</> if no changes + are made to indexed columns. This allows for more consistent + performance. Also, <acronym>HOT</> avoids adding duplicate index + entries. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Just-in-time background writer strategy improves disk write + efficiency (Greg Smith, Itagaki Takahiro) + </para> + + <para> + This greatly reduces the need for manual tuning of the background + writer. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Per-field and per-row storage overhead have been reduced + (Greg Stark, Heikki Linnakangas) + </para> + + <para> + Variable-length data types with data values less than 128 bytes long + will see a storage decrease of 3 to 6 bytes. For example, two adjacent + <type>char(1)</type> fields now use 4 bytes instead of 16. Row headers + are also 4 bytes shorter than before. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Using non-persistent transaction IDs for read-only transactions + reduces overhead and <command>VACUUM</> requirements (Florian Pflug) + </para> + + <para> + Non-persistent transaction IDs do not increment the global + transaction counter. Therefore, they reduce the load on + <structname>pg_clog</> and increase the time between forced + vacuums to prevent transaction ID wraparound. + Other performance + improvements were also made that should improve concurrency. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Avoid incrementing the command counter after a read-only command (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + There was formerly a hard limit of 2<superscript>32</> + (4 billion) commands per transaction. Now only commands that + actually changed the database count, so while this limit still + exists, it should be significantly less annoying. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Create a dedicated <acronym>WAL</> writer process to off-load + work from backends (Simon) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Skip unnecessary WAL writes for <command>CLUSTER</command> and + <command>COPY</command> (Simon) + </para> + + <para> + Unless WAL archiving is enabled, the system now avoids WAL writes + for <command>CLUSTER</command> and just <function>fsync()</>s the + table at the end of the command. It also does the same for + <command>COPY</command> if the table was created in the same + transaction. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Large sequential scans no longer force out frequently used + cached pages (Simon, Heikki, Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Concurrent large sequential scans can now share disk reads (Jeff Davis) + </para> + + <para> + This is accomplished by starting the new sequential scan in the + middle of the table (where another sequential scan is already + in-progress) and wrapping around to the beginning to finish. This + can affect the order of returned rows in a query that does not + specify <literal>ORDER BY</>. The <varname>synchronize_seqscans</> + configuration parameter can be used to disable this if necessary. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <literal>ORDER BY ... LIMIT</> can be done without sorting + (Greg Stark) + </para> + + <para> + This is done by sequentially scanning the table and tracking just + the <quote>top N</> candidate rows, rather than performing a + full sort of the entire table. This is useful when there is no + matching index and the <literal>LIMIT</> is not large. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Put a rate limit on messages sent to the statistics + collector by backends + (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This reduces overhead for short transactions, but might sometimes + increase the delay before statistics are tallied. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve hash join performance for cases with many NULLs (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Speed up operator lookup for cases with non-exact datatype matches (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Server</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Autovacuum is now enabled by default (Alvaro) + </para> + + <para> + Several changes were made to eliminate disadvantages of having + autovacuum enabled, thereby justifying the change in default. + Several other autovacuum parameter defaults were also modified. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support multiple concurrent autovacuum processes (Alvaro, Itagaki + Takahiro) + </para> + + <para> + This allows multiple vacuums to run concurrently. This prevents + vacuuming of a large table from delaying vacuuming of smaller tables. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Automatically re-plan cached queries when table + definitions change or statistics are updated (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Previously PL/PgSQL functions that referenced temporary tables + would fail if the temporary table was dropped and recreated + between function invocations, unless <literal>EXECUTE</> was + used. This improvement fixes that problem and many related issues. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add a <varname>temp_tablespaces</varname> parameter to control + the tablespaces for temporary tables and files (Jaime Casanova, + Albert Cervera, Bernd Helmle) + </para> + + <para> + This parameter defines a list of tablespaces to be used. This + enables spreading the I/O load across multiple tablespaces. A random + tablespace is chosen each time a temporary object is created. + Temporary files are no longer stored in per-database + <filename>pgsql_tmp/</filename> directories but in per-tablespace + directories. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Place temporary tables' TOAST tables in special schemas named + <literal>pg_toast_temp_<replaceable>nnn</></literal> (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This allows low-level code to recognize these tables as temporary, + which enables various optimizations such as not WAL-logging changes + and using local rather than shared buffers for access. This also + fixes a bug wherein backends unexpectedly held open file references + to temporary TOAST tables. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix problem that a constant flow of new connection requests could + indefinitely delay the postmaster from completing a shutdown or + a crash restart (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Guard against a very-low-probability data loss scenario by preventing + re-use of a deleted table's relfilenode until after the next + checkpoint (Heikki) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <command>CREATE CONSTRAINT TRIGGER</> + to convert old-style foreign key trigger definitions into regular + foreign key constraints (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This will ease porting of foreign key constraints carried forward from + pre-7.3 databases, if they were never converted using + <filename>contrib/adddepend</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <literal>DEFAULT NULL</> to override inherited defaults (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + <literal>DEFAULT NULL</> was formerly considered a noise phrase, but it + should (and now does) override non-null defaults that would otherwise + be inherited from a parent table or domain. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add new encodings EUC_JIS_2004 and SHIFT_JIS_2004 (Tatsuo) + </para> + + <para> + These new encodings can be converted to and from UTF-8. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Change server startup log message from <quote>database system is + ready</quote> to <quote>database system is ready to accept + connections</quote>, and adjust its timing + </para> + + <para> + The message now appears only when the postmaster is really ready + to accept connections. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Monitoring</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <varname>log_autovacuum_min_duration</varname> parameter to + support configurable logging of autovacuum activity (Simon, Alvaro) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <varname>log_lock_waits</varname> parameter to log lock waiting + (Simon) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <varname>log_temp_files</varname> parameter to log temporary + file usage (Bill Moran) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <varname>log_checkpoints</varname> parameter to improve logging + of checkpoints (Greg Smith, Heikki) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <varname>log_line_prefix</varname> now supports + <literal>%s</literal> and <literal>%c</literal> escapes in all + processes (Andrew) + </para> + + <para> + Previously these escapes worked only for user sessions, not for + background database processes. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <varname>log_restartpoints</varname> to control logging of + point-in-time recovery restart points (Simon) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Last transaction end time is now logged at end of recovery and at + each logged restart point (Simon) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Autovacuum now reports its activity start time in + <literal>pg_stat_activity</literal> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow server log output in comma-separated value (CSV) format (Arul + Shaji, Greg Smith, Andrew Dunstan) + </para> + + <para> + CSV-format log files can easily be loaded into a database table for + subsequent analysis. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Use PostgreSQL-supplied timezone support for formatting timestamps + displayed in the server log (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This avoids Windows-specific problems with localized time zone + names that are in the wrong encoding. There is a new + <varname>log_timezone</> parameter that controls the timezone + used in log messages, independently of the client-visible + <varname>timezone</> parameter. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + New system view <literal>pg_stat_bgwriter</literal> displays + statistics about background writer activity (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add new columns for database-wide tuple statistics to + <literal>pg_stat_database</literal> (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add an <literal>xact_start</literal> (transaction start time) column to + <literal>pg_stat_activity</literal> (Neil) + </para> + + <para> + This makes it easier to identify long-running transactions. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>n_live_tuples</> and <literal>n_dead_tuples</> columns + to <literal>pg_stat_all_tables</literal> and related views (Glen + Parker) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Merge <varname>stats_block_level</> and <varname>stats_row_level</> + parameters into a single parameter <varname>track_counts</>, which + controls all messages sent to the statistics collector process + (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Rename <varname>stats_command_string</varname> parameter to + <varname>track_activities</varname> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix statistical counting of live and dead tuples to recognize that + committed and aborted transactions have different effects (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Authentication</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support Security Service Provider Interface (<acronym>SSPI</>) for + authentication on Windows (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support GSSAPI authentication (Henry Hotz, Magnus) + </para> + + <para> + This should be preferred to native Kerberos authentication because + GSSAPI is an industry standard. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support a global SSL configuration file (Victor Wagner) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <varname>ssl_ciphers</> parameter to control accepted SSL ciphers + (Victor Wagner) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add a Kerberos realm parameter, <varname>krb_realm</> (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Write-Ahead Log (<acronym>WAL</>) and Continuous Archiving</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Change the timestamps recorded in transaction WAL records from + time_t to TimestampTz representation (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This provides sub-second resolution in WAL, which can be useful for + point-in-time recovery. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Reduce WAL disk space needed by warm standby servers (Simon) + </para> + + <para> + This change allows a warm standby server to pass the name of the earliest + still-needed WAL file to the recovery script, allowing automatic removal + of no-longer-needed WAL files. This is done using <literal>%r</> in + the <varname>restore_command</varname> parameter of + <filename>recovery.conf</filename>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + New boolean configuration parameter, <varname>archive_mode</>, + controls archiving (Simon) + </para> + + <para> + Previously setting <varname>archive_command</> to an empty string + turned off archiving. Now <varname>archive_mode</> turns archiving + on and off, independently of <varname>archive_command</>. This is + useful for stopping archiving temporarily. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Queries</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Full text search is integrated into the core database + system (Teodor, Oleg) + </para> + + <para> + Text search has been improved, moved into the core code, and is now + installed by default. <filename>contrib/tsearch2</> now contains + a compatibility interface. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add control over whether <literal>NULL</>s sort first or last (Teodor, Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The syntax is <literal>ORDER BY ... NULLS FIRST/LAST</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow per-column ascending/descending (<literal>ASC</>/<literal>DESC</>) + ordering options for indexes (Teodor, Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Previously a query using <literal>ORDER BY</> with mixed + <literal>ASC</>/<literal>DESC</> specifiers could not fully use + an index. Now an index can be fully used in such cases if the + index was created with matching + <literal>ASC</>/<literal>DESC</> specifications. + <literal>NULL</> sort order within an index can be controlled, too. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <literal>col IS NULL</> to use an index (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Updatable cursors (Arul Shaji, Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This eliminates the need to reference a primary key to + <command>UPDATE</> or <command>DELETE</> rows returned by a cursor. + The syntax is <literal>UPDATE/DELETE WHERE CURRENT OF</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <literal>FOR UPDATE</literal> in cursors (Arul Shaji, Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Create a general mechanism that supports casts to and from the + standard string types (<type>TEXT</type>, <type>VARCHAR</type>, + <type>CHAR</type>) for <emphasis>every</emphasis> datatype, by + invoking the datatype's I/O functions (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Previously, such casts were available only for types that had + specialized function(s) for the purpose. + These new casts are assignment-only in the to-string direction, + explicit-only in the other direction, and therefore should create no + surprising behavior. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <literal>UNION</> and related constructs to return a domain + type, when all inputs are of that domain type (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Formerly, the output would be considered to be of the domain's base + type. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow limited hashing when using two different data types (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This allows hash joins, hash indexes, hashed subplans, and hash + aggregation to be used in situations involving cross-data-type + comparisons, if the data types have compatible hash functions. + Currently, cross-data-type hashing support exists for + <type>smallint</type>/<type>integer</type>/<type>bigint</type>, + and for <type>float4</type>/<type>float8</type>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve optimizer logic for detecting when variables are equal + in a <literal>WHERE</> clause (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This allows mergejoins to work with descending sort orders, and + improves recognition of redundant sort columns. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve performance when planning large inheritance trees in + cases where most tables are excluded by constraints (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Object Manipulation</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + + <para> + Arrays of composite types (David Fetter, Andrew, Tom) + </para> + + <para> + In addition to arrays of explicitly-declared composite types, + arrays of the rowtypes of regular tables and views are now + supported, except for rowtypes of system catalogs, sequences, and TOAST + tables. + </para> + + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Server configuration parameters can now be set on a per-function + basis (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + For example, functions can now set their own + <varname>search_path</> to prevent unexpected behavior if a + different <varname>search_path</> exists at run-time. Security + definer functions should set <varname>search_path</varname> to + avoid security loopholes. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <command>CREATE/ALTER FUNCTION</command> now supports + <literal>COST</literal> and <literal>ROWS</literal> options (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + <literal>COST</literal> allows specification of the cost of a + function call. <literal>ROWS</literal> allows specification of + the average number or rows returned by a set-returning function. + These values are used by the optimizer in choosing the best plan. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Implement <command>CREATE TABLE LIKE ... INCLUDING + INDEXES</command> (Trevor Hardcastle, Nikhil Sontakke, Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <command>CREATE INDEX CONCURRENTLY</command> to ignore + transactions in other databases (Simon) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <command>ALTER VIEW ... RENAME TO</command> and <command>ALTER + SEQUENCE ... RENAME TO</command> (David Fetter, Neil) + </para> + + <para> + Previously this could only be done via <command>ALTER TABLE ... + RENAME TO</command>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>CREATE/DROP/RENAME DATABASE</> wait briefly for + conflicting backends to exit before failing (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This increases the likelihood that these commands will succeed. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow triggers and rules to be deactivated in groups using a + configuration parameter, for replication purposes (Jan) + </para> + + <para> + This allows replication systems to disable triggers and rewrite + rules as a group without modifying the system catalogs directly. + The behavior is controlled by <command>ALTER TABLE</> and a new + parameter <varname>session_replication_role</varname>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + User-defined types can now have type modifiers (Teodor, Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This allows a user-defined type to take a modifier, like + <type>ssnum(7)</>. Previously only built-in + data types could have modifiers. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Utility Commands</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Non-superuser database owners now are able to add trusted procedural + languages to their databases by default (Jeremy Drake) + </para> + + <para> + While this is reasonably safe, some administrators might wish to + revoke the privilege. It is controlled by + <structname>pg_pltemplate</>.<structfield>tmpldbacreate</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow a session's current parameter setting to be used as the + default for future sessions (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This is done with <literal>SET ... FROM CURRENT</literal> in + <command>CREATE/ALTER FUNCTION</command>, <command>ALTER + DATABASE</command>, or <command>ALTER ROLE</command>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Implement new commands <command>DISCARD ALL</command>, + <command>DISCARD PLANS</command>, <command>DISCARD + TEMPORARY</command>, <command>CLOSE ALL</command>, and + <command>DEALLOCATE ALL</command> (Marko Kreen, Neil) + </para> + + <para> + These commands simplify resetting a database session to its initial + state, and are particularly useful for connection-pooling software. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>CLUSTER</command> MVCC-safe (Heikki Linnakangas) + </para> + + <para> + Formerly, <command>CLUSTER</command> would discard all tuples + that were committed dead, even if there were still transactions + that should be able to see them under MVCC visibility rules. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add new <command>CLUSTER</command> syntax: <literal>CLUSTER + <replaceable>table</> USING <replaceable>index</></literal> + (Holger Schurig) + </para> + + <para> + The old <command>CLUSTER</command> syntax is still supported, but + the new form is considered more logical. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <command>EXPLAIN</command> so it can show complex plans + more accurately (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + References to subplan outputs are now always shown correctly, + instead of using <literal>?column<replaceable>N</>?</literal> + for complicated cases. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Limit the amount of information reported when a user is dropped + (Alvaro) + </para> + + <para> + Previously, dropping (or attempting to drop) a user who owned many + objects could result in large <literal>NOTICE</literal> or + <literal>ERROR</literal> messages listing all these objects; this + caused problems for some client applications. The length of the + message is now limited, although a full list is still sent to the + server log. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Data Types</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support for the SQL/XML standard, including new operators and an + <type>XML</type> data type (Nikolay Samokhvalov, Pavel Stehule, Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Enumerated data types (<type>ENUM</type>) (Tom Dunstan) + </para> + + <para> + This feature provides convenient support for fields that have a + small, fixed set of allowed values. An example of creating an + <literal>ENUM</> type is + <literal>CREATE TYPE mood AS ENUM ('sad', 'ok', 'happy')</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Universally Unique Identifier (<type>UUID</>) data type (Gevik + Babakhani, Neil) + </para> + + <para> + This closely matches <acronym>RFC</> 4122. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Widen the <type>MONEY</type> data type to 64 bits (D'Arcy Cain) + </para> + + <para> + This greatly increases the range of supported <type>MONEY</> + values. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <type>float4</type>/<type>float8</type> to handle + <literal>Infinity</> and <literal>NAN</> (Not A Number) + consistently (Bruce) + </para> + + <para> + The code formerly was not consistent about distinguishing + <literal>Infinity</> from overflow conditions. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow leading and trailing whitespace during input of + <type>boolean</type> values (Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent <command>COPY</> from using digits and lowercase letters as + delimiters (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Functions</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add new regular expression functions + <function>regexp_matches()</function>, + <function>regexp_split_to_array()</function>, and + <function>regexp_split_to_table()</function> (Jeremy Drake, Neil) + </para> + + <para> + These functions provide extraction of regular expression + subexpressions and allow splitting a string using a POSIX regular + expression. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>lo_truncate()</function> for large object truncation + (Kris Jurka) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Implement <function>width_bucket()</function> for the <type>float8</> + data type (Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>pg_stat_clear_snapshot()</function> to discard + statistics snapshots collected during the current transaction + (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The first request for statistics in a transaction takes a statistics + snapshot that does not change during the transaction. This function + allows the snapshot to be discarded and a new snapshot loaded during + the next statistics query. This is particularly useful for PL/PgSQL + functions, which are confined to a single transaction. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>isodow</> option to <function>EXTRACT()</> and + <function>date_part()</> (Bruce) + </para> + + <para> + This returns the day of the week, with Sunday as seven. + (<literal>dow</> returns Sunday as zero.) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>ID</> (ISO day of week) and <literal>IDDD</> (ISO + day of year) format codes for <function>to_char()</>, + <function>to_date()</>, and <function>to_timestamp()</> (Brendan + Jurd) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <function>to_timestamp()</> and <function>to_date()</> + assume <literal>TM</literal> (trim) option for potentially + variable-width fields (Bruce) + </para> + + <para> + This matches <productname>Oracle</>'s behavior. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix off-by-one conversion error in + <function>to_date()</function>/<function>to_timestamp()</function> + <literal>D</> (non-ISO day of week) fields (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <function>setseed()</function> return void, rather than a + useless integer value (Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add a hash function for <type>NUMERIC</type> (Neil) + </para> + + <para> + This allows hash indexes and hash-based plans to be used with + <type>NUMERIC</type> columns. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve efficiency of + <literal>LIKE</literal>/<literal>ILIKE</literal>, especially for + multi-byte character sets like UTF-8 (Andrew, Itagaki Takahiro) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <function>currtid()</function> functions require + <literal>SELECT</literal> privileges on the target table (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add several <function>txid_*()</function> functions to query + active transaction IDs (Jan) + </para> + + <para> + This is useful for various replication solutions. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>PL/PgSQL Server-Side Language</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add scrollable cursor support, including directional control in + <command>FETCH</command> (Pavel Stehule) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <literal>IN</literal> as an alternative to + <literal>FROM</literal> in PL/PgSQL's <command>FETCH</command> + statement, for consistency with the backend's + <command>FETCH</command> command (Pavel Stehule) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <command>MOVE</command> to PL/PgSQL (Magnus, Pavel Stehule, + Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Implement <command>RETURN QUERY</command> (Pavel Stehule, Neil) + </para> + + <para> + This adds convenient syntax for PL/PgSQL set-returning functions + that want to return the result of a query. <command>RETURN QUERY</> + is easier and more efficient than a loop + around <command>RETURN NEXT</command>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow function parameter names to be qualified with the + function's name (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + For example, <literal>myfunc.myvar</>. This is particularly + useful for specifying variables in a query where the variable + name might match a column name. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make qualification of variables with block labels work properly (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Formerly, outer-level block labels could unexpectedly interfere with + recognition of inner-level record or row references. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Tighten requirements for <literal>FOR</literal> loop + <literal>STEP</> values (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Prevent non-positive <literal>STEP</> values, and handle + loop overflows. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve accuracy when reporting syntax error locations (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Other Server-Side Languages</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow type-name arguments to PL/Perl + <function>spi_prepare()</function> to be data type aliases in + addition to names found in <literal>pg_type</literal> (Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow type-name arguments to PL/Python + <function>plpy.prepare()</function> to be data type aliases in + addition to names found in <literal>pg_type</literal> (Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow type-name arguments to PL/Tcl <function>spi_prepare</> to + be data type aliases in addition to names found in + <literal>pg_type</literal> (Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Enable PL/PythonU to compile on Python 2.5 (Marko Kreen) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support a true PL/Python boolean type in compatible Python versions + (Python 2.3 and later) (Marko Kreen) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix PL/Tcl problems with thread-enabled <filename>libtcl</> spawning + multiple threads within the backend (Steve Marshall, Paul Bayer, + Doug Knight) + </para> + + <para> + This caused all sorts of unpleasantness. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title><link linkend="APP-PSQL"><application>psql</></link></title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + List disabled triggers separately in <literal>\d</literal> output + (Brendan Jurd) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + In <literal>\d</literal> patterns, always match <literal>$</literal> + literally (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Show aggregate return types in <literal>\da</literal> output + (Greg Sabino Mullane) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add the function's volatility status to the output of + <literal>\df+</literal> (Neil) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>\prompt</literal> capability (Chad Wagner) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <literal>\pset</literal>, <literal>\t</literal>, and + <literal>\x</literal> to specify <literal>on</> or <literal>off</>, + rather than just toggling (Chad Wagner) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>\sleep</> capability (Jan) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Enable <literal>\timing</> output for <literal>\copy</> (Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve <literal>\timing</literal> resolution on Windows + (Itagaki Takahiro) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Flush <literal>\o</> output after each backslash command (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Correctly detect and report errors while reading a <literal>-f</> + input file (Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove <literal>-u</> option (this option has long been deprecated) + (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title><link linkend="APP-PGDUMP"><application>pg_dump</></link></title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>--tablespaces-only</> and <literal>--roles-only</> + options to <application>pg_dumpall</application> (Dave Page) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add an output file option to + <application>pg_dumpall</application> (Dave Page) + </para> + + <para> + This is primarily useful on Windows, where output redirection of + child <application>pg_dump</application> processes does not work. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <application>pg_dumpall</> to accept an initial-connection + database name rather than the default + <literal>template1</literal> (Dave Page) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + In <literal>-n</> and <literal>-t</> switches, always match + <literal>$</literal> literally (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve performance when a database has thousands of objects (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove <literal>-u</> option (this option has long been deprecated) + (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Other Client Applications</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + In <application>initdb</>, allow the location of the + <filename>pg_xlog</filename> directory to be specified + (Euler Taveira de Oliveira) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Enable server core dump generation in <application>pg_regress</> + on supported operating systems (Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add a <literal>-t</> (timeout) parameter to <application>pg_ctl</> + (Bruce) + </para> + + <para> + This controls how long <application>pg_ctl</> will wait when waiting + for server startup or shutdown. Formerly the timeout was hard-wired + as 60 seconds. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add a <application>pg_ctl</> option to control generation + of server core dumps (Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow Control-C to cancel <application>clusterdb</>, + <application>reindexdb</>, and <application>vacuumdb</> (Itagaki + Takahiro, Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Suppress command tag output for <application>createdb</>, + <application>createuser</>, <application>dropdb</>, and + <application>dropuser</> (Peter) + </para> + + <para> + The <literal>--quiet</> option is ignored and will be removed in 8.4. + Progress messages when acting on all databases now go to stdout + instead of stderr because they are not actually errors. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title><link linkend="libpq"><application>libpq</></link></title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Interpret the <literal>dbName</> parameter of + <function>PQsetdbLogin()</> as a <literal>conninfo</> string if + it contains an equals sign (Andrew) + </para> + + <para> + This allows use of <literal>conninfo</> strings in client + programs that still use <literal>PQsetdbLogin()</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support a global <acronym>SSL</> configuration file (Victor + Wagner) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add environment variable <varname>PGSSLKEY</> to control + <acronym>SSL</> hardware keys (Victor Wagner) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>lo_truncate()</function> for large object + truncation (Kris Jurka) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>PQconnectionNeedsPassword()</function> that returns + true if the server required a password but none was supplied + (Joe Conway, Tom) + </para> + + <para> + If this returns true after a failed connection attempt, a client + application should prompt the user for a password. In the past + applications have had to check for a specific error message string to + decide whether a password is needed; that approach is now + deprecated. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>PQconnectionUsedPassword()</function> that returns + true if the supplied password was actually used + (Joe Conway, Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This is useful in some security contexts where it is important + to know whether a user-supplied password is actually valid. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title><link linkend="ecpg"><application>ecpg</></link></title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Use V3 frontend/backend protocol (Michael) + </para> + + <para> + This adds support for server-side prepared statements. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Use native threads, instead of pthreads, on Windows (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve thread-safety of ecpglib (Itagaki Takahiro) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make the ecpg libraries export only necessary API symbols (Michael) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title><application>Windows</> Port</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow the whole <productname>PostgreSQL</> distribution to be compiled + with <productname>Microsoft Visual C++</> (Magnus and others) + </para> + + <para> + This allows Windows-based developers to use familiar development + and debugging tools. + Windows executables made with Visual C++ might also have better + stability and performance than those made with other tool sets. + The client-only Visual C++ build scripts have been removed. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Drastically reduce postmaster's memory usage when it has many child + processes (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow regression tests to be started by an administrative + user (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add native shared memory implementation (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Server Programming Interface (<acronym>SPI</>)</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add cursor-related functionality in SPI (Pavel Stehule) + </para> + + <para> + Allow access to the cursor-related planning options, and add + <command>FETCH</>/<command>MOVE</> routines. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow execution of cursor commands through + <function>SPI_execute</function> (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The macro <literal>SPI_ERROR_CURSOR</> still exists but will + never be returned. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + SPI plan pointers are now declared as <literal>SPIPlanPtr</> instead of + <literal>void *</> (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This does not break application code, but switching is + recommended to help catch simple programming mistakes. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Build Options</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <application>configure</> option <literal>--enable-profiling</> + to enable code profiling (works only with <application>gcc</>) + (Korry Douglas and Nikhil Sontakke) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <application>configure</> option <literal>--with-system-tzdata</> + to use the operating system's time zone database (Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <acronym>PGXS</> so extensions can be built against PostgreSQL + installations whose <application>pg_config</> program does not + appear first in the <varname>PATH</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support <command>gmake draft</command> when building the + <acronym>SGML</> documentation (Bruce) + </para> + + <para> + Unless <literal>draft</> is used, the documentation build will + now be repeated if necessary to ensure the index is up-to-date. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Source Code</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Rename macro <literal>DLLIMPORT</> to <literal>PGDLLIMPORT</> to + avoid conflicting with third party includes (like Tcl) that + define <literal>DLLIMPORT</> (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Create <quote>operator families</quote> to improve planning of + queries involving cross-data-type comparisons (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update GIN <function>extractQuery()</> API to allow signalling + that nothing can satisfy the query (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Move <literal>NAMEDATALEN</> definition from + <filename>postgres_ext.h</> to <filename>pg_config_manual.h</> + (Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Provide <function>strlcpy()</function> and + <function>strlcat()</function> on all platforms, and replace + error-prone uses of <function>strncpy()</function>, + <function>strncat()</function>, etc (Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Create hooks to let an external plugin monitor (or even replace) the + planner and create plans for hypothetical situations (Gurjeet + Singh, Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Create a function variable <literal>join_search_hook</> to let plugins + override the join search order portion of the planner (Julius + Stroffek) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>tas()</> support for Renesas' M32R processor + (Kazuhiro Inaoka) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <function>quote_identifier()</function> and + <application>pg_dump</application> no longer quote keywords that are + unreserved according to the grammar (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Change the on-disk representation of the <type>NUMERIC</type> + data type so that the <structfield>sign_dscale</> word comes + before the weight (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Use <acronym>SYSV</> semaphores rather than POSIX on Darwin + >= 6.0, i.e., OS X 10.2 and up (Chris Marcellino) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <link linkend="acronyms">acronym</link> and <link + linkend="creating-cluster-nfs">NFS</link> documentation + sections (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + "Postgres" is now documented as an accepted alias for + "PostgreSQL" (Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add documentation about preventing database server spoofing when + the server is down (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Contrib</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Move <filename>contrib</> <filename>README</> content into the + main <productname>PostgreSQL</> documentation (Albert Cervera i + Areny) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <filename>contrib/pageinspect</filename> module for low-level + page inspection (Simon, Heikki) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <filename>contrib/pg_standby</filename> module for controlling + warm standby operation (Simon) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <filename>contrib/uuid-ossp</filename> module for generating + <type>UUID</> values using the OSSP UUID library (Peter) + </para> + + <para> + Use <application>configure</> + <literal>--with-ossp-uuid</literal> to activate. This takes + advantage of the new <type>UUID</type> builtin type. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <filename>contrib/dict_int</filename>, + <filename>contrib/dict_xsyn</filename>, and + <filename>contrib/test_parser</filename> modules to provide + sample add-on text search dictionary templates and parsers + (Sergey Karpov) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <application>contrib/pgbench</> to set the fillfactor (Pavan + Deolasee) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add timestamps to <application>contrib/pgbench</> <literal>-l</> + (Greg Smith) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add usage count statistics to + <filename>contrib/pgbuffercache</filename> (Greg Smith) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add GIN support for <filename>contrib/hstore</> (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add GIN support for <filename>contrib/pg_trgm</> (Guillaume Smet, Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update OS/X startup scripts in + <filename>contrib/start-scripts</filename> (Mark Cotner, David + Fetter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Restrict <function>pgrowlocks()</function> and + <function>dblink_get_pkey()</function> to users who have + <literal>SELECT</literal> privilege on the target table (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Restrict <filename>contrib/pgstattuple</filename> functions to + superusers (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <filename>contrib/xml2</filename> is deprecated and planned for + removal in 8.4 (Peter) + </para> + + <para> + The new XML support in core PostgreSQL supersedes this module. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + </sect2> + </sect1> diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/release-8.4.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/release-8.4.sgml new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..be3d1d9cb02 --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/src/sgml/release-8.4.sgml @@ -0,0 +1,3208 @@ +<!-- $PostgreSQL: pgsql/doc/src/sgml/release-8.4.sgml,v 1.1 2009/05/02 20:17:19 tgl Exp $ --> +<!-- See header comment in release.sgml about typical markup --> + + <sect1 id="release-8-4"> + <title>Release 8.4</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2009-??-??, ITEMS CURRENT AS OF 2009-04-08</simpara> + </note> + + <sect2> + <title>Overview</title> + + <para> + After many years of development, <productname>PostgreSQL</> has + become feature-complete in many areas. This release shows a + targeted approach to adding features (e.g., authentication, + monitoring, space reuse), and adds capabilities defined in the + later SQL standards. The major areas of enhancement are: + </para> + + <itemizedlist> + + <!-- This list duplicates items below, but without authors or details--> + + <listitem> + <para> + Windowing Functions + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Common Table Expressions and Recursive Joins + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Default and variadic parameters for functions + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Parallel Restore + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Column Permissions + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Per-database locale settings + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improved hash indexes + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improved join performance for <literal>EXISTS</> and <literal>NOT EXISTS</> queries + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Easier-to-use Warm Standby + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Automatic sizing of the Free Space Map + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Visibility Map (greatly reduces vacuum overhead for slowly-changing tables) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Version-aware psql (backslash commands work against older servers) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support SSL certificates for user authentication + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Per-function runtime statistics + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Easy editing of functions in psql + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + New contrib modules: pg_stat_statements, auto_explain, citext, btree_gin + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + <para> + The above items are explained in more detail in the sections below. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 8.4</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore using <application>pg_dump</application> is + required for those wishing to migrate data from any previous + release. + </para> + + <para> + Observe the following incompatibilities: + </para> + + <sect3> + <title>General</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Use 64-bit integer datetimes by default (Neil Conway) + </para> + + <para> + Previously this was selected by <application>configure</>'s + <option>--enable-integer-datetimes</> option. To retain + the old behavior, build with <option>--disable-integer-datetimes</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove <application>ipcclean</> utility command (Bruce) + </para> + + <para> + The utility only worked on a few platforms. Users should use + their operating system tools instead. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Server Settings</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Change default setting for + <literal>log_min_messages</> to <literal>warning</> (previously + it was <literal>notice</>) to reduce log file volume (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <literal>debug_print_parse</>, <literal>debug_print_rewritten</>, + and <literal>debug_print_plan</> + output appear at <literal>LOG</> message level, not + <literal>DEBUG1</> as formerly (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <literal>debug_pretty_print</> default to <literal>on</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove <varname>explain_pretty_print</> parameter (no longer needed) (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <varname>log_temp_files</> settable by superusers only, like other + logging options (Simon Riggs) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove automatic appending of the epoch timestamp when no <literal>%</> + escapes are present in <literal>log_filename</> (Robert Haas) + </para> + + <para> + This change was made because some users wanted a fixed log filename, + for use with an external log rotation tool. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove <varname>log_restartpoints</> from <filename>recovery.conf</>; + instead use <varname>log_checkpoints</> (Simon) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove support for the (insecure) <literal>crypt</> authentication method + (Magnus) + </para> + + <para> + This effectively obsoletes pre-<productname>PostgreSQL</> 7.2 client + libraries, as there is no longer any non-plaintext password method that + they can use. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove <varname>krb_realm</> and <varname>krb_server_hostname</>; + these are now set in <filename>pg_hba.conf</> instead (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + There are also significant changes in <link + linkend="release-8-4-pg-hba-conf"><filename>pg_hba.conf</></link>, + as described below. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Queries</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Change <command>TRUNCATE</> and <command>LOCK</> to + apply to child tables of the specified table(s) (Peter) + </para> + + <para> + These commands now accept an <literal>ONLY</> option that prevents + processing child tables; this option must be used if the old + behavior is needed. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <command>SELECT DISTINCT</> and + <literal>UNION</>/<literal>INTERSECT</>/<literal>EXCEPT</> + no longer always produce sorted output (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Previously, these types of queries always removed duplicate rows + by means of Sort/Unique processing (i.e., sort then remove adjacent + duplicates). Now they can be implemented by hashing, which will not + produce sorted output. If an application relied on the output being + in sorted order, the recommended fix is to add an <literal>ORDER BY</> + clause. As a short-term workaround, the previous behavior can be + restored by disabling <literal>enable_hashagg</>, but that is a very + performance-expensive fix. <literal>SELECT DISTINCT ON</> never uses + hashing, however, so its behavior is unchanged. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Force child tables to inherit <literal>CHECK</> constraints from parents + (Alex Hunsaker, Nikhil Sontakke, Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Formerly it was possible to drop such a constraint from a child + table, allowing rows that violate the constraint to be visible + when scanning the parent table. This was deemed inconsistent, + as well as contrary to SQL standard. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Disallow negative <literal>LIMIT</> or <literal>OFFSET</> + values, rather than treating them as zero (Simon) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Disallow <command>LOCK TABLE</> outside a transaction block + (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Such an operation is useless because the lock would be released + immediately. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Sequences now contain an additional <structfield>start_value</> column + (Zoltan Boszormenyi) + </para> + + <para> + This supports <command>ALTER SEQUENCE ... RESTART</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + + <sect3> + <title>Functions and Operators</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <type>numeric</> zero raised to a fractional power return + <literal>0</>, rather than throwing an error, and make + <type>numeric</> zero raised to the zero power return <literal>1</>, + rather than error (Bruce) + </para> + + <para> + This matches the longstanding <type>float8</> behavior. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow unary minus of floating-point values to produce minus zero (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The changed behavior is more <acronym>IEEE</>-standard + compliant. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Throw an error if an escape character is the last character in + a <literal>LIKE</> pattern (i.e., it has nothing to escape) (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Previously, such an escape character was silently ignored, + thus possibly masking application logic errors. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove <literal>~=~</> and <literal>~<>~</> operators + formerly used for <literal>LIKE</> index comparisons (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Pattern indexes now use the regular equality operator. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <function>xpath()</> now passes its arguments to <application>libxml</> + without any changes (Andrew) + </para> + + <para> + This means that the XML argument must be a well-formed XML document. + The previous coding attempted to allow XML fragments, but it did not + work well. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <function>xmlelement()</> format attribute values just like + content values (Peter) + </para> + + <para> + Previously, attribute values were formatted according to the + normal SQL output behavior, which is sometimes at odds with + XML rules. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Adopt a faster algorithm for hash functions (Kenneth Marshall, + based on work of Bob Jenkins) + </para> + + <para> + Many of the built-in hash functions now deliver different results on + little-endian and big-endian platforms. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + <sect4> + <title>Temporal Functions and Operators</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + <varname>DateStyle</> no longer controls <type>interval</> output + formatting; instead there is a new variable <varname>IntervalStyle</> + (Ron Mayer) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve consistency of handling of fractional seconds in + <type>timestamp</> and <type>interval</> output (Ron Mayer) + </para> + + <para> + This may result in displaying a different number of fractional + digits than before, or rounding instead of truncating. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <function>to_char()</>'s localized month/day names depend + on <varname>LC_TIME</>, not <varname>LC_MESSAGES</> (Euler + Taveira de Oliveira) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Cause <function>to_date()</> and <function>to_timestamp()</> + to more consistently report errors for invalid input (Brendan + Jurd) + </para> + + <para> + Previous versions would often ignore or silently misread input + that did not match the format string. Such cases will now + result in an error. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <function>to_timestamp()</> to not require upper/lower case + matching for meridian (<literal>AM</>/<literal>PM</>) and era + (<literal>BC</>/<literal>AD</>) format designations (Brendan + Jurd) + </para> + + <para> + For example, input value <literal>ad</> now matches the format + string <literal>AD</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect4> + + </sect3> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <para> + Below you will find a detailed account of the changes between + <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> 8.4 and the previous major + release. + </para> + + <sect3> + <title>Performance</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve optimizer statistics calculations (Jan Urbanski, Tom) + </para> + + <para> + In particular, estimates for full-text-search operators are + greatly improved. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <command>SELECT DISTINCT</> and + <literal>UNION</>/<literal>INTERSECT</>/<literal>EXCEPT</> to + use hashing (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This means that these types of queries no longer automatically + produce sorted output. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Create explicit concepts of semi-joins and anti-joins (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This work formalizes our previous ad-hoc treatment of <literal>IN + (SELECT ...)</> clauses, and extends it to <literal>EXISTS</> and + <literal>NOT EXISTS</> clauses. It should result in significantly + better planning of <literal>EXISTS</> and <literal>NOT EXISTS</> + queries. In general, logically equivalent <literal>IN</> and + <literal>EXISTS</> clauses should now have similar performance, + whereas previously <literal>IN</> often won. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve optimization of sub-selects beneath outer joins (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Formerly, a sub-select or view could not be optimized very well if it + appeared within the nullable side of an outer join and contained + non-strict expressions (for instance, constants) in its result list. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve the performance of <function>text_position()</> and + related functions by using Boyer-Moore-Horspool searching (David + Rowley) + </para> + + <para> + This is particularly helpful for long search patterns. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Reduce I/O load of writing the statistics collection file + by writing the file only when requested (Martin Pihlak) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve performance for bulk inserts (Robert Haas, Simon) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Increase the default value of <varname>default_statistics_target</> + from <literal>10</> to <literal>100</> (Greg Sabino Mullane, + Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The maximum value was also increased from <literal>1000</> to + <literal>10000</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Perform <varname>constraint_exclusion</> checking by default + in queries involving inheritance or <literal>UNION ALL</> (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + A new <varname>constraint_exclusion</> setting, + <literal>partition</>, was added to specify this behavior. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow I/O read-ahead for bitmap index scans (Greg Stark) + </para> + + <para> + The amount of read-ahead is controlled by + <varname>effective_io_concurrency</>. This feature is available only + if the kernel has <function>posix_fadvise()</> support. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Inline simple set-returning <acronym>SQL</> functions in + <literal>FROM</> clauses (Richard Rowell) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve performance of multi-batch hash joins by providing a special + case for join key values that are especially common in the outer + relation (Bryce Cutt, Ramon Lawrence) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Reduce volume of temporary data in multi-batch hash joins + by suppressing <quote>physical tlist</> optimization (Michael + Henderson, Ramon Lawrence) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Avoid waiting for idle-in-transaction sessions during + <command>CREATE INDEX CONCURRENTLY</> (Simon) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve performance of shared cache invalidation (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Server</title> + + <sect4> + <title>Settings</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Convert many <filename>postgresql.conf</> settings to enumerated + values so that <literal>pg_settings</> can display the valid + values (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <varname>cursor_tuple_fraction</> parameter to control the + fraction of a cursor's rows that the planner assumes will be + fetched (Robert Hell) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow underscores in the names of custom variable + classes in <filename>postgresql.conf</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect4> + + <sect4> + <title>Authentication</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Report appropriate error message for combination of <literal>MD5</> + authentication and <varname>db_user_namespace</> enabled (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support regular expressions in <filename>pg_ident.conf</> + (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <productname>Kerberos</>/<acronym>GSSAPI</> parameters + to be changed without restarting the postmaster (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect4> + + <sect4 id="release-8-4-pg-hba-conf"> + <title><filename>pg_hba.conf</></title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Parse <filename>pg_hba.conf</> fully when it is loaded, + so that errors are reported immediately (Magnus) + </para> + + <para> + Previously, most errors in the file wouldn't be detected until clients + tried to connect, so an erroneous file could render the system + unusable. With the new behavior, if an error is detected during + reload then the bad file is rejected and the postmaster continues + to use its old copy. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Show all parsing errors in <filename>pg_hba.conf</> instead of + aborting after the first one (Selena Deckelmann) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove the <literal>ident sameuser</> option, instead making that + behavior the default if no usermap is specified (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Change all authentication options to use <literal>name=value</> + syntax (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow a usermap parameter for all external authentication methods + (Magnus) + </para> + + <para> + Previously a usermap was only supported for <literal>ident</> + authentication. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>clientcert</> option to control requesting of a + client certificate (Magnus) + </para> + + <para> + Previously this was controlled by the presence of a root + certificate file in the server's data directory. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>cert</> authentication method to allow + <emphasis>user</> authentication via <acronym>SSL</> certificates + (Magnus) + </para> + + <para> + Previously <acronym>SSL</> certificates could only verify that + the client had access to a certificate, not authenticate a + user. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <literal>krb5</>, <literal>gssapi</> and <literal>sspi</> + realm and <literal>krb5</> host settings to be specified in + <filename>pg_hba.conf</> (Magnus) + </para> + + <para> + These override the settings in <filename>postgresql.conf</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <varname>include_realm</> parameter for <literal>krb5</>, + <literal>gssapi</>, and <literal>sspi</> methods (Magnus) + </para> + + <para> + This allows identical usernames from different realms to be + authenticated as different database users using usermaps. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support <literal>ident</> authentication over Unix-domain sockets + on <productname>Solaris</> (Garick Hamlin) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect4> + + <sect4> + <title>Continuous Archiving</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Provide an option to <function>pg_start_backup()</> to force its + implied checkpoint to finish as quickly as possible (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + The default behavior avoids excess I/O consumption, but that is + pointless if no concurrent query activity is going on. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <function>pg_stop_backup()</> wait for modified <acronym>WAL</> + files to be archived (Simon) + </para> + + <para> + This guarantees that the backup is valid at the time + <function>pg_stop_backup()</> completes. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Delay <quote>smart</> shutdown while a continuous archiving base backup + is in progress (Laurenz Albe) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Cancel a continuous archiving base backup if <quote>fast</> shutdown + is requested (Laurenz Albe) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <filename>recovery.conf</> boolean variables to take the + same range of string values as <filename>postgresql.conf</> + boolean variables + (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect4> + + <sect4> + <title>Monitoring</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>pg_conf_load_time()</> to report when + the <productname>PostgreSQL</> configuration files were last loaded + (George Gensure) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>pg_terminate_backend()</> to safely terminate a + backend (the <literal>SIGTERM</> signal works also) (Tom, Bruce) + </para> + + <para> + While it's always been possible to <literal>SIGTERM</> a single + backend, this was previously considered unsupported; and testing + of the case found some bugs that are now fixed. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add ability to track user-defined functions' call counts and + runtimes (Martin Pihlak) + </para> + + <para> + Function statistics appear in a new system view, + <literal>pg_stat_user_functions</>. Tracking is controlled + by the new parameter <varname>track_functions</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow specification of the maximum query string size in + <literal>pg_stat_activity</> via new + <varname>track_activity_query_size</> parameter (Thomas Lee) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Increase the maximum line length sent to <application>syslog</>, in + hopes of improving performance (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add read-only configuration variables <varname>segment_size</>, + <varname>wal_block_size</>, and <varname>wal_segment_size</> + (Bernd Helmle) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + When reporting a deadlock, report the text of all queries involved + in the deadlock to the server log (Itagaki Takahiro) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>pg_stat_get_activity(pid)</> function to return + information about a specific process id (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow the location of the server's statistics file to be specified + via <varname>stats_temp_directory</> (Magnus) + </para> + + <para> + This allows the statistics file to be placed in a + <acronym>RAM</>-resident directory to reduce I/O requirements. + On startup/shutdown, the file is copied to its traditional location + (<literal>$PGDATA/global/</>) so it is preserved across restarts. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect4> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Queries</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add support for <literal>WINDOW</> functions (Hitoshi Harada) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add support for <literal>WITH</> clauses (CTEs), including <literal>WITH + RECURSIVE</> (Yoshiyuki Asaba, Tatsuo Ishii, Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <command>TABLE</> command (Peter) + </para> + + <para> + <literal>TABLE tablename</> is a SQL standard short-hand for + <literal>SELECT * FROM tablename</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <literal>AS</> to be optional when specifying a + <command>SELECT</> (or <literal>RETURNING</>) column output + label (Hiroshi Saito) + </para> + + <para> + This works so long as the column label is not any + <productname>PostgreSQL</> keyword; otherwise <literal>AS</> is still + needed. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support set-returning functions in <command>SELECT</> result lists + even for functions that return their result via a tuplestore (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + In particular, this means that functions written in PL/PgSQL + and other PL languages can now be called this way. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support set-returning functions in the output of aggregation + and grouping queries (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <command>SELECT FOR UPDATE</>/<literal>SHARE</> to work + on inheritance trees (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add infrastructure for <acronym>SQL/MED</> (Martin Pihlak, + Peter) + </para> + + <para> + There are no remote or external <acronym>SQL/MED</> capabilities + yet, but this change provides a standardized and future-proof + system for managing connection information for modules like + <filename>dblink</> and <filename>plproxy</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Invalidate cached plans when referenced schemas, functions, operators, + or operator classes are modified (Martin Pihlak, Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This improves the system's ability to respond to on-the-fly + DDL changes. + </para> + </listitem> + <listitem> + <para> + Allow comparison of composite types and allow arrays of + anonymous composite types (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This allows constructs such as + <literal>row(1, 1.1) = any (array[row(7, 7.7), row(1, 1.0)])</>. + This is particularly useful in recursive queries. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add support for Unicode string literal and identifier specifications + using code points, e.g. <literal>U&'d\0061t\+000061'</> + (Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve the parser's ability to report error locations (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + An error location is now reported for many semantic errors, + such as mismatched datatypes, that previously could not be localized. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + <sect4> + <title><command>TRUNCATE</></title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support statement-level <literal>ON TRUNCATE</> triggers (Simon) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>RESTART</>/<literal>CONTINUE IDENTITY</> options + for <command>TRUNCATE TABLE</> + (Zoltan Boszormenyi) + </para> + + <para> + The start value of a sequence can be changed by <command>ALTER + SEQUENCE START WITH</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <command>TRUNCATE tab1, tab1</> to succeed (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add a separate <command>TRUNCATE</> permission (Robert Haas) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect4> + + <sect4> + <title><command>EXPLAIN</></title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>EXPLAIN VERBOSE</> show the output columns of each + plan node (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Previously <command>EXPLAIN VERBOSE</> output an internal + representation of the query plan. (That behavior is now + available via <varname>debug_print_plan</>.) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>EXPLAIN</> identify subplans and initplans with + individual labels (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>EXPLAIN</> honor <varname>debug_print_plan</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <command>EXPLAIN</> on <command>CREATE TABLE AS</> (Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect4> + + <sect4> + <title><literal>LIMIT</>/<literal>OFFSET</></title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow sub-selects in <literal>LIMIT</> and <literal>OFFSET</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <acronym>SQL</>-standard syntax for + <literal>LIMIT</>/<literal>OFFSET</> capabilities (Peter) + </para> + + <para> + To wit, + <literal>OFFSET num {ROW|ROWS} FETCH {FIRST|NEXT} [num] {ROW|ROWS} + ONLY</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect4> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Object Manipulation</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add support for column-level privileges (Stephen Frost, KaiGai + Kohei) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Refactor multi-object <command>DROP</> operations to reduce the + need for <literal>CASCADE</> (Alex Hunsaker) + </para> + + <para> + For example, if table <literal>B</> has a dependency on table + <literal>A</>, the command <literal>DROP TABLE A, B</> no longer + requires the <literal>CASCADE</> option. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix various problems with concurrent <command>DROP</> commands + by ensuring that locks are taken before we begin to drop dependencies + of an object (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve reporting of dependencies during <command>DROP</> + commands (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>WITH [NO] DATA</> clause to <command>CREATE TABLE + AS</>, per the <acronym>SQL</> standard (Peter, Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add support for user-defined I/O conversion casts (Heikki) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <command>CREATE AGGREGATE</> to use an <type>internal</> + transition datatype (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>LIKE</> clause to <command>CREATE TYPE</> (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This simplifies creation of data types that use the same internal + representation as an existing type. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow specification of the type category and <quote>preferred</> + status for user-defined base types (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This allows more control over the coercion behavior of user-defined + types. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <command>CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW</> to add columns to the + end of a view (Robert Haas) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + <sect4> + <title><command>ALTER</></title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <command>ALTER TYPE RENAME</> (Petr Jelinek) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <command>ALTER SEQUENCE ... RESTART</> (with no parameter) to + reset a sequence to its initial value (Zoltan Boszormenyi) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Modify the <command>ALTER TABLE</> syntax to allow all reasonable + combinations for tables, indexes, sequences, and views (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This change allows the following new syntaxes: + + <itemizedlist> + <listitem> + <para> + <command>ALTER SEQUENCE OWNER TO</> + </para> + </listitem> + <listitem> + <para> + <command>ALTER VIEW ALTER COLUMN SET/DROP DEFAULT</> + </para> + </listitem> + <listitem> + <para> + <command>ALTER VIEW OWNER TO</> + </para> + </listitem> + <listitem> + <para> + <command>ALTER VIEW SET SCHEMA</> + </para> + </listitem> + </itemizedlist> + + There is no actual new functionality here, but formerly + you had to say <command>ALTER TABLE</> to do these things, + which was confusing. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add support for the syntax <command>ALTER TABLE ... ALTER COLUMN + ... SET DATA TYPE</> (Peter) + </para> + + <para> + This is <acronym>SQL</>-standard syntax for functionality that + was already supported. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>ALTER TABLE SET WITHOUT OIDS</> rewrite the table + to physically remove <type>OID</> values (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Also, add <command>ALTER TABLE SET WITH OIDS</> to rewrite the + table to add <type>OID</>s. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect4> + + <sect4> + <title>Database Manipulation</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve reporting of + <command>CREATE</>/<command>DROP</>/<command>RENAME DATABASE</> + failure when uncommitted prepared transactions are the cause + (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <varname>LC_COLLATE</> and <varname>LC_CTYPE</> into + per-database settings (Radek Strnad, Heikki) + </para> + + <para> + This makes collation similar to encoding, which was always + configurable per database. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve checks that the database encoding, collation + (<varname>LC_COLLATE</>), and character classes + (<varname>LC_CTYPE</>) match (Heikki) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <command>ALTER DATABASE SET TABLESPACE</> to move a database + to a new tablespace (Guillaume Lelarge, Bernd Helmle) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect4> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Utility Operations</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add a <literal>VERBOSE</> option to the <command>CLUSTER</> command and + <application>clusterdb</> (Jim Cox) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Decrease memory requirements for recording pending trigger + events (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + <sect4> + <title>Indexes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Dramatically improve the speed of building and accessing hash + indexes (Tom Raney, Shreya Bhargava) + </para> + + <para> + This allows hash indexes to be sometimes faster than btree + indexes. However, hash indexes are still not crash-safe. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make hash indexes store only the hash code, not the full value of + the indexed column (Xiao Meng) + </para> + + <para> + This greatly reduces the size of hash indexes for long indexed + values, improving performance. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Implement fast update option for GIN indexes (Teodor, Oleg) + </para> + + <para> + This option greatly improves update speed at a small penalty in search + speed. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <literal>xxx_pattern_ops</> indexes can now be used for simple + equality comparisons, not only for <literal>LIKE</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect4> + + <sect4> + <title>Full Text Indexes</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove the requirement to use <literal>@@@</> when doing + <acronym>GIN</> weighted lookups on full text indexes (Tom, Teodor) + </para> + + <para> + The normal <literal>@@</> text search operator can be used + instead. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add an optimizer selectivity function for <literal>@@</> text + search operations (Jan Urbanski) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow prefix matching in full text searches (Teodor Sigaev, + Oleg Bartunov) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support multi-column <acronym>GIN</> indexes (Teodor Sigaev) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve support for Nepali language and Devanagari alphabet (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect4> + + <sect4> + <title><command>VACUUM</></title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Track free space in separate per-relation <quote>fork</> files (Heikki) + </para> + + <para> + Free space discovered by <command>VACUUM</> is now recorded in + <filename>*_fsm</> files, rather than in a fixed-sized shared memory + area. The <varname>max_fsm_pages</> and <varname>max_fsm_relations</> + settings have been removed, greatly simplifying administration of + free space management. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add a visibility map to track pages that do not require + vacuuming (Heikki) + </para> + + <para> + This allows <command>VACUUM</> to avoid scanning all of + a table when only a portion of the table needs vacuuming. + The visibility map is stored in per-relation <quote>fork</> files. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <varname>vacuum_freeze_table_age</> parameter to control + when <command>VACUUM</> should ignore the visibility map and + do a full table scan to freeze tuples (Heikki) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Track transaction snapshots more carefully (Alvaro) + </para> + + <para> + This improves <command>VACUUM</>'s ability to reclaim space + in the presence of long-running transactions. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add ability to specify per-relation autovacuum and <acronym>TOAST</> + parameters in <command>CREATE TABLE</> (Alvaro, Euler Taveira de + Oliveira) + </para> + + <para> + Autovacuum options used to be stored in a system table. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>--freeze</> option to <application>vacuumdb</> + (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect4> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Data Types</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add a <literal>CaseSensitive</> option for text search synonym + dictionaries (Simon) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve the precision of <type>NUMERIC</> division (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add basic arithmetic operators for <type>int2</> with <type>int8</> + (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This eliminates the need for explicit casting in some situations. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <type>UUID</> input to accept an optional hyphen after + every fourth digit (Robert Haas) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <literal>on</>/<literal>off</> as input for the boolean data type + (Itagaki Takahiro) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow spaces around <literal>NaN</> in the input string for + type <type>numeric</> (Sam Mason) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + <sect4> + <title>Temporal Data Types</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Reject year <literal>0 BC</> and years <literal>000</> and + <literal>0000</> (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Previously these were interpreted as <literal>1 BC</>. + (Note: years <literal>0</> and <literal>00</> are still assumed to be + the year 2000.) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Include <literal>SGT</> (Singapore time) in the default list of + known time zone abbreviations (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support <literal>infinity</> and <literal>-infinity</> as + values of type <type>date</> (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make parsing of <type>interval</> literals more standard-compliant (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + For example, <literal>INTERVAL '1' YEAR</> now does what it's + supposed to. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <type>interval</> fractional-seconds precision to be specified + after the <literal>second</> keyword, for <acronym>SQL</> standard + compliance (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Formerly the precision had to be specified after the keyword + <type>interval</>. (For backwards compatibility, this syntax is still + supported, though deprecated.) Data type definitions will now be + output using the standard format. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support the <acronym>IS0 8601</> <type>interval</> syntax (Ron + Mayer, Kevin Grittner) + </para> + + <para> + For example, <literal>INTERVAL 'P1Y2M3DT4H5M6.7S'</> is now + supported. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <varname>IntervalStyle</> parameter + which controls how <type>interval</> values are output (Ron Mayer) + </para> + + <para> + Valid values are: <literal>postgres</>, <literal>postgres_verbose</>, + <literal>sql_standard</>, <literal>iso_8601</>. This setting also + controls the handling of negative <type>interval</> input when only + some fields have positive/negative designations. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve consistency of handling of fractional seconds in + <type>timestamp</> and <type>interval</> output (Ron Mayer) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect4> + + <sect4> + <title>Arrays</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve the handling of casts applied to <literal>ARRAY[]</> + constructs, such as <literal>ARRAY[...]::integer[]</> + (Brendan Jurd) + </para> + + <para> + Formerly <productname>PostgreSQL</> attempted to determine a data type + for the <literal>ARRAY[]</> construct without reference to the ensuing + cast. This could fail unnecessarily in many cases, in particular when + the <literal>ARRAY[]</> construct was empty or contained only + ambiguous entries such as <literal>NULL</>. Now the cast is consulted + to determine the type that the array elements must be. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <acronym>SQL</>-syntax <type>ARRAY</> dimensions optional + to match the <acronym>SQL</> standard (Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>array_ndims()</> to return the number + of dimensions of an array (Robert Haas) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>array_length()</> to return the length + of an array for a specified dimension (Jim Nasby, Robert + Haas, Peter Eisentraut) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add aggregate function <function>array_agg()</>, which + returns all aggregated values as a single array (Robert Haas, + Jeff Davis, Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>unnest()</>, which converts an array to + individual row values (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This is the opposite of <function>array_agg()</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>array_fill()</> to create arrays initialized with + a value (Pavel Stehule) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>generate_subscripts()</> to simplify generating + the range of an array's subscripts (Pavel Stehule) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect4> + + <sect4> + <title>Wide-Value Storage (<acronym>TOAST</>)</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Consider <acronym>TOAST</> compression on values as short as + 32 bytes (previously 256 bytes) (Greg Stark) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Require 25% minimum space savings before using <acronym>TOAST</> + compression (previously 20% for small values and any-savings-at-all + for large values) (Greg) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve <acronym>TOAST</> heuristics for rows that have a mix of large + and small toastable fields, so that we prefer to push large values out + of line and don't compress small values unnecessarily (Greg, Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect4> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Functions</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Document that <function>setseed()</> allows values from + <literal>-1</> to <literal>1</> (not just <literal>0</> to + <literal>1</>), and enforce the valid range (Kris Jurka) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add server-side function <function>lo_import(filename, oid)</> + (Tatsuo) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>quote_nullable()</>, which behaves like + <function>quote_literal()</> but returns the string <literal>NULL</> for + a null argument (Brendan Jurd) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve full text search <function>headline()</> function to + allow extracting several fragments of text (Sushant Sinha) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>suppress_redundant_updates_trigger()</> trigger + function to avoid overhead for non-data-changing updates (Andrew) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>div(numeric, numeric)</> to perform <type>numeric</> + division without rounding (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <type>timestamp</> and <type>timestamptz</> versions of + <function>generate_series()</> (Hitoshi Harada) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + <sect4> + <title>Object Information Functions</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Implement <function>current_query()</> for use by functions + that need to know the currently running query (Tomas Doran) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>pg_get_keywords()</> to return a list of the + parser keywords (Dave Page) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>pg_get_functiondef()</> to see a function's + definition (Abhijit Menon-Sen) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Modify <function>pg_relation_size()</> to use <literal>regclass</> + (Heikki) + </para> + + <para> + <function>pg_relation_size(data_type_name)</> no longer works. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>boot_val</> and <literal>reset_val</> columns to + <literal>pg_settings</> output (Greg Smith) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add source file name and line number columns to + <literal>pg_settings</> output for variables set in a configuration + file (Magnus, Alvaro) + </para> + + <para> + For security reasons, these columns are only visible to superusers. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add support for <varname>CURRENT_CATALOG</>, + <varname>CURRENT_SCHEMA</>, <varname>SET CATALOG</>, <varname>SET + SCHEMA</> (Peter) + </para> + + <para> + These provide <acronym>SQL</>-standard syntax for existing features. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>pg_typeof()</> which returns the data type + of any value (Brendan Jurd) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <function>version()</> return information about whether + the server is a 32- or 64-bit binary (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix the behavior of information schema columns + <literal>is_insertable_into</> and <literal>is_updatable</> to + be consistent (Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Convert remaining builtin set-returning functions to use + <literal>OUT</> parameters (Jaime Casanova) + </para> + + <para> + This makes it possible to call these functions without specifying + a column list: <function>pg_show_all_settings()</>, + <function>pg_lock_status()</>, <function>pg_prepared_xact()</>, + <function>pg_prepared_statement()</>, <function>pg_cursor()</> + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <function>pg_*_is_visible()</> and + <function>has_*_privilege()</> functions return <literal>NULL</> + for invalid OIDs, rather than reporting an error (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Extend <function>has_*_privilege()</> functions to allow inquiring + about the OR of multiple privileges in one call (Stephen + Frost, Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>has_column_privilege()</> and + <function>has_any_column_privilege()</> functions (Stephen + Frost, Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect4> + + <sect4> + <title>Function Creation</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support variadic functions (functions with a variable number + of arguments) (Pavel Stehule) + </para> + + <para> + Only trailing arguments can be optional, and they all must be + of the same data type. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support default values for function arguments (Pavel Stehule) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <command>CREATE FUNCTION ... RETURNS TABLE</> clause (Pavel + Stehule) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <acronym>SQL</>-language functions to return the output + of an <command>INSERT</>/<command>UPDATE</>/<command>DELETE</> + <literal>RETURNING</> clause (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect4> + + <sect4> + <title>PL/PgSQL Server-Side Language</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support <literal>EXECUTE USING</> for easier insertion of data + values into a dynamic query string (Pavel Stehule) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow looping over the results of a cursor using a <literal>FOR</> + loop (Pavel Stehule) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support <literal>RETURN QUERY EXECUTE</> (Pavel + Stehule) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve the <literal>RAISE</> command (Pavel Stehule) + + <itemizedlist> + <listitem> + <para> + Support <literal>DETAIL</> and <literal>HINT</> fields + </para> + </listitem> + <listitem> + <para> + Support specification of the <literal>SQLSTATE</> error code + </para> + </listitem> + <listitem> + <para> + Support an exception name parameter + </para> + </listitem> + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <literal>RAISE</> without parameters in an exception + block to re-throw the current error + </para> + </listitem> + </itemizedlist> + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow specification of <varname>SQLSTATE</> codes + in <literal>EXCEPTION</> lists (Pavel Stehule) + </para> + + <para> + This is useful for handling custom <varname>SQLSTATE</> codes. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support the <literal>CASE</> statement (Pavel Stehule) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>RETURN QUERY</> set the special <literal>FOUND</> and + <command>GET DIAGNOSTICS</> <literal>ROW_COUNT</> variables + (Pavel Stehule) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>FETCH</> and <command>MOVE</> set the + <command>GET DIAGNOSTICS</> <literal>ROW_COUNT</> variable + (Andrew Gierth) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Avoid memory leakage when the same function is called at varying + exception-block nesting depths (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect4> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Client Applications</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <literal>pg_ctl restart</> to preserve command-line arguments + (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>-w</>/<literal>--no-password</> option that + prevents password prompting in all utilities that have a + <literal>-W</>/<literal>--password</> option (Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove <option>-q</> (quiet) option of <application>createdb</>, + <application>createuser</>, <application>dropdb</>, + <application>dropuser</> (Peter) + </para> + + <para> + These options have had no effect since <productname>PostgreSQL</> + 8.3. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + <sect4> + <title><application>psql</></title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove verbose startup banner; now just suggest <literal>help</> + (Joshua Drake) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <literal>help</> show common backslash commands (Greg + Sabino Mullane) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <literal>\pset format wrapped</> mode to wrap output to the + screen width, or file/pipe output too if <literal>\pset columns</> + is set (Bryce Nesbitt) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow all supported spellings of boolean values in <command>\pset</>, + rather than just <literal>on</> and <literal>off</> (Bruce) + </para> + + <para> + Formerly, any string other than <quote>off</> was silently taken + to mean <literal>true</>. <application>psql</> will now complain + about unrecognized spellings (but still take them as <literal>true</>). + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Use the pager for wide output (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Require a space between a one-letter backslash command and its first + argument (Bernd Helmle) + </para> + + <para> + This removes a historical source of ambiguity. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve tab completion support for schema-qualified and + quoted identifiers (Greg Sabino Mullane) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add optional <literal>on</>/<literal>off</> argument for + <command>\timing</> (David Fetter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Display access control rights on multiple lines (Brendan + Jurd, Andreas Scherbaum) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>\l</> show database access privileges (Andrew Gilligan) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>\l+</> show database sizes, if permissions + allow (Andrew Gilligan) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add the <command>\ef</> command to edit function definitions + (Abhijit Menon-Sen) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect4> + + <sect4> + <title><application>psql</> \d* commands</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>\d*</> commands that do not have a pattern argument + show system objects only if the <literal>S</> modifier is specified + (Greg Sabino Mullane, Bruce) + </para> + + <para> + The former behavior was inconsistent across different variants + of <command>\d</>, and in most cases it provided no easy way to see + just user objects. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve <command>\d*</> commands to work with older + <productname>PostgreSQL</> server versions (back to 7.4), + not only the current server version + (Guillaume Lelarge) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>\d</> show foreign-key constraints that reference + the selected table (Kenneth D'Souza) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>\d</> on a sequence show its column values + (Euler Taveira de Oliveira) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add column storage type and other relation options to the + <command>\d+</> display (Gregory Stark, Euler Taveira de + Oliveira) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Show relation size in <command>\dt+</> output (Dickson S. + Guedes) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Show the possible values of <literal>enum</> types in <command>\dT+</> + (David Fetter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <command>\dC</> to accept a wildcard pattern, which matches + either datatype involved in the cast (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>\df</> not hide functions that take or return + type <type>cstring</> (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Previously, such functions were hidden because most of them are + datatype I/O functions, which were deemed uninteresting. The new + policy about hiding system functions by default makes this wart + unnecessary. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect4> + + <sect4> + <title><application>pg_dump</></title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add a <literal>--no-tablespaces</> option to + <application>pg_dump</>/<application>pg_dumpall</>/<application>pg_restore</> + so that dumps can be restored to clusters that have non-matching + tablespace layouts (Gavin Roy) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove <option>-d</> and <option>-D</> options from + <application>pg_dump</> and <application>pg_dumpall</> (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + These options were too frequently confused with the option to + select a database name in other <productname>PostgreSQL</> + client applications. The functionality is still available, + but you must now spell out the long option name + <option>--inserts</> or <option>--column-inserts</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove <option>-i</>/<option>--ignore-version</> option from + <application>pg_dump</> and <application>pg_dumpall</> (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Use of this option does not throw an error, but it has no + effect. This option was removed because the version checks + are necessary for safety. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Disable <varname>statement_timeout</> during dump and restore + (Joshua Drake) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <application>pg_dump</>/<application>pg_dumpall</> option + <option>--lock-wait-timeout</> (David Gould) + </para> + + <para> + This allows dumps to fail if unable to acquire a shared lock + within the specified amount of time. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Reorder <application>pg_dump</> <literal>--data-only</> output + to dump tables referenced by foreign keys before + the referencing tables (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This allows data loads when foreign keys are already present. + If circular references make a safe ordering impossible, a + <literal>NOTICE</> is issued. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <application>pg_dump</>, <application>pg_dumpall</>, and + <application>pg_restore</> to use a specified role (Benedek + László) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow <application>pg_restore</> to use multiple concurrent + connections to do the restore (Andrew) + </para> + + <para> + The number of concurrent connections is controlled by the option + <literal>--jobs</>. This is supported only for custom-format archives. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect4> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Programming Tools</title> + + <sect4> + <title><application>libpq</></title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow the <type>OID</> to be specified when importing a large + object, via new function <function>lo_import_with_oid()</> (Tatsuo) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <quote>events</> support (Andrew Chernow, Merlin Moncure) + </para> + + <para> + This adds the ability to register callbacks to manage private + data associated with <structname>PGconn</> and <structname>PGresult</> + objects. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve error handling to allow the return of multiple + error messages as multi-line error reports (Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <function>PQexecParams()</> and related functions return + <varname>PGRES_EMPTY_QUERY</> for an empty query (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + They previously returned <varname>PGRES_COMMAND_OK</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Document how to avoid the overhead of <function>WSACleanup()</> + on Windows (Andrew Chernow) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect4> + + <sect4> + <title><application>libpq</> <acronym>SSL</> (Secure Sockets Layer) + support</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix certificate validation for <acronym>SSL</> connections + (Magnus) + </para> + + <para> + <application>libpq</> now supports verifying both the certificate + and the name of the server when making <acronym>SSL</> + connections. If a root certificate is not available to use for + verification, <acronym>SSL</> connections will fail. The + <literal>sslmode</> parameter is used to enable the certificate + verification. + </para> + + <para> + The default is still not to do any verification. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow the file locations for client certificates to be specified + (Mark Woodward, Alvaro, Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add a <function>PQinitOpenSSL</> function to allow greater control + over OpenSSL/libcrypto initialization (Andrew Chernow) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <application>libpq</> unregister its <application>OpenSSL</> + callbacks when no database connections remain open + (Bruce, Magnus, Russell Smith) + </para> + + <para> + This is required for applications that unload the libpq library, + otherwise invalid <application>OpenSSL</> callbacks will remain. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect4> + + <sect4> + <title><application>ecpg</></title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add localization support for messages (Euler Taveira de + Oliveira) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + ecpg parser is now automatically generated from the server + parser (Michael) + </para> + + <para> + Previously the ecpg parser was hand-maintained. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect4> + + <sect4> + <title>Server Programming Interface (<acronym>SPI</>)</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add support for single-use plans with out-of-line + parameters (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add new <varname>SPI_OK_REWRITTEN</> return code for + <function>SPI_execute()</> (Heikki) + </para> + + <para> + This is used when a command is rewritten to another type of + command. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove unnecessary inclusions from <filename>executor/spi.h</> (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + SPI-using modules might need to add some <literal>#include</> + lines if they were depending on <filename>spi.h</> to include + things for them. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect4> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Build Options</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Update build system to use <productname>Autoconf</> 2.61 (Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Require <productname>GNU bison</> for source code builds (Peter) + </para> + + <para> + This has effectively been required for several years, but now there + is no infrastructure claiming to support other parser tools. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <application>pg_config</> <literal>--htmldir</> option + (Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Pass <type>float4</> by value inside the server (Zoltan + Boszormenyi) + </para> + + <para> + Add <application>configure</> option + <literal>--disable-float4-byval</> to use the old behavior. + External C functions that use old-style (version 0) call convention + and pass or return <type>float4</> values will be broken by this + change, so you may need the <application>configure</> option if you + have such functions and don't want to update them. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Pass <type>float8</>, <type>int8</>, and related datatypes + by value inside the server on 64-bit platforms (Zoltan Boszormenyi) + </para> + + <para> + Add <application>configure</> option + <literal>--disable-float8-byval</> to use the old behavior. + As above, this change might break old-style external C functions. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add configure options <literal>--with-segsize</>, + <literal>--with-blocksize</>, <literal>--with-wal-blocksize</>, + <literal>--with-wal-segsize</> (Zdenek Kotala, Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This simplifies build-time control over several constants that + previously could only be changed by editing + <filename>pg_config_manual.h</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow threaded builds on <productname>Solaris</> 2.5 (Bruce) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Use the system's <function>getopt_long()</> on <productname>Solaris</> + (Zdenek Kotala, Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This makes option processing more consistent with what Solaris users + expect. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add support for the <productname>Sun Studio</> compiler on + <productname>Linux</> (Julius Stroffek) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Append the major version number to the backend <application>gettext</> + domain, and the <literal>soname</> major version number to + libraries' <application>gettext</> domain (Peter) + </para> + + <para> + This simplifies parallel installations of multiple versions. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add support for code coverage testing with <application>gcov</> + (Michelle Caisse) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Allow out-of-tree builds on <productname>Mingw</> and + <productname>Cygwin</> (Richard Evans) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix the use of <productname>Mingw</> as a cross-compiling source + platform (Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Source Code</title> + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support 64-bit time zone data files (Heikki) + </para> + + <para> + This adds support for daylight saving time (<acronym>DST</>) + calculations beyond the year 2038. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Deprecate use of platform's <type>time_t</> data type (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Some platforms have migrated to 64-bit <type>time_t</>, some have + not, and Windows can't make up its mind what it's doing. Define + <type>pg_time_t</> to have the same meaning as <type>time_t</>, + but always be 64 bits (unless the platform has no 64-bit integer type), + and use that type in all module APIs and on-disk data formats. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix bug in handling of the time zone database when cross-compiling + (Richard Evans) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Link backend object files in one step, rather than in stages + (Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve <application>gettext</> support to allow better translation + of plurals (Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add message translation support to the PL languages (Alvaro, Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add more <application>DTrace</> probes (Robert Lor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Enable <application>DTrace</> support on <application>Mac OS X + Leopard</> and other non-Solaris platforms (Robert Lor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Simplify and standardize conversions between C strings and + <type>text</> datums, by providing common functions for the purpose + (Brendan Jurd, Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Clean up the <filename>include/catalog/</> header files so that + frontend programs can include them without including + <filename>postgres.h</> + (Zdenek Kotala) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <type>name</> char-aligned, and suppress zero-padding of + <type>name</> entries in indexes (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add a hook to let plug-ins monitor the executor (Itagaki + Takahiro) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add a hook to allow the planner's statistics lookup behavior to + be overridden (Simon Riggs) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>shmem_startup_hook()</> for custom shared memory + requirements (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Replace the index access method <function>amgetmulti</> entry point + with <function>amgetbitmap</>, and extend the API for + <function>amgettuple</> to support run-time determination of + operator lossiness (Heikki, Tom, Teodor) + </para> + + <para> + The API for GIN and GiST opclass <function>consistent</> functions + has been extended as well. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add support for partial-match searches in <acronym>GIN</> indexes + (Teodor Sigaev, Oleg Bartunov) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Replace <structname>pg_class</> column <structfield>reltriggers</> + with boolean <structfield>relhastriggers</> (Simon) + </para> + + <para> + Also remove unused <structname>pg_class</> columns + <structfield>relukeys</>, <structfield>relfkeys</>, and + <structfield>relrefs</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add a <structfield>relistemp</> column to <structname>pg_class</> + to ease identification of temporary tables (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Move platform <acronym>FAQ</>s into the main documentation + (Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent parser input files from being built with any conflicts + (Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add support for the <literal>KOI8U</> (Ukrainian) encoding + (Peter) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add Japanese message translations (Japan PostgreSQL Users Group) + </para> + + <para> + This used to be maintained as a separate project. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix problem when setting <varname>LC_MESSAGES</> on + <application>MSVC</>-built systems (Hiroshi Inoue, Hiroshi + Saito, Magnus) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Contrib</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <filename>contrib/auto_explain</> to automatically run + <command>EXPLAIN</> on queries exceeding a specified duration + (Itagaki Takahiro, Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <filename>contrib/btree_gin</> to allow GIN indexes to + handle more datatypes (Oleg, Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <filename>contrib/citext</> to provide a case-insensitive, + multibyte-aware text data type (David Wheeler) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <filename>contrib/pg_stat_statements</> for server-wide + tracking of statement execution statistics (Itagaki Takahiro) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add duration and query mode options to <filename>contrib/pgbench</> + (Itagaki Takahiro) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix <filename>contrib/pgstattuple</> to handle tables and + indexes with over 2 billion pages (Tatsuhito Kasahara) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + In <filename>contrib/fuzzystrmatch</>, add a version of the + Levenshtein string-distance function that allows the user to + specify the costs of insertion, deletion, and substitution + (Volkan Yazici) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <filename>contrib/ltree</> support multibyte encodings + (laser) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve <filename>contrib/dblink</>'s reporting of errors from + the remote server (Joe Conway) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make sure <filename>contrib/dblink</> uses a password supplied + by the user, and not accidentally taken from the server's + <filename>.pgpass</> file (Joe Conway) + </para> + + <para> + This is a minor security enhancement. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add <function>fsm_page_contents()</> + to <filename>contrib/pageinspect</> (Heikki) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Modify <function>get_raw_page()</> to support free space map + (<filename>*_fsm</>) files. Also update + <filename>contrib/pg_freespacemap</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Add support for multibyte encodings to <filename>contrib/pg_trgm</> + (Teodor) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Rewrite <filename>contrib/intagg</> to use new + functions <function>array_agg()</> and <function>unnest()</> + (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove <filename>contrib/intarray</>'s definitions of the + <literal><@</> and <literal>@></> operators (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This avoids confusion with the equivalent built-in operators. + If needed, the <filename>contrib/intarray</> implementations + are still available under their historical names <literal>@</> + and <literal>~</>. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect3> + </sect2> + </sect1> diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/release-old.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/release-old.sgml new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..54fa37d9841 --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/src/sgml/release-old.sgml @@ -0,0 +1,6657 @@ +<!-- $PostgreSQL: pgsql/doc/src/sgml/release-old.sgml,v 1.1 2009/05/02 20:17:19 tgl Exp $ --> +<!-- See header comment in release.sgml about typical markup --> + + <sect1 id="release-7-3-21"> + <title>Release 7.3.21</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2008-01-07</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.3.20, + including fixes for significant security issues. + </para> + + <para> + This is expected to be the last <productname>PostgreSQL</> release + in the 7.3.X series. Users are encouraged to update to a newer + release branch soon. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.3.21</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.3.13, see the release + notes for 7.3.13. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent functions in indexes from executing with the privileges of + the user running <command>VACUUM</>, <command>ANALYZE</>, etc (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + Functions used in index expressions and partial-index + predicates are evaluated whenever a new table entry is made. It has + long been understood that this poses a risk of trojan-horse code + execution if one modifies a table owned by an untrustworthy user. + (Note that triggers, defaults, check constraints, etc. pose the + same type of risk.) But functions in indexes pose extra danger + because they will be executed by routine maintenance operations + such as <command>VACUUM FULL</>, which are commonly performed + automatically under a superuser account. For example, a nefarious user + can execute code with superuser privileges by setting up a + trojan-horse index definition and waiting for the next routine vacuum. + The fix arranges for standard maintenance operations + (including <command>VACUUM</>, <command>ANALYZE</>, <command>REINDEX</>, + and <command>CLUSTER</>) to execute as the table owner rather than + the calling user, using the same privilege-switching mechanism already + used for <literal>SECURITY DEFINER</> functions. To prevent bypassing + this security measure, execution of <command>SET SESSION + AUTHORIZATION</> and <command>SET ROLE</> is now forbidden within a + <literal>SECURITY DEFINER</> context. (CVE-2007-6600) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Require non-superusers who use <filename>/contrib/dblink</> to use only + password authentication, as a security measure (Joe) + </para> + + <para> + The fix that appeared for this in 7.3.20 was incomplete, as it plugged + the hole for only some <filename>dblink</> functions. (CVE-2007-6601, + CVE-2007-3278) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix potential crash in <function>translate()</> when using a multibyte + database encoding (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <filename>contrib/tablefunc</>'s <function>crosstab()</> handle + NULL rowid as a category in its own right, rather than crashing (Joe) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Require a specific version of <productname>Autoconf</> to be used + when re-generating the <command>configure</> script (Peter) + </para> + + <para> + This affects developers and packagers only. The change was made + to prevent accidental use of untested combinations of + <productname>Autoconf</> and <productname>PostgreSQL</> versions. + You can remove the version check if you really want to use a + different <productname>Autoconf</> version, but it's + your responsibility whether the result works or not. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-3-20"> + <title>Release 7.3.20</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2007-09-17</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains fixes from 7.3.19. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.3.20</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.3.13, see the release + notes for 7.3.13. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Prevent index corruption when a transaction inserts rows and + then aborts close to the end of a concurrent <command>VACUUM</> + on the same table (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Make <command>CREATE DOMAIN ... DEFAULT NULL</> work properly (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix crash when <varname>log_min_error_statement</> logging runs out + of memory (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Require non-superusers who use <filename>/contrib/dblink</> to use only + password authentication, as a security measure (Joe) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-3-19"> + <title>Release 7.3.19</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2007-04-23</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains fixes from 7.3.18, + including a security fix. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.3.19</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.3.13, see the release + notes for 7.3.13. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support explicit placement of the temporary-table schema within + <varname>search_path</>, and disable searching it for functions + and operators (Tom) + </para> + <para> + This is needed to allow a security-definer function to set a + truly secure value of <varname>search_path</>. Without it, + an unprivileged SQL user can use temporary objects to execute code + with the privileges of the security-definer function (CVE-2007-2138). + See <command>CREATE FUNCTION</> for more information. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix potential-data-corruption bug in how <command>VACUUM FULL</> handles + <command>UPDATE</> chains (Tom, Pavan Deolasee) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-3-18"> + <title>Release 7.3.18</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2007-02-05</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.3.17, including + a security fix. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.3.18</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.3.13, see the release + notes for 7.3.13. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + Remove security vulnerability that allowed connected users + to read backend memory (Tom) + </para> + <para> + The vulnerability involves changing the + data type of a table column used in a SQL function (CVE-2007-0555). + This error can easily be exploited to cause a backend crash, and in + principle might be used to read database content that the user + should not be able to access. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Fix rare bug wherein btree index page splits could fail + due to choosing an infeasible split point (Heikki Linnakangas) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Tighten security of multi-byte character processing for UTF8 sequences + over three bytes long (Tom) + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-3-17"> + <title>Release 7.3.17</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2007-01-08</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.3.16. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.3.17</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.3.13, see the release + notes for 7.3.13. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <itemizedlist> + + <listitem> + <para> + <function>to_number()</> and <function>to_char(numeric)</> + are now <literal>STABLE</>, not <literal>IMMUTABLE</>, for + new <application>initdb</> installs (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This is because <varname>lc_numeric</> can potentially + change the output of these functions. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Improve index usage of regular expressions that use parentheses (Tom) + </para> + + <para> + This improves <application>psql</> <literal>\d</> performance also. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-3-16"> + <title>Release 7.3.16</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2006-10-16</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.3.15. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.3.16</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.3.13, see the release + notes for 7.3.13. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Fix corner cases in pattern matching for + <application>psql</>'s <literal>\d</> commands</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix index-corrupting bugs in /contrib/ltree + (Teodor)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Back-port 7.4 spinlock code to improve performance and support +64-bit architectures better</para> </listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix SSL-related memory leak in libpq</para> </listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix backslash escaping in /contrib/dbmirror</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Adjust regression tests for recent changes in US DST laws +</para> </listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-3-15"> + <title>Release 7.3.15</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2006-05-23</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.3.14, + including patches for extremely serious security issues. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.3.15</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.3.13, see the release + notes for 7.3.13. + </para> + + <para> + Full security against the SQL-injection attacks described in + CVE-2006-2313 and CVE-2006-2314 might require changes in application + code. If you have applications that embed untrustworthy strings + into SQL commands, you should examine them as soon as possible to + ensure that they are using recommended escaping techniques. In + most cases, applications should be using subroutines provided by + libraries or drivers (such as <application>libpq</>'s + <function>PQescapeStringConn()</>) to perform string escaping, + rather than relying on <foreignphrase>ad hoc</> code to do it. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Change the server to reject invalidly-encoded multibyte +characters in all cases (Tatsuo, Tom)</para> +<para>While <productname>PostgreSQL</> has been moving in this direction for +some time, the checks are now applied uniformly to all encodings and all +textual input, and are now always errors not merely warnings. This change +defends against SQL-injection attacks of the type described in CVE-2006-2313. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Reject unsafe uses of <literal>\'</> in string literals</para> +<para>As a server-side defense against SQL-injection attacks of the type +described in CVE-2006-2314, the server now only accepts <literal>''</> and not +<literal>\'</> as a representation of ASCII single quote in SQL string +literals. By default, <literal>\'</> is rejected only when +<varname>client_encoding</> is set to a client-only encoding (SJIS, BIG5, GBK, +GB18030, or UHC), which is the scenario in which SQL injection is possible. +A new configuration parameter <varname>backslash_quote</> is available to +adjust this behavior when needed. Note that full security against +CVE-2006-2314 might require client-side changes; the purpose of +<varname>backslash_quote</> is in part to make it obvious that insecure +clients are insecure. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Modify <application>libpq</>'s string-escaping routines to be +aware of encoding considerations</para> +<para>This fixes <application>libpq</>-using applications for the security +issues described in CVE-2006-2313 and CVE-2006-2314. +Applications that use multiple <productname>PostgreSQL</> connections +concurrently should migrate to <function>PQescapeStringConn()</> and +<function>PQescapeByteaConn()</> to ensure that escaping is done correctly +for the settings in use in each database connection. Applications that +do string escaping <quote>by hand</> should be modified to rely on library +routines instead. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix some incorrect encoding conversion functions</para> +<para><function>win1251_to_iso</>, <function>alt_to_iso</>, +<function>euc_tw_to_big5</>, <function>euc_tw_to_mic</>, +<function>mic_to_euc_tw</> were all broken to varying +extents. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Clean up stray remaining uses of <literal>\'</> in strings +(Bruce, Jan)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix server to use custom DH SSL parameters correctly (Michael +Fuhr)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix various minor memory leaks</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-3-14"> + <title>Release 7.3.14</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2006-02-14</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.3.13. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.3.14</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.3.13, see the release + notes for 7.3.13. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> + +<listitem><para>Fix potential crash in <command>SET +SESSION AUTHORIZATION</> (CVE-2006-0553)</para> +<para>An unprivileged user could crash the server process, resulting in +momentary denial of service to other users, if the server has been compiled +with Asserts enabled (which is not the default). +Thanks to Akio Ishida for reporting this problem. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix bug with row visibility logic in self-inserted +rows (Tom)</para> +<para>Under rare circumstances a row inserted by the current command +could be seen as already valid, when it should not be. Repairs bug +created in 7.3.11 release. +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix race condition that could lead to <quote>file already +exists</> errors during pg_clog file creation +(Tom)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix to allow restoring dumps that have cross-schema +references to custom operators (Tom)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Portability fix for testing presence of <function>finite</> +and <function>isinf</> during configure (Tom)</para></listitem> + +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-3-13"> + <title>Release 7.3.13</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2006-01-09</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.3.12. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.3.13</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.3.10, see the release + notes for 7.3.10. + Also, you might need to <command>REINDEX</> indexes on textual + columns after updating, if you are affected by the locale or + <application>plperl</> issues described below. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> + +<listitem><para>Fix character string comparison for locales that consider +different character combinations as equal, such as Hungarian (Tom)</para> +<para>This might require <command>REINDEX</> to fix existing indexes on +textual columns.</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Set locale environment variables during postmaster startup +to ensure that <application>plperl</> won't change the locale later</para> +<para>This fixes a problem that occurred if the <application>postmaster</> was +started with environment variables specifying a different locale than what +<application>initdb</> had been told. Under these conditions, any use of +<application>plperl</> was likely to lead to corrupt indexes. You might need +<command>REINDEX</> to fix existing indexes on +textual columns if this has happened to you.</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix longstanding bug in strpos() and regular expression +handling in certain rarely used Asian multi-byte character sets (Tatsuo) +</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix bug in <filename>/contrib/pgcrypto</> gen_salt, +which caused it not to use all available salt space for MD5 and +XDES algorithms (Marko Kreen, Solar Designer)</para> +<para>Salts for Blowfish and standard DES are unaffected.</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix <filename>/contrib/dblink</> to throw an error, +rather than crashing, when the number of columns specified is different from +what's actually returned by the query (Joe)</para></listitem> + +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-3-12"> + <title>Release 7.3.12</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2005-12-12</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.3.11. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.3.12</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.3.10, see the release + notes for 7.3.10. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> + +<listitem><para>Fix race condition in transaction log management</para> +<para>There was a narrow window in which an I/O operation could be initiated +for the wrong page, leading to an Assert failure or data +corruption.</para> +</listitem> + +<listitem><para><filename>/contrib/ltree</> fixes (Teodor)</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Fix longstanding planning error for outer joins</para> +<para>This bug sometimes caused a bogus error <quote>RIGHT JOIN is +only supported with merge-joinable join conditions</>.</para></listitem> + +<listitem><para>Prevent core dump in <application>pg_autovacuum</> when a +table has been dropped</para></listitem> + +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-3-11"> + <title>Release 7.3.11</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2005-10-04</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.3.10. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.3.11</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. However, + if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.3.10, see the release + notes for 7.3.10. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Fix error that allowed <command>VACUUM</> to remove +<literal>ctid</> chains too soon, and add more checking in code that follows +<literal>ctid</> links</para> +<para>This fixes a long-standing problem that could cause crashes in very rare +circumstances.</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <type>CHAR()</> to properly pad spaces to the specified +length when using a multiple-byte character set (Yoshiyuki Asaba)</para> +<para>In prior releases, the padding of <type>CHAR()</> was incorrect +because it only padded to the specified number of bytes without +considering how many characters were stored.</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix missing rows in queries like <literal>UPDATE a=... WHERE +a...</> with GiST index on column <literal>a</></para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve checking for partially-written WAL +pages</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve robustness of signal handling when SSL is +enabled</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Various memory leakage fixes</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Various portability improvements</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix PL/PgSQL to handle <literal>var := var</> correctly when +the variable is of pass-by-reference type</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-3-10"> + <title>Release 7.3.10</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2005-05-09</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.3.9, including several + security-related issues. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.3.10</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. However, + it is one possible way of handling a significant security problem + that has been found in the initial contents of 7.3.X system + catalogs. A dump/initdb/reload sequence using 7.3.10's initdb will + automatically correct this problem. + </para> + + <para> + The security problem is that the built-in character set encoding + conversion functions can be invoked from SQL commands by unprivileged + users, but the functions were not designed for such use and are not + secure against malicious choices of arguments. The fix involves changing + the declared parameter list of these functions so that they can no longer + be invoked from SQL commands. (This does not affect their normal use + by the encoding conversion machinery.) + It is strongly recommended that all installations repair this error, + either by initdb or by following the manual repair procedure given + below. The error at least allows unprivileged database users to crash + their server process, and might allow unprivileged users to gain the + privileges of a database superuser. + </para> + + <para> + If you wish not to do an initdb, perform the following procedure instead. + As the database superuser, do: + +<programlisting> +BEGIN; +UPDATE pg_proc SET proargtypes[3] = 'internal'::regtype +WHERE pronamespace = 11 AND pronargs = 5 + AND proargtypes[2] = 'cstring'::regtype; +-- The command should report having updated 90 rows; +-- if not, rollback and investigate instead of committing! +COMMIT; +</programlisting> + </para> + + <para> + The above procedure must be carried out in <emphasis>each</> database + of an installation, including <literal>template1</>, and ideally + including <literal>template0</> as well. If you do not fix the + template databases then any subsequently created databases will contain + the same error. <literal>template1</> can be fixed in the same way + as any other database, but fixing <literal>template0</> requires + additional steps. First, from any database issue: +<programlisting> +UPDATE pg_database SET datallowconn = true WHERE datname = 'template0'; +</programlisting> + Next connect to <literal>template0</> and perform the above repair + procedure. Finally, do: +<programlisting> +-- re-freeze template0: +VACUUM FREEZE; +-- and protect it against future alterations: +UPDATE pg_database SET datallowconn = false WHERE datname = 'template0'; +</programlisting> + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Change encoding function signature to prevent +misuse</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Repair ancient race condition that allowed a transaction to be +seen as committed for some purposes (eg SELECT FOR UPDATE) slightly sooner +than for other purposes</para> +<para>This is an extremely serious bug since it could lead to apparent +data inconsistencies being briefly visible to applications.</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Repair race condition between relation extension and +VACUUM</para> +<para>This could theoretically have caused loss of a page's worth of +freshly-inserted data, although the scenario seems of very low probability. +There are no known cases of it having caused more than an Assert failure. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix comparisons of <type>TIME WITH TIME ZONE</> values</para> +<para> +The comparison code was wrong in the case where the +<literal>--enable-integer-datetimes</> configuration switch had been used. +NOTE: if you have an index on a <type>TIME WITH TIME ZONE</> column, +it will need to be <command>REINDEX</>ed after installing this update, because +the fix corrects the sort order of column values. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <function>EXTRACT(EPOCH)</> for +<type>TIME WITH TIME ZONE</> values</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix mis-display of negative fractional seconds in +<type>INTERVAL</> values</para> +<para> +This error only occurred when the +<literal>--enable-integer-datetimes</> configuration switch had been used. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Additional buffer overrun checks in plpgsql +(Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix pg_dump to dump trigger names containing <literal>%</> +correctly (Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent <function>to_char(interval)</> from dumping core for +month-related formats</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <filename>contrib/pgcrypto</> for newer OpenSSL builds +(Marko Kreen)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Still more 64-bit fixes for +<filename>contrib/intagg</></para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent incorrect optimization of functions returning +<type>RECORD</></para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> +</sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-3-9"> + <title>Release 7.3.9</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2005-01-31</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.3.8, including several + security-related issues. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.3.9</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Disallow <command>LOAD</> to non-superusers</para> +<para> +On platforms that will automatically execute initialization functions of a +shared library (this includes at least Windows and ELF-based Unixen), +<command>LOAD</> can be used to make the server execute arbitrary code. +Thanks to NGS Software for reporting this.</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Check that creator of an aggregate function has the right to +execute the specified transition functions</para> +<para> +This oversight made it possible to bypass denial of EXECUTE +permission on a function.</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix security and 64-bit issues in +contrib/intagg</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add needed STRICT marking to some contrib functions (Kris +Jurka)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Avoid buffer overrun when plpgsql cursor declaration has too +many parameters (Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix planning error for FULL and RIGHT outer joins</para> +<para> +The result of the join was mistakenly supposed to be sorted the same as the +left input. This could not only deliver mis-sorted output to the user, but +in case of nested merge joins could give outright wrong answers. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix plperl for quote marks in tuple fields</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix display of negative intervals in SQL and GERMAN +datestyles</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> +</sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-3-8"> + <title>Release 7.3.8</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2004-10-22</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.3.7. + </para> + + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.3.8</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Repair possible failure to update hint bits on disk</para> +<para> +Under rare circumstances this oversight could lead to +<quote>could not access transaction status</> failures, which qualifies +it as a potential-data-loss bug. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Ensure that hashed outer join does not miss tuples</para> +<para> +Very large left joins using a hash join plan could fail to output unmatched +left-side rows given just the right data distribution. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Disallow running pg_ctl as root</para> +<para> +This is to guard against any possible security issues. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Avoid using temp files in /tmp in make_oidjoins_check</para> +<para> +This has been reported as a security issue, though it's hardly worthy of +concern since there is no reason for non-developers to use this script anyway. +</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> +</sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-3-7"> + <title>Release 7.3.7</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2004-08-16</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains one critical fix over 7.3.6, and some minor items. + </para> + + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.3.7</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Prevent possible loss of committed transactions during crash</para> +<para> +Due to insufficient interlocking between transaction commit and checkpointing, +it was possible for transactions committed just before the most recent +checkpoint to be lost, in whole or in part, following a database crash and +restart. This is a serious bug that has existed +since <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> 7.1. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Remove asymmetrical word processing in tsearch (Teodor)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Properly schema-qualify function names when pg_dump'ing a CAST</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> +</sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-3-6"> + <title>Release 7.3.6</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2004-03-02</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.3.5. + </para> + + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.3.6</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those + running 7.3.*. + </para> + + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Revert erroneous changes in rule permissions checking</para> +<para>A patch applied in 7.3.3 to fix a corner case in rule permissions checks +turns out to have disabled rule-related permissions checks in many +not-so-corner cases. This would for example allow users to insert into views +they weren't supposed to have permission to insert into. We have therefore +reverted the 7.3.3 patch. The original bug will be fixed in 8.0. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Repair incorrect order of operations in +GetNewTransactionId()</para> +<para> +This bug could result in failure under out-of-disk-space conditions, including +inability to restart even after disk space is freed. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Ensure configure selects -fno-strict-aliasing even when +an external value for CFLAGS is supplied</para> +<para> +On some platforms, building with -fstrict-aliasing causes bugs. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make pg_restore handle 64-bit off_t correctly</para> +<para> +This bug prevented proper restoration from archive files exceeding 4 GB. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make contrib/dblink not assume that local and remote type OIDs +match (Joe)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Quote connectby()'s start_with argument properly (Joe)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Don't crash when a rowtype argument to a plpgsql function is +NULL</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Avoid generating invalid character encoding sequences in +corner cases when planning LIKE operations</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Ensure text_position() cannot scan past end of source string +in multibyte cases (Korea PostgreSQL Users' Group)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix index optimization and selectivity estimates for LIKE +operations on bytea columns (Joe)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> +</sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-3-5"> + <title>Release 7.3.5</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2003-12-03</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This has a variety of fixes from 7.3.4. + </para> + + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.3.5</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those + running 7.3.*. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Force zero_damaged_pages to be on during recovery from WAL</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent some obscure cases of <quote>variable not in subplan target lists</quote></para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Force stats processes to detach from shared memory, ensuring cleaner shutdown</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make PQescapeBytea and byteaout consistent with each other (Joe)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Added missing SPI_finish() calls to dblink's get_tuple_of_interest() (Joe)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for possible foreign key violation when rule rewrites INSERT (Jan)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Support qualified type names in PL/Tcl's spi_prepare command (Jan)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make pg_dump handle a procedural language handler located in pg_catalog</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make pg_dump handle cases where a custom opclass is in another schema</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make pg_dump dump binary-compatible casts correctly (Jan)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix insertion of expressions containing subqueries into rule bodies</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix incorrect argument processing in clusterdb script (Anand Ranganathan)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix problems with dropped columns in plpython triggers</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Repair problems with to_char() reading past end of its input string (Karel)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix GB18030 mapping errors (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix several problems with SSL error handling and asynchronous SSL I/O</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Remove ability to bind a list of values to a single parameter in JDBC +(prevents possible SQL-injection attacks)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix some errors in HAVE_INT64_TIMESTAMP code paths</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix corner case for btree search in parallel with first root page split</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> +</sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-3-4"> + <title>Release 7.3.4</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2003-07-24</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This has a variety of fixes from 7.3.3. + </para> + + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.3.4</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those + running 7.3.*. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Repair breakage in timestamp-to-date conversion for dates before 2000</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent rare possibility of server startup failure (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix bugs in interval-to-time conversion (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add constraint names in a few places in pg_dump (Rod)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve performance of functions with many parameters (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix to_ascii() buffer overruns (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent restore of database comments from throwing an error (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Work around buggy strxfrm() present in some Solaris releases (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Properly escape jdbc setObject() strings to improve security (Barry)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect2> + </sect1> + + +<sect1 id="release-7-3-3"> + <title>Release 7.3.3</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2003-05-22</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes for version 7.3.2. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.3.3</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those + running version 7.3.*. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Repair sometimes-incorrect computation of StartUpID after a crash</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Avoid slowness with lots of deferred triggers in one transaction (Stephan)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Don't lock referenced row when <command>UPDATE</command> doesn't change foreign key's value (Jan)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Use <command>-fPIC</command> not <command>-fpic</command> on Sparc (Tom Callaway)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Repair lack of schema-awareness in contrib/reindexdb</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix contrib/intarray error for zero-element result array (Teodor)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Ensure createuser script will exit on control-C (Oliver)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix errors when the type of a dropped column has itself been dropped</para></listitem> +<listitem><para><command>CHECKPOINT</command> does not cause database panic on failure in noncritical steps</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Accept 60 in seconds fields of timestamp, time, interval input values</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Issue notice, not error, if <type>TIMESTAMP</type>, +<type> TIME</type>, or <type>INTERVAL</type> precision too large</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <function>abstime-to-time</function> cast function (fix is + not applied unless you <application>initdb</application>)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <application>pg_proc</application> entry for + <type>timestampt_izone</type> (fix is not applied unless you + <application>initdb</application>)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make <function>EXTRACT(EPOCH FROM timestamp without time zone)</function> treat input as local time</para></listitem> +<listitem><para><command>'now'::timestamptz</command> gave wrong answer if timezone changed earlier in transaction</para></listitem> +<listitem><para><envar>HAVE_INT64_TIMESTAMP</envar> code for time with timezone overwrote its input</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Accept <command>GLOBAL TEMP/TEMPORARY</command> as a + synonym for <command>TEMPORARY</command></para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Avoid improper schema-privilege-check failure in foreign-key triggers</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix bugs in foreign-key triggers for <command>SET DEFAULT</command> action</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix incorrect time-qual check in row fetch for + <command>UPDATE</command> and <command>DELETE</command> triggers</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Foreign-key clauses were parsed but ignored in + <command>ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN</command></para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix createlang script breakage for case where handler function already exists</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix misbehavior on zero-column tables in <application>pg_dump</application>, COPY, ANALYZE, other places</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix misbehavior of <function>func_error()</function> on type names containing '%'</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix misbehavior of <function>replace()</function> on strings containing '%'</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Regular-expression patterns containing certain multibyte characters failed</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Account correctly for <command>NULL</command>s in more cases in join size estimation</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Avoid conflict with system definition of <function>isblank()</function> function or macro</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix failure to convert large code point values in EUC_TW conversions (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix error recovery for <function>SSL_read</function>/<function>SSL_write</function> calls</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Don't do early constant-folding of type coercion expressions</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Validate page header fields immediately after reading in any page</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Repair incorrect check for ungrouped variables in unnamed joins</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix buffer overrun in <function>to_ascii</function> (Guido Notari)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>contrib/ltree fixes (Teodor)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix core dump in deadlock detection on machines where char is unsigned</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Avoid running out of buffers in many-way indexscan (bug introduced in 7.3)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix planner's selectivity estimation functions to handle domains properly</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <application>dbmirror</application> memory-allocation bug (Steven Singer)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent infinite loop in <function>ln(numeric)</function> due to roundoff error</para></listitem> +<listitem><para><command>GROUP BY</command> got confused if there were multiple equal GROUP BY items</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix bad plan when inherited <command>UPDATE</command>/<command>DELETE</command> references another inherited table</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent clustering on incomplete (partial or non-NULL-storing) indexes</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Service shutdown request at proper time if it arrives while still starting up</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix left-links in temporary indexes (could make backwards scans miss entries)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix incorrect handling of client_encoding setting in postgresql.conf (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix failure to respond to <command>pg_ctl stop -m fast</command> after Async_NotifyHandler runs</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix SPI for case where rule contains multiple statements of the same type</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix problem with checking for wrong type of access privilege in rule query</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix problem with <command>EXCEPT</command> in <command>CREATE RULE</command></para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent problem with dropping temp tables having serial columns</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix replace_vars_with_subplan_refs failure in complex views</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix regexp slowness in single-byte encodings (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow qualified type names in <command>CREATE CAST</command> + and <command> DROP CAST</command></para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Accept <function>SETOF type[]</function>, which formerly had to + be written <function>SETOF _type</function></para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <application>pg_dump</application> core dump in some cases with procedural languages</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Force ISO datestyle in <application>pg_dump</application> output, for portability (Oliver)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para><application>pg_dump</application> failed to handle error return + from <function>lo_read</function> (Oleg Drokin)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para><application>pg_dumpall</application> failed with groups having no members (Nick Eskelinen)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para><application>pg_dumpall</application> failed to recognize --globals-only switch</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>pg_restore failed to restore blobs if -X disable-triggers is specified</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Repair intrafunction memory leak in plpgsql</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>pltcl's <command>elog</command> command dumped core if given wrong parameters (Ian Harding)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>plpython used wrong value of <envar>atttypmod</envar> (Brad McLean)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix improper quoting of boolean values in Python interface (D'Arcy)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Added <function>addDataType()</function> method to PGConnection interface for JDBC</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fixed various problems with updateable ResultSets for JDBC (Shawn Green)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fixed various problems with DatabaseMetaData for JDBC (Kris Jurka, Peter Royal)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fixed problem with parsing table ACLs in JDBC</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Better error message for character set conversion problems in JDBC</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect2> +</sect1> + + +<sect1 id="release-7-3-2"> + <title>Release 7.3.2</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2003-02-04</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes for version 7.3.1. + </para> + + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.3.2</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those + running version 7.3.*. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Restore creation of OID column in CREATE TABLE AS / SELECT INTO</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <application>pg_dump</> core dump when dumping views having comments</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Dump DEFERRABLE/INITIALLY DEFERRED constraints properly</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix UPDATE when child table's column numbering differs from parent</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Increase default value of max_fsm_relations</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix problem when fetching backwards in a cursor for a single-row query</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make backward fetch work properly with cursor on SELECT DISTINCT query</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix problems with loading <application>pg_dump</> files containing contrib/lo usage</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix problem with all-numeric user names</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix possible memory leak and core dump during disconnect in libpgtcl</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make plpython's spi_execute command handle nulls properly (Andrew Bosma)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Adjust plpython error reporting so that its regression test passes again</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Work with bison 1.875</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Handle mixed-case names properly in plpgsql's %type (Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix core dump in pltcl when executing a query rewritten by a rule</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Repair array subscript overruns (per report from Yichen Xie)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Reduce MAX_TIME_PRECISION from 13 to 10 in floating-point case</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Correctly case-fold variable names in per-database and per-user settings</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix coredump in plpgsql's RETURN NEXT when SELECT into record returns no rows</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix outdated use of pg_type.typprtlen in python client interface</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Correctly handle fractional seconds in timestamps in JDBC driver</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve performance of getImportedKeys() in JDBC</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make shared-library symlinks work standardly on HPUX (Giles)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Repair inconsistent rounding behavior for timestamp, time, interval</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>SSL negotiation fixes (Nathan Mueller)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make libpq's ~/.pgpass feature work when connecting with PQconnectDB</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Update my2pg, ora2pg</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Translation updates</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add casts between types lo and oid in contrib/lo</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>fastpath code now checks for privilege to call function</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect2> +</sect1> + + +<sect1 id="release-7-3-1"> + <title>Release 7.3.1</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2002-12-18</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes for version 7.3. + </para> + + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.3.1</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those + running version 7.3. However, it should be noted that the main + <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> interface library, libpq, + has a new major version number for this release, which might require + recompilation of client code in certain cases. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Fix a core dump of COPY TO when client/server encodings don't match (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow <application>pg_dump</> to work with pre-7.2 servers (Philip)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>contrib/adddepend fixes (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix problem with deletion of per-user/per-database config settings (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>contrib/vacuumlo fix (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow 'password' encryption even when pg_shadow contains MD5 passwords (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>contrib/dbmirror fix (Steven Singer)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Optimizer fixes (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>contrib/tsearch fixes (Teodor Sigaev, Magnus)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow locale names to be mixed case (Nicolai Tufar)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Increment libpq library's major version number (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>pg_hba.conf error reporting fixes (Bruce, Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add SCO Openserver 5.0.4 as a supported platform (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent EXPLAIN from crashing server (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>SSL fixes (Nathan Mueller)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent composite column creation via ALTER TABLE (Tom)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect2> +</sect1> + + +<sect1 id="release-7-3"> + <title>Release 7.3</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2002-11-27</simpara> + </note> + + <sect2> + <title>Overview</title> + + <para> + Major changes in this release: + </para> + + <variablelist> + <varlistentry> + <term>Schemas</term> + <listitem> + <para> + Schemas allow users to create objects in separate namespaces, + so two people or applications can have tables with the same + name. There is also a public schema for shared tables. + Table/index creation can be restricted by removing privileges + on the public schema. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term>Drop Column</term> + <listitem> + <para> + <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> now supports the + <literal>ALTER TABLE ... DROP COLUMN</literal> functionality. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term>Table Functions</term> + <listitem> + <para> + Functions returning multiple rows and/or multiple columns are + now much easier to use than before. You can call such a + <quote>table function</quote> in the <literal>SELECT</literal> + <literal>FROM</literal> clause, treating its output like a + table. Also, <application>PL/pgSQL</application> functions can + now return sets. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term>Prepared Queries</term> + <listitem> + <para> + <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> now supports prepared + queries, for improved performance. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term>Dependency Tracking</term> + <listitem> + <para> + <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> now records object + dependencies, which allows improvements in many areas. + <command>DROP</command> statements now take either + <literal>CASCADE</> or <literal>RESTRICT</> to control whether + dependent objects are also dropped. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term>Privileges</term> + <listitem> + <para> + Functions and procedural languages now have privileges, and + functions can be defined to run with the privileges of their + creator. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term>Internationalization</term> + <listitem> + <para> + Both multibyte and locale support are now always enabled. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term>Logging</term> + <listitem> + <para> + A variety of logging options have been enhanced. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term>Interfaces</term> + <listitem> + <para> + A large number of interfaces have been moved to <ulink + url="http://gborg.postgresql.org">http://gborg.postgresql.org</> + where they can be developed and released independently. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term>Functions/Identifiers</term> + <listitem> + <para> + By default, functions can now take up to 32 parameters, and + identifiers can be up to 63 bytes long. Also, <literal>OPAQUE</> + is now deprecated: there are specific <quote>pseudo-datatypes</> + to represent each of the former meanings of <literal>OPAQUE</> + in function argument and result types. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + </variablelist> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.3</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore using <application>pg_dump</> is required for those + wishing to migrate data from any previous release. If your + application examines the system catalogs, additional changes will + be required due to the introduction of schemas in 7.3; for more + information, see: <ulink + url="http://developer.postgresql.org/~momjian/upgrade_tips_7.3"></>. + </para> + + <para> + Observe the following incompatibilities: + </para> + + <itemizedlist> + <listitem> + <para> + Pre-6.3 clients are no longer supported. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <filename>pg_hba.conf</filename> now has a column for the user + name and additional features. Existing files need to be + adjusted. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Several <filename>postgresql.conf</filename> logging parameters + have been renamed. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <literal>LIMIT #,#</literal> has been disabled; use + <literal>LIMIT # OFFSET #</literal>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <command>INSERT</command> statements with column lists must + specify a value for each specified column. For example, + <literal>INSERT INTO tab (col1, col2) VALUES ('val1')</literal> + is now invalid. It's still allowed to supply fewer columns than + expected if the <command>INSERT</command> does not have a column list. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <type>serial</type> columns are no longer automatically + <literal>UNIQUE</>; thus, an index will not automatically be + created. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + A <command>SET</command> command inside an aborted transaction + is now rolled back. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + <command>COPY</command> no longer considers missing trailing + columns to be null. All columns need to be specified. + (However, one can achieve a similar effect by specifying a + column list in the <command>COPY</command> command.) + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + The data type <type>timestamp</type> is now equivalent to + <type>timestamp without time zone</type>, instead of + <type>timestamp with time zone</type>. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Pre-7.3 databases loaded into 7.3 will not have the new object + dependencies for <type>serial</type> columns, unique + constraints, and foreign keys. See the directory + <filename>contrib/adddepend/</filename> for a detailed + description and a script that will add such dependencies. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + An empty string (<literal>''</literal>) is no longer allowed as + the input into an integer field. Formerly, it was silently + interpreted as 0. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <sect3> + <title>Server Operation</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Add pg_locks view to show locks (Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Security fixes for password negotiation memory allocation (Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Remove support for version 0 FE/BE protocol (<productname>PostgreSQL</productname> 6.2 and earlier) (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Reserve the last few backend slots for superusers, add parameter superuser_reserved_connections to control this (Nigel J. Andrews)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Performance</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Improve startup by calling localtime() only once (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Cache system catalog information in flat files for faster startup (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve caching of index information (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Optimizer improvements (Tom, Fernando Nasser)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Catalog caches now store failed lookups (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Hash function improvements (Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve performance of query tokenization and network handling (Peter)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Speed improvement for large object restore (Mario Weilguni)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Mark expired index entries on first lookup, saving later heap fetches (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Avoid excessive NULL bitmap padding (Manfred Koizar)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add BSD-licensed qsort() for Solaris, for performance (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Reduce per-row overhead by four bytes (Manfred Koizar)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix GEQO optimizer bug (Neil Conway)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make WITHOUT OID actually save four bytes per row (Manfred Koizar)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add default_statistics_target variable to specify ANALYZE buckets (Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Use local buffer cache for temporary tables so no WAL overhead (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve free space map performance on large tables (Stephen Marshall, Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improved WAL write concurrency (Tom)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Privileges</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Add privileges on functions and procedural languages (Peter)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add OWNER to CREATE DATABASE so superusers can create databases on behalf of unprivileged users (Gavin Sherry, Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add new object privilege bits EXECUTE and USAGE (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION DEFAULT and RESET SESSION AUTHORIZATION (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow functions to be executed with the privilege of the function owner (Peter)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Server Configuration</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Server log messages now tagged with LOG, not DEBUG (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add user column to pg_hba.conf (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Have log_connections output two lines in log file (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Remove debug_level from postgresql.conf, now server_min_messages (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New ALTER DATABASE/USER ... SET command for per-user/database initialization (Peter)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New parameters server_min_messages and client_min_messages to control which messages are sent to the server logs or client applications (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow pg_hba.conf to specify lists of users/databases separated by commas, group names prepended with +, and file names prepended with @ (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Remove secondary password file capability and pg_password utility (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add variable db_user_namespace for database-local user names (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>SSL improvements (Bear Giles)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make encryption of stored passwords the default (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow pg_statistics to be reset by calling pg_stat_reset() (Christopher)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add log_duration parameter (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Rename debug_print_query to log_statement (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Rename show_query_stats to show_statement_stats (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add param log_min_error_statement to print commands to logs on error (Gavin)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Queries</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Make cursors insensitive, meaning their contents do not change (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Disable LIMIT #,# syntax; now only LIMIT # OFFSET # supported (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Increase identifier length to 63 (Neil, Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>UNION fixes for merging >= 3 columns of different lengths (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add DEFAULT key word to INSERT, e.g., INSERT ... (..., DEFAULT, ...) (Rod)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow views to have default values using ALTER COLUMN ... SET DEFAULT (Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fail on INSERTs with column lists that don't supply all column values, e.g., INSERT INTO tab (col1, col2) VALUES ('val1'); (Rod)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for join aliases (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for FULL OUTER JOINs (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve reporting of invalid identifier and location (Tom, Gavin)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix OPEN cursor(args) (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow 'ctid' to be used in a view and currtid(viewname) (Hiroshi)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for CREATE TABLE AS with UNION (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>SQL99 syntax improvements (Thomas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add statement_timeout variable to cancel queries (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow prepared queries with PREPARE/EXECUTE (Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow FOR UPDATE to appear after LIMIT/OFFSET (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add variable autocommit (Tom, David Van Wie)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Object Manipulation</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Make equals signs optional in CREATE DATABASE (Gavin Sherry)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make ALTER TABLE OWNER change index ownership too (Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New ALTER TABLE tabname ALTER COLUMN colname SET STORAGE controls TOAST storage, compression (John Gray)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add schema support, CREATE/DROP SCHEMA (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Create schema for temporary tables (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add variable search_path for schema search (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add ALTER TABLE SET/DROP NOT NULL (Christopher)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New CREATE FUNCTION volatility levels (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make rule names unique only per table (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add 'ON tablename' clause to DROP RULE and COMMENT ON RULE (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add ALTER TRIGGER RENAME (Joe)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New current_schema() and current_schemas() inquiry functions (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow functions to return multiple rows (table functions) (Joe)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make WITH optional in CREATE DATABASE, for consistency (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add object dependency tracking (Rod, Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add RESTRICT/CASCADE to DROP commands (Rod)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add ALTER TABLE DROP for non-CHECK CONSTRAINT (Rod)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Autodestroy sequence on DROP of table with SERIAL (Rod)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent column dropping if column is used by foreign key (Rod)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Automatically drop constraints/functions when object is dropped (Rod)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add CREATE/DROP OPERATOR CLASS (Bill Studenmund, Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add ALTER TABLE DROP COLUMN (Christopher, Tom, Hiroshi)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent inherited columns from being removed or renamed (Alvaro Herrera)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix foreign key constraints to not error on intermediate database states (Stephan)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Propagate column or table renaming to foreign key constraints</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW (Gavin, Neil, Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add CREATE OR REPLACE RULE (Gavin, Neil, Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Have rules execute alphabetically, returning more predictable values (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Triggers are now fired in alphabetical order (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add /contrib/adddepend to handle pre-7.3 object dependencies (Rod)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow better casting when inserting/updating values (Tom)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Utility Commands</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Have COPY TO output embedded carriage returns and newlines as \r and \n (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow DELIMITER in COPY FROM to be 8-bit clean (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make <application>pg_dump</> use ALTER TABLE ADD PRIMARY KEY, for performance (Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Disable brackets in multistatement rules (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Disable VACUUM from being called inside a function (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow dropdb and other scripts to use identifiers with spaces (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Restrict database comment changes to the current database</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow comments on operators, independent of the underlying function (Rod)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Rollback SET commands in aborted transactions (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>EXPLAIN now outputs as a query (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Display condition expressions and sort keys in EXPLAIN (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add 'SET LOCAL var = value' to set configuration variables for a single transaction (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow ANALYZE to run in a transaction (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve COPY syntax using new WITH clauses, keep backward compatibility (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <application>pg_dump</> to consistently output tags in non-ASCII dumps (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make foreign key constraints clearer in dump file (Rod)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add COMMENT ON CONSTRAINT (Rod)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow COPY TO/FROM to specify column names (Brent Verner)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Dump UNIQUE and PRIMARY KEY constraints as ALTER TABLE (Rod)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Have SHOW output a query result (Joe)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Generate failure on short COPY lines rather than pad NULLs (Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix CLUSTER to preserve all table attributes (Alvaro Herrera)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New pg_settings table to view/modify GUC settings (Joe)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add smart quoting, portability improvements to <application>pg_dump</> output (Peter)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Dump serial columns out as SERIAL (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Enable large file support, >2G for <application>pg_dump</> (Peter, Philip Warner, Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Disallow TRUNCATE on tables that are involved in referential constraints (Rod)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Have TRUNCATE also auto-truncate the toast table of the relation (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add clusterdb utility that will auto-cluster an entire database based on previous CLUSTER operations (Alvaro Herrera)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Overhaul pg_dumpall (Peter)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow REINDEX of TOAST tables (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Implemented START TRANSACTION, per SQL99 (Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix rare index corruption when a page split affects bulk delete (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix ALTER TABLE ... ADD COLUMN for inheritance (Alvaro Herrera)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Data Types and Functions</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Fix factorial(0) to return 1 (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Date/time/timezone improvements (Thomas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for array slice extraction (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix extract/date_part to report proper microseconds for timestamp (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow text_substr() and bytea_substr() to read TOAST values more efficiently (John Gray)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add domain support (Rod)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make WITHOUT TIME ZONE the default for TIMESTAMP and TIME data types (Thomas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow alternate storage scheme of 64-bit integers for date/time types using --enable-integer-datetimes in configure (Thomas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make timezone(timestamptz) return timestamp rather than a string (Thomas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow fractional seconds in date/time types for dates prior to 1BC (Thomas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Limit timestamp data types to 6 decimal places of precision (Thomas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Change timezone conversion functions from timetz() to timezone() (Thomas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add configuration variables datestyle and timezone (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add OVERLAY(), which allows substitution of a substring in a string (Thomas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add SIMILAR TO (Thomas, Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add regular expression SUBSTRING(string FROM pat FOR escape) (Thomas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add LOCALTIME and LOCALTIMESTAMP functions (Thomas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add named composite types using CREATE TYPE typename AS (column) (Joe)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow composite type definition in the table alias clause (Joe)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add new API to simplify creation of C language table functions (Joe)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Remove ODBC-compatible empty parentheses from calls to SQL99 functions for which these parentheses do not match the standard (Thomas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow macaddr data type to accept 12 hex digits with no separators (Mike Wyer)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add CREATE/DROP CAST (Peter)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add IS DISTINCT FROM operator (Thomas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add SQL99 TREAT() function, synonym for CAST() (Thomas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add pg_backend_pid() to output backend pid (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add IS OF / IS NOT OF type predicate (Thomas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow bit string constants without fully-specified length (Thomas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow conversion between 8-byte integers and bit strings (Thomas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Implement hex literal conversion to bit string literal (Thomas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow table functions to appear in the FROM clause (Joe)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Increase maximum number of function parameters to 32 (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>No longer automatically create index for SERIAL column (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add current_database() (Rod)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix cash_words() to not overflow buffer (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add functions replace(), split_part(), to_hex() (Joe)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix LIKE for bytea as a right-hand argument (Joe)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent crashes caused by SELECT cash_out(2) (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix to_char(1,'FM999.99') to return a period (Karel)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix trigger/type/language functions returning OPAQUE to return proper type (Tom)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Internationalization</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Add additional encodings: Korean (JOHAB), Thai (WIN874), Vietnamese (TCVN), Arabic (WIN1256), Simplified Chinese (GBK), Korean (UHC) (Eiji Tokuya)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Enable locale support by default (Peter)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add locale variables (Peter)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Escape byes >= 0x7f for multibyte in PQescapeBytea/PQunescapeBytea (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add locale awareness to regular expression character classes</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Enable multibyte support by default (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add GB18030 multibyte support (Bill Huang)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add CREATE/DROP CONVERSION, allowing loadable encodings (Tatsuo, Kaori)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add pg_conversion table (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add SQL99 CONVERT() function (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>pg_dumpall, pg_controldata, and pg_resetxlog now national-language aware (Peter)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New and updated translations</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Server-side Languages</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Allow recursive SQL function (Peter)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Change PL/Tcl build to use configured compiler and Makefile.shlib (Peter)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Overhaul the PL/pgSQL FOUND variable to be more Oracle-compatible (Neil, Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow PL/pgSQL to handle quoted identifiers (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow set-returning PL/pgSQL functions (Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make PL/pgSQL schema-aware (Joe)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Remove some memory leaks (Nigel J. Andrews, Tom)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>psql</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Don't lowercase psql \connect database name for 7.2.0 compatibility (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add psql \timing to time user queries (Greg Sabino Mullane)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Have psql \d show index information (Greg Sabino Mullane)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New psql \dD shows domains (Jonathan Eisler)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow psql to show rules on views (Paul ?)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for psql variable substitution (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow psql \d to show temporary table structure (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow psql \d to show foreign keys (Rod)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix \? to honor \pset pager (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Have psql reports its version number on startup (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow \copy to specify column names (Tom)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>libpq</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Add ~/.pgpass to store host/user password combinations (Alvaro Herrera)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add PQunescapeBytea() function to libpq (Patrick Welche)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for sending large queries over non-blocking connections (Bernhard Herzog)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for libpq using timers on Win9X (David Ford)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow libpq notify to handle servers with different-length identifiers (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add libpq PQescapeString() and PQescapeBytea() to Windows (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for SSL with non-blocking connections (Jack Bates)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add libpq connection timeout parameter (Denis A Ustimenko)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>JDBC</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Allow JDBC to compile with JDK 1.4 (Dave)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add JDBC 3 support (Barry)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allows JDBC to set loglevel by adding ?loglevel=X to the connection URL (Barry)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add Driver.info() message that prints out the version number (Barry)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add updateable result sets (Raghu Nidagal, Dave)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add support for callable statements (Paul Bethe)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add query cancel capability</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add refresh row (Dave)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix MD5 encryption handling for multibyte servers (Jun Kawai)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add support for prepared statements (Barry)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Miscellaneous Interfaces</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Fixed ECPG bug concerning octal numbers in single quotes (Michael)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Move src/interfaces/libpgeasy to http://gborg.postgresql.org (Marc, Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve Python interface (Elliot Lee, Andrew Johnson, Greg Copeland)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add libpgtcl connection close event (Gerhard Hintermayer)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Move src/interfaces/libpq++ to http://gborg.postgresql.org (Marc, Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Move src/interfaces/odbc to http://gborg.postgresql.org (Marc)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Move src/interfaces/libpgeasy to http://gborg.postgresql.org (Marc, Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Move src/interfaces/perl5 to http://gborg.postgresql.org (Marc, Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Remove src/bin/pgaccess from main tree, now at http://www.pgaccess.org (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add pg_on_connection_loss command to libpgtcl (Gerhard Hintermayer, Tom)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Source Code</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Fix for parallel make (Peter)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>AIX fixes for linking Tcl (Andreas Zeugswetter)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow PL/Perl to build under Cygwin (Jason Tishler)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve MIPS compiles (Peter, Oliver Elphick)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Require Autoconf version 2.53 (Peter)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Require readline and zlib by default in configure (Peter)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow Solaris to use Intimate Shared Memory (ISM), for performance (Scott Brunza, P.J. Josh Rovero)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Always enable syslog in compile, remove --enable-syslog option (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Always enable multibyte in compile, remove --enable-multibyte option (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Always enable locale in compile, remove --enable-locale option (Peter)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for Win9x DLL creation (Magnus Naeslund)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for link() usage by WAL code on Windows, BeOS (Jason Tishler)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add sys/types.h to c.h, remove from main files (Peter, Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix AIX hang on SMP machines (Tomoyuki Niijima)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>AIX SMP hang fix (Tomoyuki Niijima)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix pre-1970 date handling on newer glibc libraries (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix PowerPC SMP locking (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent gcc -ffast-math from being used (Peter, Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Bison >= 1.50 now required for developer builds</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Kerberos 5 support now builds with Heimdal (Peter)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add appendix in the User's Guide which lists SQL features (Thomas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve loadable module linking to use RTLD_NOW (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New error levels WARNING, INFO, LOG, DEBUG[1-5] (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New src/port directory holds replaced libc functions (Peter, Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New pg_namespace system catalog for schemas (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add pg_class.relnamespace for schemas (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add pg_type.typnamespace for schemas (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add pg_proc.pronamespace for schemas (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Restructure aggregates to have pg_proc entries (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>System relations now have their own namespace, pg_* test not required (Fernando Nasser)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Rename TOAST index names to be *_index rather than *_idx (Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add namespaces for operators, opclasses (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add additional checks to server control file (Thomas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New Polish FAQ (Marcin Mazurek)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add Posix semaphore support (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Document need for reindex (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Rename some internal identifiers to simplify Windows compile (Jan, Katherine Ward)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add documentation on computing disk space (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Remove KSQO from GUC (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix memory leak in rtree (Kenneth Been)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Modify a few error messages for consistency (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Remove unused system table columns (Peter)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make system columns NOT NULL where appropriate (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Clean up use of sprintf in favor of snprintf() (Neil, Jukka Holappa)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Remove OPAQUE and create specific subtypes (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Cleanups in array internal handling (Joe, Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Disallow pg_atoi('') (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Remove parameter wal_files because WAL files are now recycled (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add version numbers to heap pages (Tom)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Contrib</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Allow inet arrays in /contrib/array (Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>GiST fixes (Teodor Sigaev, Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Upgrade /contrib/mysql</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add /contrib/dbsize which shows table sizes without vacuum (Peter)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add /contrib/intagg, integer aggregator routines (mlw)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve /contrib/oid2name (Neil, Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve /contrib/tsearch (Oleg, Teodor Sigaev)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Cleanups of /contrib/rserver (Alexey V. Borzov)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Update /contrib/oracle conversion utility (Gilles Darold)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Update /contrib/dblink (Joe)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve options supported by /contrib/vacuumlo (Mario Weilguni)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improvements to /contrib/intarray (Oleg, Teodor Sigaev, Andrey Oktyabrski)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add /contrib/reindexdb utility (Shaun Thomas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add indexing to /contrib/isbn_issn (Dan Weston)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add /contrib/dbmirror (Steven Singer)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve /contrib/pgbench (Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add /contrib/tablefunc table function examples (Joe)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add /contrib/ltree data type for tree structures (Teodor Sigaev, Oleg Bartunov)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Move /contrib/pg_controldata, pg_resetxlog into main tree (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fixes to /contrib/cube (Bruno Wolff)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve /contrib/fulltextindex (Christopher)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + </sect2> +</sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-2-8"> + <title>Release 7.2.8</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2005-05-09</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.2.7, including one + security-related issue. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.2.8</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.2.X. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Repair ancient race condition that allowed a transaction to be +seen as committed for some purposes (eg SELECT FOR UPDATE) slightly sooner +than for other purposes</para> +<para>This is an extremely serious bug since it could lead to apparent +data inconsistencies being briefly visible to applications.</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Repair race condition between relation extension and +VACUUM</para> +<para>This could theoretically have caused loss of a page's worth of +freshly-inserted data, although the scenario seems of very low probability. +There are no known cases of it having caused more than an Assert failure. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <function>EXTRACT(EPOCH)</> for +<type>TIME WITH TIME ZONE</> values</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Additional buffer overrun checks in plpgsql +(Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix pg_dump to dump index names and trigger names containing +<literal>%</> correctly (Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent <function>to_char(interval)</> from dumping core for +month-related formats</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <filename>contrib/pgcrypto</> for newer OpenSSL builds +(Marko Kreen)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> +</sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-2-7"> + <title>Release 7.2.7</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2005-01-31</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.2.6, including several + security-related issues. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.2.7</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.2.X. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Disallow <command>LOAD</> to non-superusers</para> +<para> +On platforms that will automatically execute initialization functions of a +shared library (this includes at least Windows and ELF-based Unixen), +<command>LOAD</> can be used to make the server execute arbitrary code. +Thanks to NGS Software for reporting this.</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add needed STRICT marking to some contrib functions (Kris +Jurka)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Avoid buffer overrun when plpgsql cursor declaration has too +many parameters (Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix planning error for FULL and RIGHT outer joins</para> +<para> +The result of the join was mistakenly supposed to be sorted the same as the +left input. This could not only deliver mis-sorted output to the user, but +in case of nested merge joins could give outright wrong answers. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix display of negative intervals in SQL and GERMAN +datestyles</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> +</sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-2-6"> + <title>Release 7.2.6</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2004-10-22</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.2.5. + </para> + + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.2.6</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.2.X. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Repair possible failure to update hint bits on disk</para> +<para> +Under rare circumstances this oversight could lead to +<quote>could not access transaction status</> failures, which qualifies +it as a potential-data-loss bug. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Ensure that hashed outer join does not miss tuples</para> +<para> +Very large left joins using a hash join plan could fail to output unmatched +left-side rows given just the right data distribution. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Disallow running pg_ctl as root</para> +<para> +This is to guard against any possible security issues. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Avoid using temp files in /tmp in make_oidjoins_check</para> +<para> +This has been reported as a security issue, though it's hardly worthy of +concern since there is no reason for non-developers to use this script anyway. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Update to newer versions of Bison</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + + </sect2> +</sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-2-5"> + <title>Release 7.2.5</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2004-08-16</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.2.4. + </para> + + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.2.5</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.2.X. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Prevent possible loss of committed transactions during crash</para> +<para> +Due to insufficient interlocking between transaction commit and checkpointing, +it was possible for transactions committed just before the most recent +checkpoint to be lost, in whole or in part, following a database crash and +restart. This is a serious bug that has existed +since <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> 7.1. +</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix corner case for btree search in parallel with first root page split</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix buffer overrun in <function>to_ascii</function> (Guido Notari)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix core dump in deadlock detection on machines where char is unsigned</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix failure to respond to <command>pg_ctl stop -m fast</command> after Async_NotifyHandler runs</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Repair memory leaks in pg_dump</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Avoid conflict with system definition of <function>isblank()</function> function or macro</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect2> +</sect1> + +<sect1 id="release-7-2-4"> + <title>Release 7.2.4</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2003-01-30</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes for version 7.2.3, + including fixes to prevent possible data loss. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.2.4</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those + running version 7.2.*. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Fix some additional cases of VACUUM "No one parent tuple was found" error</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent VACUUM from being called inside a function (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Ensure pg_clog updates are sync'd to disk before marking checkpoint complete</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Avoid integer overflow during large hash joins</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make GROUP commands work when pg_group.grolist is large enough to be toasted</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix errors in datetime tables; some timezone names weren't being recognized</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix integer overflows in circle_poly(), path_encode(), path_add() (Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Repair long-standing logic errors in lseg_eq(), lseg_ne(), lseg_center()</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect2> +</sect1> + + +<sect1 id="release-7-2-3"> + <title>Release 7.2.3</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2002-10-01</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes for version 7.2.2, + including fixes to prevent possible data loss. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.2.3</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those + running version 7.2.*. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Prevent possible compressed transaction log loss (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent non-superuser from increasing most recent vacuum info (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Handle pre-1970 date values in newer versions of glibc (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix possible hang during server shutdown</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent spinlock hangs on SMP PPC machines (Tomoyuki Niijima)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix <application>pg_dump</> to properly dump FULL JOIN USING (Tom)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect2> +</sect1> + + +<sect1 id="release-7-2-2"> + <title>Release 7.2.2</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2002-08-23</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes for version 7.2.1. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.2.2</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those + running version 7.2.*. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Allow EXECUTE of "CREATE TABLE AS ... SELECT" in PL/pgSQL (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for compressed transaction log id wraparound (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix PQescapeBytea/PQunescapeBytea so that they handle bytes > 0x7f (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for psql and <application>pg_dump</> crashing when invoked with non-existent long options (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix crash when invoking geometric operators (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow OPEN cursor(args) (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for rtree_gist index build (Teodor)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for dumping user-defined aggregates (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>contrib/intarray fixes (Oleg)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for complex UNION/EXCEPT/INTERSECT queries using parens (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix to pg_convert (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for crash with long DATA strings (Thomas, Neil)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for repeat(), lpad(), rpad() and long strings (Neil)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect2> +</sect1> + + +<sect1 id="release-7-2-1"> + <title>Release 7.2.1</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2002-03-21</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains a variety of fixes for version 7.2. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.2.1</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those + running version 7.2. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Ensure that sequence counters do not go backwards after a crash (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix pgaccess kanji-conversion key binding (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Optimizer improvements (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Cash I/O improvements (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New Russian FAQ</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Compile fix for missing AuthBlockSig (Heiko)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Additional time zones and time zone fixes (Thomas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow psql \connect to handle mixed case database and user names (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Return proper OID on command completion even with ON INSERT rules (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow COPY FROM to use 8-bit DELIMITERS (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix bug in extract/date_part for milliseconds/microseconds (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve handling of multiple UNIONs with different lengths (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>contrib/btree_gist improvements (Teodor Sigaev)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>contrib/tsearch dictionary improvements, see README.tsearch for an additional installation step (Thomas T. Thai, Teodor Sigaev)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for array subscripts handling (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow EXECUTE of "CREATE TABLE AS ... SELECT" in PL/pgSQL (Tom)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect2> +</sect1> + + +<sect1 id="release-7-2"> + <title>Release 7.2</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2002-02-04</simpara> + </note> + + <sect2> + <title>Overview</title> + + <para> + This release improves <productname>PostgreSQL</> for use in + high-volume applications. + </para> + + <para> + Major changes in this release: + </para> + + <variablelist> + <varlistentry> + <term>VACUUM</term> + <listitem> + <para> + Vacuuming no longer locks tables, thus allowing normal user + access during the vacuum. A new <command>VACUUM FULL</> + command does old-style vacuum by locking the table and + shrinking the on-disk copy of the table. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term>Transactions</term> + <listitem> + <para> + There is no longer a problem with installations that exceed + four billion transactions. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term>OIDs</term> + <listitem> + <para> + OIDs are now optional. Users can now create tables without + OIDs for cases where OID usage is excessive. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term>Optimizer</term> + <listitem> + <para> + The system now computes histogram column statistics during + <command>ANALYZE</>, allowing much better optimizer choices. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term>Security</term> + <listitem> + <para> + A new MD5 encryption option allows more secure storage and + transfer of passwords. A new Unix-domain socket + authentication option is available on Linux and BSD systems. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term>Statistics</term> + <listitem> + <para> + Administrators can use the new table access statistics module + to get fine-grained information about table and index usage. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term>Internationalization</term> + <listitem> + <para> + Program and library messages can now be displayed in several + languages. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + </variablelist> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.2</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore using <command>pg_dump</command> is required for + those wishing to migrate data from any previous release. + </para> + + <para> + Observe the following incompatibilities: + </para> + + <itemizedlist> + <listitem> + <para> + The semantics of the <command>VACUUM</command> command have + changed in this release. You might wish to update your + maintenance procedures accordingly. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + In this release, comparisons using <literal>= NULL</literal> + will always return false (or NULL, more precisely). Previous + releases automatically transformed this syntax to <literal>IS + NULL</literal>. The old behavior can be re-enabled using a + <filename>postgresql.conf</filename> parameter. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + The <filename>pg_hba.conf</> and <filename>pg_ident.conf</> + configuration is now only reloaded after receiving a + <systemitem>SIGHUP</> signal, not with each connection. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + The function <filename>octet_length()</> now returns the uncompressed data length. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + The date/time value <literal>'current'</literal> is no longer + available. You will need to rewrite your applications. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + The <literal>timestamp()</literal>, <literal>time()</literal>, + and <literal>interval()</literal> functions are no longer + available. Instead of <literal>timestamp()</literal>, use + <literal>timestamp 'string'</literal> or <literal>CAST</literal>. + </para> + </listitem> + + </itemizedlist> + + <para> + The <literal>SELECT ... LIMIT #,#</literal> syntax will be removed + in the next release. You should change your queries to use + separate LIMIT and OFFSET clauses, e.g. <literal>LIMIT 10 OFFSET + 20</literal>. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <sect3> + <title>Server Operation</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Create temporary files in a separate directory (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Delete orphaned temporary files on postmaster startup (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Added unique indexes to some system tables (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>System table operator reorganization (Oleg Bartunov, Teodor Sigaev, Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Renamed pg_log to pg_clog (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Enable SIGTERM, SIGQUIT to kill backends (Jan)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Removed compile-time limit on number of backends (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Better cleanup for semaphore resource failure (Tatsuo, Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow safe transaction ID wraparound (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Removed OIDs from some system tables (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Removed "triggered data change violation" error check (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>SPI portal creation of prepared/saved plans (Jan)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow SPI column functions to work for system columns (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Long value compression improvement (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Statistics collector for table, index access (Jan)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Truncate extra-long sequence names to a reasonable value (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Measure transaction times in milliseconds (Thomas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix TID sequential scans (Hiroshi)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Superuser ID now fixed at 1 (Peter E)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New pg_ctl "reload" option (Tom)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Performance</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Optimizer improvements (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New histogram column statistics for optimizer (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Reuse write-ahead log files rather than discarding them (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Cache improvements (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>IS NULL, IS NOT NULL optimizer improvement (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve lock manager to reduce lock contention (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Keep relcache entries for index access support functions (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow better selectivity with NaN and infinities in NUMERIC (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>R-tree performance improvements (Kenneth Been)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>B-tree splits more efficient (Tom)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Privileges</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Change UPDATE, DELETE privileges to be distinct (Peter E)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New REFERENCES, TRIGGER privileges (Peter E)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow GRANT/REVOKE to/from more than one user at a time (Peter E)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New has_table_privilege() function (Joe Conway)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow non-superuser to vacuum database (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION command (Peter E)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix bug in privilege modifications on newly created tables (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Disallow access to pg_statistic for non-superuser, add user-accessible views (Tom)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Client Authentication</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Fork postmaster before doing authentication to prevent hangs (Peter E)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add ident authentication over Unix domain sockets on Linux, *BSD (Helge Bahmann, Oliver Elphick, Teodor Sigaev, Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add a password authentication method that uses MD5 encryption (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow encryption of stored passwords using MD5 (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>PAM authentication (Dominic J. Eidson)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Load pg_hba.conf and pg_ident.conf only on startup and SIGHUP (Bruce)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Server Configuration</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Interpretation of some time zone abbreviations as Australian rather than North American now settable at run time (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New parameter to set default transaction isolation level (Peter E)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New parameter to enable conversion of "expr = NULL" into "expr IS NULL", off by default (Peter E)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New parameter to control memory usage by VACUUM (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New parameter to set client authentication timeout (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New parameter to set maximum number of open files (Tom)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Queries</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Statements added by INSERT rules now execute after the INSERT (Jan)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent unadorned relation names in target list (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>NULLs now sort after all normal values in ORDER BY (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New IS UNKNOWN, IS NOT UNKNOWN Boolean tests (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New SHARE UPDATE EXCLUSIVE lock mode (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New EXPLAIN ANALYZE command that shows run times and row counts (Martijn van Oosterhout)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix problem with LIMIT and subqueries (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for LIMIT, DISTINCT ON pushed into subqueries (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix nested EXCEPT/INTERSECT (Tom)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Schema Manipulation</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Fix SERIAL in temporary tables (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow temporary sequences (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Sequences now use int8 internally (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New SERIAL8 creates int8 columns with sequences, default still SERIAL4 (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make OIDs optional using WITHOUT OIDS (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add %TYPE syntax to CREATE TYPE (Ian Lance Taylor)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add ALTER TABLE / DROP CONSTRAINT for CHECK constraints (Christopher Kings-Lynne)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION to alter existing function (preserving the function OID) (Gavin Sherry)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add ALTER TABLE / ADD [ UNIQUE | PRIMARY ] (Christopher Kings-Lynne)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow column renaming in views</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make ALTER TABLE / RENAME COLUMN update column names of indexes (Brent Verner)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for ALTER TABLE / ADD CONSTRAINT ... CHECK with inherited tables (Stephan Szabo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>ALTER TABLE RENAME update foreign-key trigger arguments correctly (Brent Verner)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>DROP AGGREGATE and COMMENT ON AGGREGATE now accept an aggtype (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add automatic return type data casting for SQL functions (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow GiST indexes to handle NULLs and multikey indexes (Oleg Bartunov, Teodor Sigaev, Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Enable partial indexes (Martijn van Oosterhout)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Utility Commands</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Add RESET ALL, SHOW ALL (Marko Kreen)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>CREATE/ALTER USER/GROUP now allow options in any order (Vince)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add LOCK A, B, C functionality (Neil Padgett)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New ENCRYPTED/UNENCRYPTED option to CREATE/ALTER USER (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New light-weight VACUUM does not lock table; old semantics are available as VACUUM FULL (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Disable COPY TO/FROM on views (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>COPY DELIMITERS string must be exactly one character (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>VACUUM warning about index tuples fewer than heap now only appears when appropriate (Martijn van Oosterhout)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix privilege checks for CREATE INDEX (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Disallow inappropriate use of CREATE/DROP INDEX/TRIGGER/VIEW (Tom)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Data Types and Functions</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>SUM(), AVG(), COUNT() now uses int8 internally for speed (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add convert(), convert2() (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New function bit_length() (Peter E)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make the "n" in CHAR(n)/VARCHAR(n) represents letters, not bytes (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>CHAR(), VARCHAR() now reject strings that are too long (Peter E)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>BIT VARYING now rejects bit strings that are too long (Peter E)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>BIT now rejects bit strings that do not match declared size (Peter E)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>INET, CIDR text conversion functions (Alex Pilosov)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>INET, CIDR operators << and <<= indexable (Alex Pilosov)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Bytea \### now requires valid three digit octal number</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Bytea comparison improvements, now supports =, <>, >, >=, <, and <=</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Bytea now supports B-tree indexes</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Bytea now supports LIKE, LIKE...ESCAPE, NOT LIKE, NOT LIKE...ESCAPE</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Bytea now supports concatenation</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New bytea functions: position, substring, trim, btrim, and length</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New encode() function mode, "escaped", converts minimally escaped bytea to/from text</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add pg_database_encoding_max_length() (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add pg_client_encoding() function (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>now() returns time with millisecond precision (Thomas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New TIMESTAMP WITHOUT TIMEZONE data type (Thomas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add ISO date/time specification with "T", yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss (Thomas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New xid/int comparison functions (Hiroshi)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add precision to TIME, TIMESTAMP, and INTERVAL data types (Thomas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Modify type coercion logic to attempt binary-compatible functions first (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New encode() function installed by default (Marko Kreen)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improved to_*() conversion functions (Karel Zak)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Optimize LIKE/ILIKE when using single-byte encodings (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New functions in contrib/pgcrypto: crypt(), hmac(), encrypt(), gen_salt() (Marko Kreen)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Correct description of translate() function (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add INTERVAL argument for SET TIME ZONE (Thomas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add INTERVAL YEAR TO MONTH (etc.) syntax (Thomas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Optimize length functions when using single-byte encodings (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix path_inter, path_distance, path_length, dist_ppath to handle closed paths (Curtis Barrett, Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>octet_length(text) now returns non-compressed length (Tatsuo, Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Handle "July" full name in date/time literals (Greg Sabino Mullane)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Some datatype() function calls now evaluated differently</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add support for Julian and ISO time specifications (Thomas)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Internationalization</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>National language support in psql, <application>pg_dump</>, libpq, and server (Peter E)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Message translations in Chinese (simplified, traditional), Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Russian, Swedish (Peter E, Serguei A. Mokhov, Karel Zak, Weiping He, Zhenbang Wei, Kovacs Zoltan)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make trim, ltrim, rtrim, btrim, lpad, rpad, translate multibyte aware (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add LATIN5,6,7,8,9,10 support (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add ISO 8859-5,6,7,8 support (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Correct LATIN5 to mean ISO-8859-9, not ISO-8859-5 (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make mic2ascii() non-ASCII aware (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Reject invalid multibyte character sequences (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title><application>PL/pgSQL</></title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Now uses portals for SELECT loops, allowing huge result sets (Jan)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>CURSOR and REFCURSOR support (Jan)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Can now return open cursors (Jan)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add ELSEIF (Klaus Reger)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve PL/pgSQL error reporting, including location of error (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow IS or FOR key words in cursor declaration, for compatibility (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for SELECT ... FOR UPDATE (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for PERFORM returning multiple rows (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make PL/pgSQL use the server's type coercion code (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Memory leak fix (Jan, Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Make trailing semicolon optional (Tom)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>PL/Perl</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>New untrusted PL/Perl (Alex Pilosov)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>PL/Perl is now built on some platforms even if libperl is not shared (Peter E)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>PL/Tcl</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Now reports errorInfo (Vsevolod Lobko)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add spi_lastoid function (bob@redivi.com)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>PL/Python</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>...is new (Andrew Bosma)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title><application>psql</></title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>\d displays indexes in unique, primary groupings (Christopher Kings-Lynne)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow trailing semicolons in backslash commands (Greg Sabino Mullane)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Read password from /dev/tty if possible</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Force new password prompt when changing user and database (Tatsuo, Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Format the correct number of columns for Unicode (Patrice)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title><application>libpq</></title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>New function PQescapeString() to escape quotes in command strings (Florian Weimer)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New function PQescapeBytea() escapes binary strings for use as SQL string literals</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>JDBC</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Return OID of INSERT (Ken K)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Handle more data types (Ken K)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Handle single quotes and newlines in strings (Ken K)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Handle NULL variables (Ken K)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for time zone handling (Barry Lind)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improved Druid support</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow eight-bit characters with non-multibyte server (Barry Lind)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Support BIT, BINARY types (Ned Wolpert)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Reduce memory usage (Michael Stephens, Dave Cramer)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Update DatabaseMetaData (Peter E)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add DatabaseMetaData.getCatalogs() (Peter E)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Encoding fixes (Anders Bengtsson)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Get/setCatalog methods (Jason Davies)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>DatabaseMetaData.getColumns() now returns column defaults (Jason Davies)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>DatabaseMetaData.getColumns() performance improvement (Jeroen van Vianen)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Some JDBC1 and JDBC2 merging (Anders Bengtsson)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Transaction performance improvements (Barry Lind)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Array fixes (Greg Zoller)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Serialize addition </para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix batch processing (Rene Pijlman)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>ExecSQL method reorganization (Anders Bengtsson)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>GetColumn() fixes (Jeroen van Vianen)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix isWriteable() function (Rene Pijlman)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improved passage of JDBC2 conformance tests (Rene Pijlman)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add bytea type capability (Barry Lind)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add isNullable() (Rene Pijlman)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>JDBC date/time test suite fixes (Liam Stewart)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for SELECT 'id' AS xxx FROM table (Dave Cramer)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix DatabaseMetaData to show precision properly (Mark Lillywhite)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New getImported/getExported keys (Jason Davies)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>MD5 password encryption support (Jeremy Wohl)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix to actually use type cache (Ned Wolpert)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>ODBC</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Remove query size limit (Hiroshi)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Remove text field size limit (Hiroshi)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for SQLPrimaryKeys in multibyte mode (Hiroshi)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow ODBC procedure calls (Hiroshi)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve boolean handing (Aidan Mountford)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Most configuration options now settable via DSN (Hiroshi)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Multibyte, performance fixes (Hiroshi)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Allow driver to be used with iODBC or unixODBC (Peter E)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>MD5 password encryption support (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add more compatibility functions to odbc.sql (Peter E)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title><application>ECPG</></title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>EXECUTE ... INTO implemented (Christof Petig)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Multiple row descriptor support (e.g. CARDINALITY) (Christof Petig)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for GRANT parameters (Lee Kindness)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix INITIALLY DEFERRED bug</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Various bug fixes (Michael, Christof Petig)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Auto allocation for indicator variable arrays (int *ind_p=NULL)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Auto allocation for string arrays (char **foo_pp=NULL)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>ECPGfree_auto_mem fixed</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>All function names with external linkage are now prefixed by ECPG</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fixes for arrays of structures (Michael)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Misc. Interfaces</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Python fix fetchone() (Gerhard Haring)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Use UTF, Unicode in Tcl where appropriate (Vsevolod Lobko, Reinhard Max)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add Tcl COPY TO/FROM (ljb)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Prevent output of default index op class in <application>pg_dump</> (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix libpgeasy memory leak (Bruce)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Build and Install</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Configure, dynamic loader, and shared library fixes (Peter E)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fixes in QNX 4 port (Bernd Tegge)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fixes in Cygwin and Windows ports (Jason Tishler, Gerhard Haring, Dmitry Yurtaev, Darko Prenosil, Mikhail Terekhov)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix for Windows socket communication failures (Magnus, Mikhail Terekhov)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Hurd compile fix (Oliver Elphick)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>BeOS fixes (Cyril Velter)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Remove configure --enable-unicode-conversion, now enabled by multibyte (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>AIX fixes (Tatsuo, Andreas)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Fix parallel make (Peter E)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Install SQL language manual pages into OS-specific directories (Peter E)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Rename config.h to pg_config.h (Peter E)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Reorganize installation layout of header files (Peter E)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Source Code</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>Remove SEP_CHAR (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New GUC hooks (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Merge GUC and command line handling (Marko Kreen)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Remove EXTEND INDEX (Martijn van Oosterhout, Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New pgjindent utility to indent java code (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Remove define of true/false when compiling under C++ (Leandro Fanzone, Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>pgindent fixes (Bruce, Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Replace strcasecmp() with strcmp() where appropriate (Peter E)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Dynahash portability improvements (Tom)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add 'volatile' usage in spinlock structures</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Improve signal handling logic (Tom)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>Contrib</title> +<itemizedlist> +<listitem><para>New contrib/rtree_gist (Oleg Bartunov, Teodor Sigaev)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New contrib/tsearch full-text indexing (Oleg, Teodor Sigaev)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add contrib/dblink for remote database access (Joe Conway)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>contrib/ora2pg Oracle conversion utility (Gilles Darold)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>contrib/xml XML conversion utility (John Gray)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>contrib/fulltextindex fixes (Christopher Kings-Lynne)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New contrib/fuzzystrmatch with levenshtein and metaphone, soundex merged (Joe Conway)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add contrib/intarray boolean queries, binary search, fixes (Oleg Bartunov)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>New pg_upgrade utility (Bruce)</para></listitem> +<listitem><para>Add new pg_resetxlog options (Bruce, Tom)</para></listitem> +</itemizedlist> + </sect3> + </sect2> +</sect1> + + + <sect1 id="release-7-1-3"> + <title>Release 7.1.3</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2001-08-15</simpara> + </note> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.1.3</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those running + 7.1.X. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <para> + <programlisting> +Remove unused WAL segments of large transactions (Tom) +Multiaction rule fix (Tom) +PL/pgSQL memory allocation fix (Jan) +VACUUM buffer fix (Tom) +Regression test fixes (Tom) +pg_dump fixes for GRANT/REVOKE/comments on views, user-defined types (Tom) +Fix subselects with DISTINCT ON or LIMIT (Tom) +BeOS fix +Disable COPY TO/FROM a view (Tom) +Cygwin build (Jason Tishler) + </programlisting> + </para> + </sect2> + </sect1> + + + <sect1 id="release-7-1-2"> + <title>Release 7.1.2</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2001-05-11</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This has one fix from 7.1.1. + </para> + + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.1.2</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those running + 7.1.X. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <para> + <programlisting> +Fix PL/pgSQL SELECTs when returning no rows +Fix for psql backslash core dump +Referential integrity privilege fix +Optimizer fixes +pg_dump cleanups + </programlisting> + </para> + </sect2> + </sect1> + + + <sect1 id="release-7-1-1"> + <title>Release 7.1.1</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2001-05-05</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This has a variety of fixes from 7.1. + </para> + + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.1.1</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those running + 7.1. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <para> + <programlisting> +Fix for numeric MODULO operator (Tom) +pg_dump fixes (Philip) +pg_dump can dump 7.0 databases (Philip) +readline 4.2 fixes (Peter E) +JOIN fixes (Tom) +AIX, MSWIN, VAX, N32K fixes (Tom) +Multibytes fixes (Tom) +Unicode fixes (Tatsuo) +Optimizer improvements (Tom) +Fix for whole rows in functions (Tom) +Fix for pg_ctl and option strings with spaces (Peter E) +ODBC fixes (Hiroshi) +EXTRACT can now take string argument (Thomas) +Python fixes (Darcy) + </programlisting> + </para> + </sect2> + </sect1> + + + <sect1 id="release-7-1"> + <title>Release 7.1</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2001-04-13</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release focuses on removing limitations that have existed in the + <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> code for many years. + </para> + + <para> + Major changes in this release: + </para> + + <variablelist> + <varlistentry> + <term> + Write-ahead Log (WAL) + </term> + <listitem> + <para> +To maintain database consistency in case of an operating system crash, +previous releases of <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> have forced +all data modifications to disk before each transaction commit. With +WAL, only one log file must be flushed to disk, greatly improving +performance. If you have been using -F in previous releases to +disable disk flushes, you might want to consider discontinuing its use. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + TOAST + </term> + <listitem> + <para> + TOAST - Previous releases had a compiled-in row length limit, +typically 8k - 32k. This limit made storage of long text fields +difficult. With TOAST, long rows of any length can be stored with good +performance. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Outer Joins + </term> + <listitem> + <para> +We now support outer joins. The UNION/NOT IN +workaround for outer joins is no longer required. We use the SQL92 +outer join syntax. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Function Manager + </term> + <listitem> + <para> +The previous C function manager did not +handle null values properly, nor did it support 64-bit <acronym>CPU</acronym>'s (Alpha). The new +function manager does. You can continue using your old custom +functions, but you might want to rewrite them in the future to use the new +function manager call interface. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Complex Queries + </term> + <listitem> + <para> +A large number of complex queries that were +unsupported in previous releases now work. Many combinations of views, +aggregates, UNION, LIMIT, cursors, subqueries, and inherited tables +now work properly. Inherited tables are now accessed by default. +Subqueries in FROM are now supported. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + </variablelist> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.1</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore using pg_dump is required for those wishing to migrate + data from any previous release. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <para> + <programlisting> +Bug Fixes +--------- +Many multibyte/Unicode/locale fixes (Tatsuo and others) +More reliable ALTER TABLE RENAME (Tom) +Kerberos V fixes (David Wragg) +Fix for INSERT INTO...SELECT where targetlist has subqueries (Tom) +Prompt username/password on standard error (Bruce) +Large objects inv_read/inv_write fixes (Tom) +Fixes for to_char(), to_date(), to_ascii(), and to_timestamp() (Karel, + Daniel Baldoni) +Prevent query expressions from leaking memory (Tom) +Allow UPDATE of arrays elements (Tom) +Wake up lock waiters during cancel (Hiroshi) +Fix rare cursor crash when using hash join (Tom) +Fix for DROP TABLE/INDEX in rolled-back transaction (Hiroshi) +Fix psql crash from \l+ if MULTIBYTE enabled (Peter E) +Fix truncation of rule names during CREATE VIEW (Ross Reedstrom) +Fix PL/perl (Alex Kapranoff) +Disallow LOCK on views (Mark Hollomon) +Disallow INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE on views (Mark Hollomon) +Disallow DROP RULE, CREATE INDEX, TRUNCATE on views (Mark Hollomon) +Allow PL/pgSQL accept non-ASCII identifiers (Tatsuo) +Allow views to proper handle GROUP BY, aggregates, DISTINCT (Tom) +Fix rare failure with TRUNCATE command (Tom) +Allow UNION/INTERSECT/EXCEPT to be used with ALL, subqueries, views, + DISTINCT, ORDER BY, SELECT...INTO (Tom) +Fix parser failures during aborted transactions (Tom) +Allow temporary relations to properly clean up indexes (Bruce) +Fix VACUUM problem with moving rows in same page (Tom) +Modify pg_dump to better handle user-defined items in template1 (Philip) +Allow LIMIT in VIEW (Tom) +Require cursor FETCH to honor LIMIT (Tom) +Allow PRIMARY/FOREIGN Key definitions on inherited columns (Stephan) +Allow ORDER BY, LIMIT in subqueries (Tom) +Allow UNION in CREATE RULE (Tom) +Make ALTER/DROP TABLE rollback-able (Vadim, Tom) +Store initdb collation in pg_control so collation cannot be changed (Tom) +Fix INSERT...SELECT with rules (Tom) +Fix FOR UPDATE inside views and subselects (Tom) +Fix OVERLAPS operators conform to SQL92 spec regarding NULLs (Tom) +Fix lpad() and rpad() to handle length less than input string (Tom) +Fix use of NOTIFY in some rules (Tom) +Overhaul btree code (Tom) +Fix NOT NULL use in Pl/pgSQL variables (Tom) +Overhaul GIST code (Oleg) +Fix CLUSTER to preserve constraints and column default (Tom) +Improved deadlock detection handling (Tom) +Allow multiple SERIAL columns in a table (Tom) +Prevent occasional index corruption (Vadim) + +Enhancements +------------ +Add OUTER JOINs (Tom) +Function manager overhaul (Tom) +Allow ALTER TABLE RENAME on indexes (Tom) +Improve CLUSTER (Tom) +Improve ps status display for more platforms (Peter E, Marc) +Improve CREATE FUNCTION failure message (Ross) +JDBC improvements (Peter, Travis Bauer, Christopher Cain, William Webber, + Gunnar) +Grand Unified Configuration scheme/GUC. Many options can now be set in + data/postgresql.conf, postmaster/postgres flags, or SET commands (Peter E) +Improved handling of file descriptor cache (Tom) +New warning code about auto-created table alias entries (Bruce) +Overhaul initdb process (Tom, Peter E) +Overhaul of inherited tables; inherited tables now accessed by default; + new ONLY key word prevents it (Chris Bitmead, Tom) +ODBC cleanups/improvements (Nick Gorham, Stephan Szabo, Zoltan Kovacs, + Michael Fork) +Allow renaming of temp tables (Tom) +Overhaul memory manager contexts (Tom) +pg_dumpall uses CREATE USER or CREATE GROUP rather using COPY (Peter E) +Overhaul pg_dump (Philip Warner) +Allow pg_hba.conf secondary password file to specify only username (Peter E) +Allow TEMPORARY or TEMP key word when creating temporary tables (Bruce) +New memory leak checker (Karel) +New SET SESSION CHARACTERISTICS (Thomas) +Allow nested block comments (Thomas) +Add WITHOUT TIME ZONE type qualifier (Thomas) +New ALTER TABLE ADD CONSTRAINT (Stephan) +Use NUMERIC accumulators for INTEGER aggregates (Tom) +Overhaul aggregate code (Tom) +New VARIANCE and STDDEV() aggregates +Improve dependency ordering of pg_dump (Philip) +New pg_restore command (Philip) +New pg_dump tar output option (Philip) +New pg_dump of large objects (Philip) +New ESCAPE option to LIKE (Thomas) +New case-insensitive LIKE - ILIKE (Thomas) +Allow functional indexes to use binary-compatible type (Tom) +Allow SQL functions to be used in more contexts (Tom) +New pg_config utility (Peter E) +New PL/pgSQL EXECUTE command which allows dynamic SQL and utility statements + (Jan) +New PL/pgSQL GET DIAGNOSTICS statement for SPI value access (Jan) +New quote_identifiers() and quote_literal() functions (Jan) +New ALTER TABLE table OWNER TO user command (Mark Hollomon) +Allow subselects in FROM, i.e. FROM (SELECT ...) [AS] alias (Tom) +Update PyGreSQL to version 3.1 (D'Arcy) +Store tables as files named by OID (Vadim) +New SQL function setval(seq,val,bool) for use in pg_dump (Philip) +Require DROP VIEW to remove views, no DROP TABLE (Mark) +Allow DROP VIEW view1, view2 (Mark) +Allow multiple objects in DROP INDEX, DROP RULE, and DROP TYPE (Tom) +Allow automatic conversion to/from Unicode (Tatsuo, Eiji) +New /contrib/pgcrypto hashing functions (Marko Kreen) +New pg_dumpall --globals-only option (Peter E) +New CHECKPOINT command for WAL which creates new WAL log file (Vadim) +New AT TIME ZONE syntax (Thomas) +Allow location of Unix domain socket to be configurable (David J. MacKenzie) +Allow postmaster to listen on a specific IP address (David J. MacKenzie) +Allow socket path name to be specified in hostname by using leading slash + (David J. MacKenzie) +Allow CREATE DATABASE to specify template database (Tom) +New utility to convert MySQL schema dumps to SQL92 and PostgreSQL (Thomas) +New /contrib/rserv replication toolkit (Vadim) +New file format for COPY BINARY (Tom) +New /contrib/oid2name to map numeric files to table names (B Palmer) +New "idle in transaction" ps status message (Marc) +Update to pgaccess 0.98.7 (Constantin Teodorescu) +pg_ctl now defaults to -w (wait) on shutdown, new -l (log) option +Add rudimentary dependency checking to pg_dump (Philip) + +Types +----- +Fix INET/CIDR type ordering and add new functions (Tom) +Make OID behave as an unsigned type (Tom) +Allow BIGINT as synonym for INT8 (Peter E) +New int2 and int8 comparison operators (Tom) +New BIT and BIT VARYING types (Adriaan Joubert, Tom, Peter E) +CHAR() no longer faster than VARCHAR() because of TOAST (Tom) +New GIST seg/cube examples (Gene Selkov) +Improved round(numeric) handling (Tom) +Fix CIDR output formatting (Tom) +New CIDR abbrev() function (Tom) + +Performance +----------- +Write-Ahead Log (WAL) to provide crash recovery with less performance + overhead (Vadim) +ANALYZE stage of VACUUM no longer exclusively locks table (Bruce) +Reduced file seeks (Denis Perchine) +Improve BTREE code for duplicate keys (Tom) +Store all large objects in a single table (Denis Perchine, Tom) +Improve memory allocation performance (Karel, Tom) + +Source Code +----------- +New function manager call conventions (Tom) +SGI portability fixes (David Kaelbling) +New configure --enable-syslog option (Peter E) +New BSDI README (Bruce) +configure script moved to top level, not /src (Peter E) +Makefile/configuration/compilation overhaul (Peter E) +New configure --with-python option (Peter E) +Solaris cleanups (Peter E) +Overhaul /contrib Makefiles (Karel) +New OpenSSL configuration option (Magnus, Peter E) +AIX fixes (Andreas) +QNX fixes (Maurizio) +New heap_open(), heap_openr() API (Tom) +Remove colon and semi-colon operators (Thomas) +New pg_class.relkind value for views (Mark Hollomon) +Rename ichar() to chr() (Karel) +New documentation for btrim(), ascii(), chr(), repeat() (Karel) +Fixes for NT/Cygwin (Pete Forman) +AIX port fixes (Andreas) +New BeOS port (David Reid, Cyril Velter) +Add proofreader's changes to docs (Addison-Wesley, Bruce) +New Alpha spinlock code (Adriaan Joubert, Compaq) +UnixWare port overhaul (Peter E) +New Darwin/MacOS X port (Peter Bierman, Bruce Hartzler) +New FreeBSD Alpha port (Alfred) +Overhaul shared memory segments (Tom) +Add IBM S/390 support (Neale Ferguson) +Moved macmanuf to /contrib (Larry Rosenman) +Syslog improvements (Larry Rosenman) +New template0 database that contains no user additions (Tom) +New /contrib/cube and /contrib/seg GIST sample code (Gene Selkov) +Allow NetBSD's libedit instead of readline (Peter) +Improved assembly language source code format (Bruce) +New contrib/pg_logger +New --template option to createdb +New contrib/pg_control utility (Oliver) +New FreeBSD tools ipc_check, start-scripts/freebsd + </programlisting> + </para> + </sect2> + </sect1> + + + <sect1 id="release-7-0-3"> + <title>Release 7.0.3</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2000-11-11</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This has a variety of fixes from 7.0.2. + </para> + + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.0.3</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those running + 7.0.*. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <para> + <programlisting> +Jdbc fixes (Peter) +Large object fix (Tom) +Fix lean in COPY WITH OIDS leak (Tom) +Fix backwards-index-scan (Tom) +Fix SELECT ... FOR UPDATE so it checks for duplicate keys (Hiroshi) +Add --enable-syslog to configure (Marc) +Fix abort transaction at backend exit in rare cases (Tom) +Fix for psql \l+ when multibyte enabled (Tatsuo) +Allow PL/pgSQL to accept non ascii identifiers (Tatsuo) +Make vacuum always flush buffers (Tom) +Fix to allow cancel while waiting for a lock (Hiroshi) +Fix for memory allocation problem in user authentication code (Tom) +Remove bogus use of int4out() (Tom) +Fixes for multiple subqueries in COALESCE or BETWEEN (Tom) +Fix for failure of triggers on heap open in certain cases (Jeroen van + Vianen) +Fix for erroneous selectivity of not-equals (Tom) +Fix for erroneous use of strcmp() (Tom) +Fix for bug where storage manager accesses items beyond end of file + (Tom) +Fix to include kernel errno message in all smgr elog messages (Tom) +Fix for '.' not in PATH at build time (SL Baur) +Fix for out-of-file-descriptors error (Tom) +Fix to make pg_dump dump 'iscachable' flag for functions (Tom) +Fix for subselect in targetlist of Append node (Tom) +Fix for mergejoin plans (Tom) +Fix TRUNCATE failure on relations with indexes (Tom) +Avoid database-wide restart on write error (Hiroshi) +Fix nodeMaterial to honor chgParam by recomputing its output (Tom) +Fix VACUUM problem with moving chain of update row versions when source + and destination of a row version lie on the same page (Tom) +Fix user.c CommandCounterIncrement (Tom) +Fix for AM/PM boundary problem in to_char() (Karel Zak) +Fix TIME aggregate handling (Tom) +Fix to_char() to avoid coredump on NULL input (Tom) +Buffer fix (Tom) +Fix for inserting/copying longer multibyte strings into char() data + types (Tatsuo) +Fix for crash of backend, on abort (Tom) + </programlisting> + </para> + </sect2> + </sect1> + + + <sect1 id="release-7-0-2"> + <title>Release 7.0.2</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2000-06-05</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This is a repackaging of 7.0.1 with added documentation. + </para> + + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.0.2</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those running + 7.*. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <para> + <programlisting> +Added documentation to tarball. + </programlisting> + </para> + </sect2> + </sect1> + + + <sect1 id="release-7-0-1"> + <title>Release 7.0.1</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2000-06-01</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This is a cleanup release for 7.0. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.0.1</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those running + 7.0. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <para> + <programlisting> +Fix many CLUSTER failures (Tom) +Allow ALTER TABLE RENAME works on indexes (Tom) +Fix plpgsql to handle datetime->timestamp and timespan->interval (Bruce) +New configure --with-setproctitle switch to use setproctitle() (Marc, Bruce) +Fix the off by one errors in ResultSet from 6.5.3, and more. +jdbc ResultSet fixes (Joseph Shraibman) +optimizer tunings (Tom) +Fix create user for pgaccess +Fix for UNLISTEN failure +IRIX fixes (David Kaelbling) +QNX fixes (Andreas Kardos) +Reduce COPY IN lock level (Tom) +Change libpqeasy to use PQconnectdb() style parameters (Bruce) +Fix pg_dump to handle OID indexes (Tom) +Fix small memory leak (Tom) +Solaris fix for createdb/dropdb (Tatsuo) +Fix for non-blocking connections (Alfred Perlstein) +Fix improper recovery after RENAME TABLE failures (Tom) +Copy pg_ident.conf.sample into /lib directory in install (Bruce) +Add SJIS UDC (NEC selection IBM kanji) support (Eiji Tokuya) +Fix too long syslog message (Tatsuo) +Fix problem with quoted indexes that are too long (Tom) +JDBC ResultSet.getTimestamp() fix (Gregory Krasnow & Floyd Marinescu) +ecpg changes (Michael) + </programlisting> + </para> + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-7-0"> + <title>Release 7.0</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>2000-05-08</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release contains improvements in many areas, demonstrating + the continued growth of <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>. + There are more improvements and fixes in 7.0 than in any previous + release. The developers have confidence that this is the best + release yet; we do our best to put out only solid releases, and + this one is no exception. + </para> + + <para> + Major changes in this release: + </para> + + <variablelist> + <varlistentry> + <term> + Foreign Keys + </term> + <listitem> + <para> + Foreign keys are now implemented, with the exception of PARTIAL MATCH + foreign keys. Many users have been asking for this feature, and we are + pleased to offer it. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Optimizer Overhaul + </term> + <listitem> + <para> + Continuing on work started a year ago, the optimizer has been + improved, allowing better query plan selection and faster performance + with less memory usage. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Updated <application>psql</application> + </term> + <listitem> + <para> + <application>psql</application>, our interactive terminal monitor, has been + updated with a variety of new features. See the <application>psql</application> manual page for details. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Join Syntax + </term> + <listitem> + <para> + SQL92 join syntax is now supported, though only as + <literal>INNER JOIN</> for this release. <literal>JOIN</>, + <literal>NATURAL JOIN</>, <literal>JOIN</>/<literal>USING</>, + and <literal>JOIN</>/<literal>ON</> are available, as are + column correlation names. + </para> + </listitem> + + </varlistentry> + </variablelist> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 7.0</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore using <application>pg_dump</application> + is required for those wishing to migrate data from any + previous release of <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>. + For those upgrading from 6.5.*, you can instead use + <application>pg_upgrade</application> to upgrade to this + release; however, a full dump/reload installation is always the + most robust method for upgrades. + </para> + + <para> + Interface and compatibility issues to consider for the new + release include: + </para> + + <itemizedlist> + <listitem> + <para> + The date/time types <type>datetime</type> and + <type>timespan</type> have been superseded by the + SQL92-defined types <type>timestamp</type> and + <type>interval</type>. Although there has been some effort to + ease the transition by allowing + <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> to recognize + the deprecated type names and translate them to the new type + names, this mechanism cannot be completely transparent to + your existing application. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + The optimizer has been substantially improved in the area of + query cost estimation. In some cases, this will result in + decreased query times as the optimizer makes a better choice + for the preferred plan. However, in a small number of cases, + usually involving pathological distributions of data, your + query times might go up. If you are dealing with large amounts + of data, you might want to check your queries to verify + performance. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + The <acronym>JDBC</acronym> and <acronym>ODBC</acronym> + interfaces have been upgraded and extended. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + The string function <function>CHAR_LENGTH</function> is now a + native function. Previous versions translated this into a call + to <function>LENGTH</function>, which could result in + ambiguity with other types implementing + <function>LENGTH</function> such as the geometric types. + </para> + </listitem> + </itemizedlist> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <para> + <programlisting> +Bug Fixes +--------- +Prevent function calls exceeding maximum number of arguments (Tom) +Improve CASE construct (Tom) +Fix SELECT coalesce(f1,0) FROM int4_tbl GROUP BY f1 (Tom) +Fix SELECT sentence.words[0] FROM sentence GROUP BY sentence.words[0] (Tom) +Fix GROUP BY scan bug (Tom) +Improvements in SQL grammar processing (Tom) +Fix for views involved in INSERT ... SELECT ... (Tom) +Fix for SELECT a/2, a/2 FROM test_missing_target GROUP BY a/2 (Tom) +Fix for subselects in INSERT ... SELECT (Tom) +Prevent INSERT ... SELECT ... ORDER BY (Tom) +Fixes for relations greater than 2GB, including vacuum +Improve propagating system table changes to other backends (Tom) +Improve propagating user table changes to other backends (Tom) +Fix handling of temp tables in complex situations (Bruce, Tom) +Allow table locking at table open, improving concurrent reliability (Tom) +Properly quote sequence names in pg_dump (Ross J. Reedstrom) +Prevent DROP DATABASE while others accessing +Prevent any rows from being returned by GROUP BY if no rows processed (Tom) +Fix SELECT COUNT(1) FROM table WHERE ...' if no rows matching WHERE (Tom) +Fix pg_upgrade so it works for MVCC (Tom) +Fix for SELECT ... WHERE x IN (SELECT ... HAVING SUM(x) > 1) (Tom) +Fix for "f1 datetime DEFAULT 'now'" (Tom) +Fix problems with CURRENT_DATE used in DEFAULT (Tom) +Allow comment-only lines, and ;;; lines too. (Tom) +Improve recovery after failed disk writes, disk full (Hiroshi) +Fix cases where table is mentioned in FROM but not joined (Tom) +Allow HAVING clause without aggregate functions (Tom) +Fix for "--" comment and no trailing newline, as seen in perl interface +Improve pg_dump failure error reports (Bruce) +Allow sorts and hashes to exceed 2GB file sizes (Tom) +Fix for pg_dump dumping of inherited rules (Tom) +Fix for NULL handling comparisons (Tom) +Fix inconsistent state caused by failed CREATE/DROP commands (Hiroshi) +Fix for dbname with dash +Prevent DROP INDEX from interfering with other backends (Tom) +Fix file descriptor leak in verify_password() +Fix for "Unable to identify an operator =$" problem +Fix ODBC so no segfault if CommLog and Debug enabled (Dirk Niggemann) +Fix for recursive exit call (Massimo) +Fix for extra-long timezones (Jeroen van Vianen) +Make pg_dump preserve primary key information (Peter E) +Prevent databases with single quotes (Peter E) +Prevent DROP DATABASE inside transaction (Peter E) +ecpg memory leak fixes (Stephen Birch) +Fix for SELECT null::text, SELECT int4fac(null) and SELECT 2 + (null) (Tom) +Y2K timestamp fix (Massimo) +Fix for VACUUM 'HEAP_MOVED_IN was not expected' errors (Tom) +Fix for views with tables/columns containing spaces (Tom) +Prevent privileges on indexes (Peter E) +Fix for spinlock stuck problem when error is generated (Hiroshi) +Fix ipcclean on Linux +Fix handling of NULL constraint conditions (Tom) +Fix memory leak in odbc driver (Nick Gorham) +Fix for privilege check on UNION tables (Tom) +Fix to allow SELECT 'a' LIKE 'a' (Tom) +Fix for SELECT 1 + NULL (Tom) +Fixes to CHAR +Fix log() on numeric type (Tom) +Deprecate ':' and ';' operators +Allow vacuum of temporary tables +Disallow inherited columns with the same name as new columns +Recover or force failure when disk space is exhausted (Hiroshi) +Fix INSERT INTO ... SELECT with AS columns matching result columns +Fix INSERT ... SELECT ... GROUP BY groups by target columns not source columns (Tom) +Fix CREATE TABLE test (a char(5) DEFAULT text '', b int4) with INSERT (Tom) +Fix UNION with LIMIT +Fix CREATE TABLE x AS SELECT 1 UNION SELECT 2 +Fix CREATE TABLE test(col char(2) DEFAULT user) +Fix mismatched types in CREATE TABLE ... DEFAULT +Fix SELECT * FROM pg_class where oid in (0,-1) +Fix SELECT COUNT('asdf') FROM pg_class WHERE oid=12 +Prevent user who can create databases can modifying pg_database table (Peter E) +Fix btree to give a useful elog when key > 1/2 (page - overhead) (Tom) +Fix INSERT of 0.0 into DECIMAL(4,4) field (Tom) + +Enhancements +------------ +New CLI interface include file sqlcli.h, based on SQL3/SQL98 +Remove all limits on query length, row length limit still exists (Tom) +Update jdbc protocol to 2.0 (Jens Glaser <email>jens@jens.de</email>) +Add TRUNCATE command to quickly truncate relation (Mike Mascari) +Fix to give super user and createdb user proper update catalog rights (Peter E) +Allow ecpg bool variables to have NULL values (Christof) +Issue ecpg error if NULL value for variable with no NULL indicator (Christof) +Allow ^C to cancel COPY command (Massimo) +Add SET FSYNC and SHOW PG_OPTIONS commands(Massimo) +Function name overloading for dynamically-loaded C functions (Frankpitt) +Add CmdTuples() to libpq++(Vince) +New CREATE CONSTRAINT TRIGGER and SET CONSTRAINTS commands(Jan) +Allow CREATE FUNCTION/WITH clause to be used for all language types +configure --enable-debug adds -g (Peter E) +configure --disable-debug removes -g (Peter E) +Allow more complex default expressions (Tom) +First real FOREIGN KEY constraint trigger functionality (Jan) +Add FOREIGN KEY ... MATCH FULL ... ON DELETE CASCADE (Jan) +Add FOREIGN KEY ... MATCH <unspecified> referential actions (Don Baccus) +Allow WHERE restriction on ctid (physical heap location) (Hiroshi) +Move pginterface from contrib to interface directory, rename to pgeasy (Bruce) +Change pgeasy connectdb() parameter ordering (Bruce) +Require SELECT DISTINCT target list to have all ORDER BY columns (Tom) +Add Oracle's COMMENT ON command (Mike Mascari <email>mascarim@yahoo.com</email>) +libpq's PQsetNoticeProcessor function now returns previous hook(Peter E) +Prevent PQsetNoticeProcessor from being set to NULL (Peter E) +Make USING in COPY optional (Bruce) +Allow subselects in the target list (Tom) +Allow subselects on the left side of comparison operators (Tom) +New parallel regression test (Jan) +Change backend-side COPY to write files with permissions 644 not 666 (Tom) +Force permissions on PGDATA directory to be secure, even if it exists (Tom) +Added psql LASTOID variable to return last inserted oid (Peter E) +Allow concurrent vacuum and remove pg_vlock vacuum lock file (Tom) +Add privilege check for vacuum (Peter E) +New libpq functions to allow asynchronous connections: PQconnectStart(), + PQconnectPoll(), PQresetStart(), PQresetPoll(), PQsetenvStart(), + PQsetenvPoll(), PQsetenvAbort (Ewan Mellor) +New libpq PQsetenv() function (Ewan Mellor) +create/alter user extension (Peter E) +New postmaster.pid and postmaster.opts under $PGDATA (Tatsuo) +New scripts for create/drop user/db (Peter E) +Major psql overhaul (Peter E) +Add const to libpq interface (Peter E) +New libpq function PQoidValue (Peter E) +Show specific non-aggregate causing problem with GROUP BY (Tom) +Make changes to pg_shadow recreate pg_pwd file (Peter E) +Add aggregate(DISTINCT ...) (Tom) +Allow flag to control COPY input/output of NULLs (Peter E) +Make postgres user have a password by default (Peter E) +Add CREATE/ALTER/DROP GROUP (Peter E) +All administration scripts now support --long options (Peter E, Karel) +Vacuumdb script now supports --all option (Peter E) +ecpg new portable FETCH syntax +Add ecpg EXEC SQL IFDEF, EXEC SQL IFNDEF, EXEC SQL ELSE, EXEC SQL ELIF + and EXEC SQL ENDIF directives +Add pg_ctl script to control backend start-up (Tatsuo) +Add postmaster.opts.default file to store start-up flags (Tatsuo) +Allow --with-mb=SQL_ASCII +Increase maximum number of index keys to 16 (Bruce) +Increase maximum number of function arguments to 16 (Bruce) +Allow configuration of maximum number of index keys and arguments (Bruce) +Allow unprivileged users to change their passwords (Peter E) +Password authentication enabled; required for new users (Peter E) +Disallow dropping a user who owns a database (Peter E) +Change initdb option --with-mb to --enable-multibyte +Add option for initdb to prompts for superuser password (Peter E) +Allow complex type casts like col::numeric(9,2) and col::int2::float8 (Tom) +Updated user interfaces on initdb, initlocation, pg_dump, ipcclean (Peter E) +New pg_char_to_encoding() and pg_encoding_to_char() functions (Tatsuo) +libpq non-blocking mode (Alfred Perlstein) +Improve conversion of types in casts that don't specify a length +New plperl internal programming language (Mark Hollomon) +Allow COPY IN to read file that do not end with a newline (Tom) +Indicate when long identifiers are truncated (Tom) +Allow aggregates to use type equivalency (Peter E) +Add Oracle's to_char(), to_date(), to_datetime(), to_timestamp(), to_number() + conversion functions (Karel Zak <zakkr@zf.jcu.cz>) +Add SELECT DISTINCT ON (expr [, expr ...]) targetlist ... (Tom) +Check to be sure ORDER BY is compatible with the DISTINCT operation (Tom) +Add NUMERIC and int8 types to ODBC +Improve EXPLAIN results for Append, Group, Agg, Unique (Tom) +Add ALTER TABLE ... ADD FOREIGN KEY (Stephan Szabo) +Allow SELECT .. FOR UPDATE in PL/pgSQL (Hiroshi) +Enable backward sequential scan even after reaching EOF (Hiroshi) +Add btree indexing of boolean values, >= and <= (Don Baccus) +Print current line number when COPY FROM fails (Massimo) +Recognize POSIX time zone e.g. "PST+8" and "GMT-8" (Thomas) +Add DEC as synonym for DECIMAL (Thomas) +Add SESSION_USER as SQL92 key word, same as CURRENT_USER (Thomas) +Implement SQL92 column aliases (aka correlation names) (Thomas) +Implement SQL92 join syntax (Thomas) +Make INTERVAL reserved word allowed as a column identifier (Thomas) +Implement REINDEX command (Hiroshi) +Accept ALL in aggregate function SUM(ALL col) (Tom) +Prevent GROUP BY from using column aliases (Tom) +New psql \encoding option (Tatsuo) +Allow PQrequestCancel() to terminate when in waiting-for-lock state (Hiroshi) +Allow negation of a negative number in all cases +Add ecpg descriptors (Christof, Michael) +Allow CREATE VIEW v AS SELECT f1::char(8) FROM tbl +Allow casts with length, like foo::char(8) +New libpq functions PQsetClientEncoding(), PQclientEncoding() (Tatsuo) +Add support for SJIS user defined characters (Tatsuo) +Larger views/rules supported +Make libpq's PQconndefaults() thread-safe (Tom) +Disable // as comment to be ANSI conforming, should use -- (Tom) +Allow column aliases on views CREATE VIEW name (collist) +Fixes for views with subqueries (Tom) +Allow UPDATE table SET fld = (SELECT ...) (Tom) +SET command options no longer require quotes +Update pgaccess to 0.98.6 +New SET SEED command +New pg_options.sample file +New SET FSYNC command (Massimo) +Allow pg_descriptions when creating tables +Allow pg_descriptions when creating types, columns, and functions +Allow psql \copy to allow delimiters (Peter E) +Allow psql to print nulls as distinct from "" [null] (Peter E) + +Types +----- +Many array fixes (Tom) +Allow bare column names to be subscripted as arrays (Tom) +Improve type casting of int and float constants (Tom) +Cleanups for int8 inputs, range checking, and type conversion (Tom) +Fix for SELECT timespan('21:11:26'::time) (Tom) +netmask('x.x.x.x/0') is 255.255.255.255 instead of 0.0.0.0 (Oleg Sharoiko) +Add btree index on NUMERIC (Jan) +Perl fix for large objects containing NUL characters (Douglas Thomson) +ODBC fix for large objects (free) +Fix indexing of cidr data type +Fix for Ethernet MAC addresses (macaddr type) comparisons +Fix for date/time types when overflows happened in computations (Tom) +Allow array on int8 (Peter E) +Fix for rounding/overflow of NUMERIC type, like NUMERIC(4,4) (Tom) +Allow NUMERIC arrays +Fix bugs in NUMERIC ceil() and floor() functions (Tom) +Make char_length()/octet_length including trailing blanks (Tom) +Made abstime/reltime use int4 instead of time_t (Peter E) +New lztext data type for compressed text fields +Revise code to handle coercion of int and float constants (Tom) +Start at new code to implement a BIT and BIT VARYING type (Adriaan Joubert) +NUMERIC now accepts scientific notation (Tom) +NUMERIC to int4 rounds (Tom) +Convert float4/8 to NUMERIC properly (Tom) +Allow type conversion with NUMERIC (Thomas) +Make ISO date style (2000-02-16 09:33) the default (Thomas) +Add NATIONAL CHAR [ VARYING ] (Thomas) +Allow NUMERIC round and trunc to accept negative scales (Tom) +New TIME WITH TIME ZONE type (Thomas) +Add MAX()/MIN() on time type (Thomas) +Add abs(), mod(), fac() for int8 (Thomas) +Rename functions to round(), sqrt(), cbrt(), pow() for float8 (Thomas) +Add transcendental math functions (e.g. sin(), acos()) for float8 (Thomas) +Add exp() and ln() for NUMERIC type +Rename NUMERIC power() to pow() (Thomas) +Improved TRANSLATE() function (Edwin Ramirez, Tom) +Allow X=-Y operators (Tom) +Allow SELECT float8(COUNT(*))/(SELECT COUNT(*) FROM t) FROM t GROUP BY f1; (Tom) +Allow LOCALE to use indexes in regular expression searches (Tom) +Allow creation of functional indexes to use default types + +Performance +----------- +Prevent exponential space consumption with many AND's and OR's (Tom) +Collect attribute selectivity values for system columns (Tom) +Reduce memory usage of aggregates (Tom) +Fix for LIKE optimization to use indexes with multibyte encodings (Tom) +Fix r-tree index optimizer selectivity (Thomas) +Improve optimizer selectivity computations and functions (Tom) +Optimize btree searching for cases where many equal keys exist (Tom) +Enable fast LIKE index processing only if index present (Tom) +Re-use free space on index pages with duplicates (Tom) +Improve hash join processing (Tom) +Prevent descending sort if result is already sorted(Hiroshi) +Allow commuting of index scan query qualifications (Tom) +Prefer index scans in cases where ORDER BY/GROUP BY is required (Tom) +Allocate large memory requests in fix-sized chunks for performance (Tom) +Fix vacuum's performance by reducing memory allocation requests (Tom) +Implement constant-expression simplification (Bernard Frankpitt, Tom) +Use secondary columns to be used to determine start of index scan (Hiroshi) +Prevent quadruple use of disk space when doing internal sorting (Tom) +Faster sorting by calling fewer functions (Tom) +Create system indexes to match all system caches (Bruce, Hiroshi) +Make system caches use system indexes (Bruce) +Make all system indexes unique (Bruce) +Improve pg_statistics management for VACUUM speed improvement (Tom) +Flush backend cache less frequently (Tom, Hiroshi) +COPY now reuses previous memory allocation, improving performance (Tom) +Improve optimization cost estimation (Tom) +Improve optimizer estimate of range queries x > lowbound AND x < highbound (Tom) +Use DNF instead of CNF where appropriate (Tom, Taral) +Further cleanup for OR-of-AND WHERE-clauses (Tom) +Make use of index in OR clauses (x = 1 AND y = 2) OR (x = 2 AND y = 4) (Tom) +Smarter optimizer computations for random index page access (Tom) +New SET variable to control optimizer costs (Tom) +Optimizer queries based on LIMIT, OFFSET, and EXISTS qualifications (Tom) +Reduce optimizer internal housekeeping of join paths for speedup (Tom) +Major subquery speedup (Tom) +Fewer fsync writes when fsync is not disabled (Tom) +Improved LIKE optimizer estimates (Tom) +Prevent fsync in SELECT-only queries (Vadim) +Make index creation use psort code, because it is now faster (Tom) +Allow creation of sort temp tables > 1 Gig + +Source Tree Changes +------------------- +Fix for linux PPC compile +New generic expression-tree-walker subroutine (Tom) +Change form() to varargform() to prevent portability problems +Improved range checking for large integers on Alphas +Clean up #include in /include directory (Bruce) +Add scripts for checking includes (Bruce) +Remove un-needed #include's from *.c files (Bruce) +Change #include's to use <> and "" as appropriate (Bruce) +Enable Windows compilation of libpq +Alpha spinlock fix from Uncle George <email>gatgul@voicenet.com</email> +Overhaul of optimizer data structures (Tom) +Fix to cygipc library (Yutaka Tanida) +Allow pgsql to work on newer Cygwin snapshots (Dan) +New catalog version number (Tom) +Add Linux ARM +Rename heap_replace to heap_update +Update for QNX (Dr. Andreas Kardos) +New platform-specific regression handling (Tom) +Rename oid8 -> oidvector and int28 -> int2vector (Bruce) +Included all yacc and lex files into the distribution (Peter E.) +Remove lextest, no longer needed (Peter E) +Fix for libpq and psql on Windows (Magnus) +Internally change datetime and timespan into timestamp and interval (Thomas) +Fix for plpgsql on BSD/OS +Add SQL_ASCII test case to the regression test (Tatsuo) +configure --with-mb now deprecated (Tatsuo) +NT fixes +NetBSD fixes (Johnny C. Lam <email>lamj@stat.cmu.edu</email>) +Fixes for Alpha compiles +New multibyte encodings + </programlisting> + </para> + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-6-5-3"> + <title>Release 6.5.3</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>1999-10-13</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This is basically a cleanup release for 6.5.2. We have added a new + <application>PgAccess</> that was missing in 6.5.2, and installed an NT-specific fix. + </para> + + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 6.5.3</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those running + 6.5.*. + </para> + </sect2> + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <para> + <programlisting> +Updated version of pgaccess 0.98 +NT-specific patch +Fix dumping rules on inherited tables + </programlisting> + </para> + </sect2> + </sect1> + + + <sect1 id="release-6-5-2"> + <title>Release 6.5.2</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>1999-09-15</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This is basically a cleanup release for 6.5.1. We have fixed a variety of + problems reported by 6.5.1 users. + </para> + + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 6.5.2</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those running + 6.5.*. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <para> + <programlisting> +subselect+CASE fixes(Tom) +Add SHLIB_LINK setting for solaris_i386 and solaris_sparc ports(Daren Sefcik) +Fixes for CASE in WHERE join clauses(Tom) +Fix BTScan abort(Tom) +Repair the check for redundant UNIQUE and PRIMARY KEY indexes(Thomas) +Improve it so that it checks for multicolumn constraints(Thomas) +Fix for Windows making problem with MB enabled(Hiroki Kataoka) +Allow BSD yacc and bison to compile pl code(Bruce) +Fix SET NAMES working +int8 fixes(Thomas) +Fix vacuum's memory consumption(Hiroshi,Tatsuo) +Reduce the total memory consumption of vacuum(Tom) +Fix for timestamp(datetime) +Rule deparsing bugfixes(Tom) +Fix quoting problems in mkMakefile.tcldefs.sh.in and mkMakefile.tkdefs.sh.in(Tom) +This is to re-use space on index pages freed by vacuum(Vadim) +document -x for pg_dump(Bruce) +Fix for unary operators in rule deparser(Tom) +Comment out FileUnlink of excess segments during mdtruncate()(Tom) +IRIX linking fix from Yu Cao >yucao@falcon.kla-tencor.com< +Repair logic error in LIKE: should not return LIKE_ABORT + when reach end of pattern before end of text(Tom) +Repair incorrect cleanup of heap memory allocation during transaction abort(Tom) +Updated version of pgaccess 0.98 + </programlisting> + </para> + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-6-5-1"> + <title>Release 6.5.1</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>1999-07-15</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This is basically a cleanup release for 6.5. We have fixed a variety of + problems reported by 6.5 users. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 6.5.1</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those running + 6.5. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <para> + <programlisting> +Add NT README file +Portability fixes for linux_ppc, IRIX, linux_alpha, OpenBSD, alpha +Remove QUERY_LIMIT, use SELECT...LIMIT +Fix for EXPLAIN on inheritance(Tom) +Patch to allow vacuum on multisegment tables(Hiroshi) +R-Tree optimizer selectivity fix(Tom) +ACL file descriptor leak fix(Atsushi Ogawa) +New expression subtree code(Tom) +Avoid disk writes for read-only transactions(Vadim) +Fix for removal of temp tables if last transaction was aborted(Bruce) +Fix to prevent too large row from being created(Bruce) +plpgsql fixes +Allow port numbers 32k - 64k(Bruce) +Add ^ precedence(Bruce) +Rename sort files called pg_temp to pg_sorttemp(Bruce) +Fix for microseconds in time values(Tom) +Tutorial source cleanup +New linux_m68k port +Fix for sorting of NULL's in some cases(Tom) +Shared library dependencies fixed (Tom) +Fixed glitches affecting GROUP BY in subselects(Tom) +Fix some compiler warnings (Tomoaki Nishiyama) +Add Win1250 (Czech) support (Pavel Behal) + </programlisting> + </para> + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-6-5"> + <title>Release 6.5</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>1999-06-09</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + This release marks a major step in the development team's mastery of the source + code we inherited from Berkeley. You will see we are now easily adding + major features, thanks to the increasing size and experience of our + world-wide development team. + </para> + + <para> + Here is a brief summary of the more notable changes: + + <variablelist> + <varlistentry> + <term> + Multiversion concurrency control(MVCC) + </term> + <listitem> + <para> + This removes our old table-level locking, and replaces it with + a locking system that is superior to most commercial database + systems. In a traditional system, each row that is modified + is locked until committed, preventing reads by other users. + MVCC uses the natural multiversion nature of + <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> to allow readers to + continue reading consistent data during writer activity. + Writers continue to use the compact pg_log transaction system. + This is all performed without having to allocate a lock for + every row like traditional database systems. So, basically, + we no longer are restricted by simple table-level locking; we + have something better than row-level locking. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Hot backups from <application>pg_dump</application> + </term> + <listitem> + <para> + <application>pg_dump</application> takes advantage of the new + MVCC features to give a consistent database dump/backup while + the database stays online and available for queries. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Numeric data type + </term> + <listitem> + <para> + We now have a true numeric data type, with + user-specified precision. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Temporary tables + </term> + <listitem> + <para> + Temporary tables are guaranteed to have unique names + within a database session, and are destroyed on session exit. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + New SQL features + </term> + <listitem> + <para> + We now have CASE, INTERSECT, and EXCEPT statement + support. We have new LIMIT/OFFSET, SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL, + SELECT ... FOR UPDATE, and an improved LOCK TABLE command. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Speedups + </term> + <listitem> + <para> + We continue to speed up <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>, + thanks to the variety of talents within our team. We have + sped up memory allocation, optimization, table joins, and row + transfer routines. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Ports + </term> + <listitem> + <para> + We continue to expand our port list, this time including + <systemitem class="osname">Windows NT</>/<systemitem>ix86</> and <systemitem class="osname">NetBSD</>/<systemitem>arm32</>. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Interfaces + </term> + <listitem> + <para> + Most interfaces have new versions, and existing functionality + has been improved. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term> + Documentation + </term> + <listitem> + <para> + New and updated material is present throughout the + documentation. New <acronym>FAQ</acronym>s have been + contributed for <systemitem class="osname">SGI</> and <systemitem class="osname">AIX</> platforms. + The <citetitle>Tutorial</citetitle> has introductory information + on <acronym>SQL</acronym> from Stefan Simkovics. + For the <citetitle>User's Guide</citetitle>, there are + reference pages covering the postmaster and more utility + programs, and a new appendix + contains details on date/time behavior. + The <citetitle>Administrator's Guide</citetitle> has a new + chapter on troubleshooting from Tom Lane. + And the <citetitle>Programmer's Guide</citetitle> has a + description of query processing, also from Stefan, and details + on obtaining the <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> source + tree via anonymous <productname>CVS</productname> and + <productname>CVSup</productname>. + </para> + </listitem> + </varlistentry> + </variablelist> + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 6.5</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore using <application>pg_dump</application> + is required for those wishing to migrate data from any + previous release of <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>. + <application>pg_upgrade</application> can <emphasis>not</emphasis> + be used to upgrade to this release because the on-disk structure + of the tables has changed compared to previous releases. + </para> + + <para> + The new Multiversion Concurrency Control (MVCC) features can + give somewhat different behaviors in multiuser + environments. <emphasis>Read and understand the following section + to ensure that your existing applications will give you the + behavior you need.</emphasis> + </para> + + <sect3> + <title>Multiversion Concurrency Control</title> + + <para> + Because readers in 6.5 don't lock data, regardless of transaction + isolation level, data read by one transaction can be overwritten by + another. In other words, if a row is returned by + <command>SELECT</command> it doesn't mean that this row really exists + at the time it is returned (i.e. sometime after the statement or + transaction began) nor that the row is protected from being deleted or + updated by concurrent transactions before the current transaction does + a commit or rollback. + </para> + + <para> + To ensure the actual existence of a row and protect it against + concurrent updates one must use <command>SELECT FOR UPDATE</command> or + an appropriate <command>LOCK TABLE</command> statement. This should be + taken into account when porting applications from previous releases of + <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> and other environments. + </para> + + <para> + Keep the above in mind if you are using + <filename>contrib/refint.*</filename> triggers for + referential integrity. Additional techniques are required now. One way is + to use <command>LOCK parent_table IN SHARE ROW EXCLUSIVE MODE</command> + command if a transaction is going to update/delete a primary key and + use <command>LOCK parent_table IN SHARE MODE</command> command if a + transaction is going to update/insert a foreign key. + + <note> + <para> + Note that if you run a transaction in SERIALIZABLE mode then you must + execute the <command>LOCK</command> commands above before execution of any + <acronym>DML</acronym> statement + (<command>SELECT/INSERT/DELETE/UPDATE/FETCH/COPY_TO</command>) in the + transaction. + </para> + </note> + </para> + + <para> + These inconveniences will disappear in the future + when the ability to read dirty + (uncommitted) data (regardless of isolation level) and true referential + integrity will be implemented. + </para> + </sect3> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <para> + <programlisting> +Bug Fixes +--------- +Fix text<->float8 and text<->float4 conversion functions(Thomas) +Fix for creating tables with mixed-case constraints(Billy) +Change exp()/pow() behavior to generate error on underflow/overflow(Jan) +Fix bug in pg_dump -z +Memory overrun cleanups(Tatsuo) +Fix for lo_import crash(Tatsuo) +Adjust handling of data type names to suppress double quotes(Thomas) +Use type coercion for matching columns and DEFAULT(Thomas) +Fix deadlock so it only checks once after one second of sleep(Bruce) +Fixes for aggregates and PL/pgsql(Hiroshi) +Fix for subquery crash(Vadim) +Fix for libpq function PQfnumber and case-insensitive names(Bahman Rafatjoo) +Fix for large object write-in-middle, no extra block, memory consumption(Tatsuo) +Fix for pg_dump -d or -D and quote special characters in INSERT +Repair serious problems with dynahash(Tom) +Fix INET/CIDR portability problems +Fix problem with selectivity error in ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN(Bruce) +Fix executor so mergejoin of different column types works(Tom) +Fix for Alpha OR selectivity bug +Fix OR index selectivity problem(Bruce) +Fix so \d shows proper length for char()/varchar()(Ryan) +Fix tutorial code(Clark) +Improve destroyuser checking(Oliver) +Fix for Kerberos(Rodney McDuff) +Fix for dropping database while dirty buffers(Bruce) +Fix so sequence nextval() can be case-sensitive(Bruce) +Fix !!= operator +Drop buffers before destroying database files(Bruce) +Fix case where executor evaluates functions twice(Tatsuo) +Allow sequence nextval actions to be case-sensitive(Bruce) +Fix optimizer indexing not working for negative numbers(Bruce) +Fix for memory leak in executor with fjIsNull +Fix for aggregate memory leaks(Erik Riedel) +Allow user name containing a dash to grant privileges +Cleanup of NULL in inet types +Clean up system table bugs(Tom) +Fix problems of PAGER and \? command(Masaaki Sakaida) +Reduce default multisegment file size limit to 1GB(Peter) +Fix for dumping of CREATE OPERATOR(Tom) +Fix for backward scanning of cursors(Hiroshi Inoue) +Fix for COPY FROM STDIN when using \i(Tom) +Fix for subselect is compared inside an expression(Jan) +Fix handling of error reporting while returning rows(Tom) +Fix problems with reference to array types(Tom,Jan) +Prevent UPDATE SET oid(Jan) +Fix pg_dump so -t option can handle case-sensitive tablenames +Fixes for GROUP BY in special cases(Tom, Jan) +Fix for memory leak in failed queries(Tom) +DEFAULT now supports mixed-case identifiers(Tom) +Fix for multisegment uses of DROP/RENAME table, indexes(Ole Gjerde) +Disable use of pg_dump with both -o and -d options(Bruce) +Allow pg_dump to properly dump group privileges(Bruce) +Fix GROUP BY in INSERT INTO table SELECT * FROM table2(Jan) +Fix for computations in views(Jan) +Fix for aggregates on array indexes(Tom) +Fix for DEFAULT handles single quotes in value requiring too many quotes +Fix security problem with non-super users importing/exporting large objects(Tom) +Rollback of transaction that creates table cleaned up properly(Tom) +Fix to allow long table and column names to generate proper serial names(Tom) + +Enhancements +------------ +Add "vacuumdb" utility +Speed up libpq by allocating memory better(Tom) +EXPLAIN all indexes used(Tom) +Implement CASE, COALESCE, NULLIF expression(Thomas) +New pg_dump table output format(Constantin) +Add string min()/max() functions(Thomas) +Extend new type coercion techniques to aggregates(Thomas) +New moddatetime contrib(Terry) +Update to pgaccess 0.96(Constantin) +Add routines for single-byte "char" type(Thomas) +Improved substr() function(Thomas) +Improved multibyte handling(Tatsuo) +Multiversion concurrency control/MVCC(Vadim) +New Serialized mode(Vadim) +Fix for tables over 2gigs(Peter) +New SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL(Vadim) +New LOCK TABLE IN ... MODE(Vadim) +Update ODBC driver(Byron) +New NUMERIC data type(Jan) +New SELECT FOR UPDATE(Vadim) +Handle "NaN" and "Infinity" for input values(Jan) +Improved date/year handling(Thomas) +Improved handling of backend connections(Magnus) +New options ELOG_TIMESTAMPS and USE_SYSLOG options for log files(Massimo) +New TCL_ARRAYS option(Massimo) +New INTERSECT and EXCEPT(Stefan) +New pg_index.indisprimary for primary key tracking(D'Arcy) +New pg_dump option to allow dropping of tables before creation(Brook) +Speedup of row output routines(Tom) +New READ COMMITTED isolation level(Vadim) +New TEMP tables/indexes(Bruce) +Prevent sorting if result is already sorted(Jan) +New memory allocation optimization(Jan) +Allow psql to do \p\g(Bruce) +Allow multiple rule actions(Jan) +Added LIMIT/OFFSET functionality(Jan) +Improve optimizer when joining a large number of tables(Bruce) +New intro to SQL from S. Simkovics' Master's Thesis (Stefan, Thomas) +New intro to backend processing from S. Simkovics' Master's Thesis (Stefan) +Improved int8 support(Ryan Bradetich, Thomas, Tom) +New routines to convert between int8 and text/varchar types(Thomas) +New bushy plans, where meta-tables are joined(Bruce) +Enable right-hand queries by default(Bruce) +Allow reliable maximum number of backends to be set at configure time + (--with-maxbackends and postmaster switch (-N backends))(Tom) +GEQO default now 10 tables because of optimizer speedups(Tom) +Allow NULL=Var for MS-SQL portability(Michael, Bruce) +Modify contrib check_primary_key() so either "automatic" or "dependent"(Anand) +Allow psql \d on a view show query(Ryan) +Speedup for LIKE(Bruce) +Ecpg fixes/features, see src/interfaces/ecpg/ChangeLog file(Michael) +JDBC fixes/features, see src/interfaces/jdbc/CHANGELOG(Peter) +Make % operator have precedence like /(Bruce) +Add new postgres -O option to allow system table structure changes(Bruce) +Update contrib/pginterface/findoidjoins script(Tom) +Major speedup in vacuum of deleted rows with indexes(Vadim) +Allow non-SQL functions to run different versions based on arguments(Tom) +Add -E option that shows actual queries sent by \dt and friends(Masaaki Sakaida) +Add version number in start-up banners for psql(Masaaki Sakaida) +New contrib/vacuumlo removes large objects not referenced(Peter) +New initialization for table sizes so non-vacuumed tables perform better(Tom) +Improve error messages when a connection is rejected(Tom) +Support for arrays of char() and varchar() fields(Massimo) +Overhaul of hash code to increase reliability and performance(Tom) +Update to PyGreSQL 2.4(D'Arcy) +Changed debug options so -d4 and -d5 produce different node displays(Jan) +New pg_options: pretty_plan, pretty_parse, pretty_rewritten(Jan) +Better optimization statistics for system table access(Tom) +Better handling of non-default block sizes(Massimo) +Improve GEQO optimizer memory consumption(Tom) +UNION now supports ORDER BY of columns not in target list(Jan) +Major libpq++ improvements(Vince Vielhaber) +pg_dump now uses -z(ACL's) as default(Bruce) +backend cache, memory speedups(Tom) +have pg_dump do everything in one snapshot transaction(Vadim) +fix for large object memory leakage, fix for pg_dumping(Tom) +INET type now respects netmask for comparisons +Make VACUUM ANALYZE only use a readlock(Vadim) +Allow VIEWs on UNIONS(Jan) +pg_dump now can generate consistent snapshots on active databases(Vadim) + +Source Tree Changes +------------------- +Improve port matching(Tom) +Portability fixes for SunOS +Add Windows NT backend port and enable dynamic loading(Magnus and Daniel Horak) +New port to Cobalt Qube(Mips) running Linux(Tatsuo) +Port to NetBSD/m68k(Mr. Mutsuki Nakajima) +Port to NetBSD/sun3(Mr. Mutsuki Nakajima) +Port to NetBSD/macppc(Toshimi Aoki) +Fix for tcl/tk configuration(Vince) +Removed CURRENT key word for rule queries(Jan) +NT dynamic loading now works(Daniel Horak) +Add ARM32 support(Andrew McMurry) +Better support for HP-UX 11 and UnixWare +Improve file handling to be more uniform, prevent file descriptor leak(Tom) +New install commands for plpgsql(Jan) + </programlisting> + </para> + </sect2> + </sect1> + + +<sect1 id="release-6-4-2"> +<title>Release 6.4.2</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>1998-12-20</simpara> + </note> + +<para> +The 6.4.1 release was improperly packaged. This also has one additional +bug fix. +</para> + + +<sect2> +<title>Migration to Version 6.4.2</title> + +<para> +A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those running +6.4.*. +</para> +</sect2> +<sect2> +<title>Changes</title> + +<para> +<programlisting> +Fix for datetime constant problem on some platforms(Thomas) +</programlisting> +</para> +</sect2> +</sect1> + + + +<sect1 id="release-6-4-1"> +<title>Release 6.4.1</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>1998-12-18</simpara> + </note> + +<para> +This is basically a cleanup release for 6.4. We have fixed a variety of +problems reported by 6.4 users. +</para> + + +<sect2> +<title>Migration to Version 6.4.1</title> + +<para> +A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those running +6.4. +</para> +</sect2> +<sect2> +<title>Changes</title> + +<para> +<programlisting> +Add pg_dump -N flag to force double quotes around identifiers. This is + the default(Thomas) +Fix for NOT in where clause causing crash(Bruce) +EXPLAIN VERBOSE coredump fix(Vadim) +Fix shared-library problems on Linux +Fix test for table existence to allow mixed-case and whitespace in + the table name(Thomas) +Fix a couple of pg_dump bugs +Configure matches template/.similar entries better(Tom) +Change builtin function names from SPI_* to spi_* +OR WHERE clause fix(Vadim) +Fixes for mixed-case table names(Billy) +contrib/linux/postgres.init.csh/sh fix(Thomas) +libpq memory overrun fix +SunOS fixes(Tom) +Change exp() behavior to generate error on underflow(Thomas) +pg_dump fixes for memory leak, inheritance constraints, layout change +update pgaccess to 0.93 +Fix prototype for 64-bit platforms +Multibyte fixes(Tatsuo) +New ecpg man page +Fix memory overruns(Tatsuo) +Fix for lo_import() crash(Bruce) +Better search for install program(Tom) +Timezone fixes(Tom) +HP-UX fixes(Tom) +Use implicit type coercion for matching DEFAULT values(Thomas) +Add routines to help with single-byte (internal) character type(Thomas) +Compilation of libpq for Windows fixes(Magnus) +Upgrade to PyGreSQL 2.2(D'Arcy) +</programlisting> +</para> +</sect2> +</sect1> + + + +<sect1 id="release-6-4"> +<title>Release 6.4</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>1998-10-30</simpara> + </note> + +<para> +There are <emphasis>many</emphasis> new features and improvements in this release. +Thanks to our developers and maintainers, nearly every aspect of the system +has received some attention since the previous release. +Here is a brief, incomplete summary: + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem> +<para> +Views and rules are now functional thanks to extensive new code in the +rewrite rules system from Jan Wieck. He also wrote a chapter on it +for the <citetitle>Programmer's Guide</citetitle>. +</para> +</listitem> +<listitem> +<para> +Jan also contributed a second procedural language, <application>PL/pgSQL</application>, to go with the +original <application>PL/pgTCL</application> procedural language he contributed last release. +</para> +</listitem> + +<listitem> +<para> +We have optional multiple-byte character set support from Tatsuo Ishii +to complement our existing locale support. +</para> +</listitem> + +<listitem> +<para> +Client/server communications has been cleaned up, with better support for +asynchronous messages and interrupts thanks to Tom Lane. +</para> +</listitem> + +<listitem> +<para> +The parser will now perform automatic type coercion to match arguments +to available operators and functions, and to match columns and expressions +with target columns. This uses a generic mechanism which supports +the type extensibility features of <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>. +There is a new chapter in the <citetitle>User's Guide</citetitle> +which covers this topic. +</para> +</listitem> + +<listitem> +<para> +Three new data types have been added. +Two types, <type>inet</type> and <type>cidr</type>, support various forms +of IP network, subnet, and machine addressing. There is now an 8-byte integer +type available on some platforms. See the chapter on data types +in the <citetitle>User's Guide</citetitle> for details. +A fourth type, <type>serial</type>, is now supported by the parser as an +amalgam of the <type>int4</type> type, a sequence, and a unique index. +</para> +</listitem> + +<listitem> +<para> +Several more <acronym>SQL92</acronym>-compatible syntax features have been +added, including <command>INSERT DEFAULT VALUES</command> +</para> +</listitem> + +<listitem> +<para> +The automatic configuration and installation system has received some +attention, and should be more robust for more platforms than it has ever +been. +</para> +</listitem> + +</itemizedlist> +</para> + +<sect2> +<title>Migration to Version 6.4</title> + +<para> +A dump/restore using <application>pg_dump</application> +or <application>pg_dumpall</application> +is required for those wishing to migrate data from any +previous release of <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>. +</para> +</sect2> + + <sect2> +<title>Changes</title> + + <para> + <programlisting> +Bug Fixes +--------- +Fix for a tiny memory leak in PQsetdb/PQfinish(Bryan) +Remove char2-16 data types, use char/varchar(Darren) +Pqfn not handles a NOTICE message(Anders) +Reduced busywaiting overhead for spinlocks with many backends (dg) +Stuck spinlock detection (dg) +Fix up "ISO-style" timespan decoding and encoding(Thomas) +Fix problem with table drop after rollback of transaction(Vadim) +Change error message and remove non-functional update message(Vadim) +Fix for COPY array checking +Fix for SELECT 1 UNION SELECT NULL +Fix for buffer leaks in large object calls(Pascal) +Change owner from oid to int4 type(Bruce) +Fix a bug in the oracle compatibility functions btrim() ltrim() and rtrim() +Fix for shared invalidation cache overflow(Massimo) +Prevent file descriptor leaks in failed COPY's(Bruce) +Fix memory leak in libpgtcl's pg_select(Constantin) +Fix problems with username/passwords over 8 characters(Tom) +Fix problems with handling of asynchronous NOTIFY in backend(Tom) +Fix of many bad system table entries(Tom) + +Enhancements +------------ +Upgrade ecpg and ecpglib,see src/interfaces/ecpc/ChangeLog(Michael) +Show the index used in an EXPLAIN(Zeugswetter) +EXPLAIN invokes rule system and shows plan(s) for rewritten queries(Jan) +Multibyte awareness of many data types and functions, via configure(Tatsuo) +New configure --with-mb option(Tatsuo) +New initdb --pgencoding option(Tatsuo) +New createdb -E multibyte option(Tatsuo) +Select version(); now returns PostgreSQL version(Jeroen) +libpq now allows asynchronous clients(Tom) +Allow cancel from client of backend query(Tom) +psql now cancels query with Control-C(Tom) +libpq users need not issue dummy queries to get NOTIFY messages(Tom) +NOTIFY now sends sender's PID, so you can tell whether it was your own(Tom) +PGresult struct now includes associated error message, if any(Tom) +Define "tz_hour" and "tz_minute" arguments to date_part()(Thomas) +Add routines to convert between varchar and bpchar(Thomas) +Add routines to allow sizing of varchar and bpchar into target columns(Thomas) +Add bit flags to support timezonehour and minute in data retrieval(Thomas) +Allow more variations on valid floating point numbers (e.g. ".1", "1e6")(Thomas) +Fixes for unary minus parsing with leading spaces(Thomas) +Implement TIMEZONE_HOUR, TIMEZONE_MINUTE per SQL92 specs(Thomas) +Check for and properly ignore FOREIGN KEY column constraints(Thomas) +Define USER as synonym for CURRENT_USER per SQL92 specs(Thomas) +Enable HAVING clause but no fixes elsewhere yet. +Make "char" type a synonym for "char(1)" (actually implemented as bpchar)(Thomas) +Save string type if specified for DEFAULT clause handling(Thomas) +Coerce operations involving different data types(Thomas) +Allow some index use for columns of different types(Thomas) +Add capabilities for automatic type conversion(Thomas) +Cleanups for large objects, so file is truncated on open(Peter) +Readline cleanups(Tom) +Allow psql \f \ to make spaces as delimiter(Bruce) +Pass pg_attribute.atttypmod to the frontend for column field lengths(Tom,Bruce) +Msql compatibility library in /contrib(Aldrin) +Remove the requirement that ORDER/GROUP BY clause identifiers be +included in the target list(David) +Convert columns to match columns in UNION clauses(Thomas) +Remove fork()/exec() and only do fork()(Bruce) +Jdbc cleanups(Peter) +Show backend status on ps command line(only works on some platforms)(Bruce) +Pg_hba.conf now has a sameuser option in the database field +Make lo_unlink take oid param, not int4 +New DISABLE_COMPLEX_MACRO for compilers that cannot handle our macros(Bruce) +Libpgtcl now handles NOTIFY as a Tcl event, need not send dummy queries(Tom) +libpgtcl cleanups(Tom) +Add -error option to libpgtcl's pg_result command(Tom) +New locale patch, see docs/README/locale(Oleg) +Fix for pg_dump so CONSTRAINT and CHECK syntax is correct(ccb) +New contrib/lo code for large object orphan removal(Peter) +New psql command "SET CLIENT_ENCODING TO 'encoding'" for multibytes +feature, see /doc/README.mb(Tatsuo) +contrib/noupdate code to revoke update permission on a column +libpq can now be compiled on Windows(Magnus) +Add PQsetdbLogin() in libpq +New 8-byte integer type, checked by configure for OS support(Thomas) +Better support for quoted table/column names(Thomas) +Surround table and column names with double-quotes in pg_dump(Thomas) +PQreset() now works with passwords(Tom) +Handle case of GROUP BY target list column number out of range(David) +Allow UNION in subselects +Add auto-size to screen to \d? commands(Bruce) +Use UNION to show all \d? results in one query(Bruce) +Add \d? field search feature(Bruce) +Pg_dump issues fewer \connect requests(Tom) +Make pg_dump -z flag work better, document it in manual page(Tom) +Add HAVING clause with full support for subselects and unions(Stephan) +Full text indexing routines in contrib/fulltextindex(Maarten) +Transaction ids now stored in shared memory(Vadim) +New PGCLIENTENCODING when issuing COPY command(Tatsuo) +Support for SQL92 syntax "SET NAMES"(Tatsuo) +Support for LATIN2-5(Tatsuo) +Add UNICODE regression test case(Tatsuo) +Lock manager cleanup, new locking modes for LLL(Vadim) +Allow index use with OR clauses(Bruce) +Allows "SELECT NULL ORDER BY 1;" +Explain VERBOSE prints the plan, and now pretty-prints the plan to +the postmaster log file(Bruce) +Add indexes display to \d command(Bruce) +Allow GROUP BY on functions(David) +New pg_class.relkind for large objects(Bruce) +New way to send libpq NOTICE messages to a different location(Tom) +New \w write command to psql(Bruce) +New /contrib/findoidjoins scans oid columns to find join relationships(Bruce) +Allow binary-compatible indexes to be considered when checking for valid +Indexes for restriction clauses containing a constant(Thomas) +New ISBN/ISSN code in /contrib/isbn_issn +Allow NOT LIKE, IN, NOT IN, BETWEEN, and NOT BETWEEN constraint(Thomas) +New rewrite system fixes many problems with rules and views(Jan) + * Rules on relations work + * Event qualifications on insert/update/delete work + * New OLD variable to reference CURRENT, CURRENT will be remove in future + * Update rules can reference NEW and OLD in rule qualifications/actions + * Insert/update/delete rules on views work + * Multiple rule actions are now supported, surrounded by parentheses + * Regular users can create views/rules on tables they have RULE permits + * Rules and views inherit the privileges of the creator + * No rules at the column level + * No UPDATE NEW/OLD rules + * New pg_tables, pg_indexes, pg_rules and pg_views system views + * Only a single action on SELECT rules + * Total rewrite overhaul, perhaps for 6.5 + * handle subselects + * handle aggregates on views + * handle insert into select from view works +System indexes are now multikey(Bruce) +Oidint2, oidint4, and oidname types are removed(Bruce) +Use system cache for more system table lookups(Bruce) +New backend programming language PL/pgSQL in backend/pl(Jan) +New SERIAL data type, auto-creates sequence/index(Thomas) +Enable assert checking without a recompile(Massimo) +User lock enhancements(Massimo) +New setval() command to set sequence value(Massimo) +Auto-remove unix socket file on start-up if no postmaster running(Massimo) +Conditional trace package(Massimo) +New UNLISTEN command(Massimo) +psql and libpq now compile under Windows using win32.mak(Magnus) +Lo_read no longer stores trailing NULL(Bruce) +Identifiers are now truncated to 31 characters internally(Bruce) +Createuser options now available on the command line +Code for 64-bit integer supported added, configure tested, int8 type(Thomas) +Prevent file descriptor leaf from failed COPY(Bruce) +New pg_upgrade command(Bruce) +Updated /contrib directories(Massimo) +New CREATE TABLE DEFAULT VALUES statement available(Thomas) +New INSERT INTO TABLE DEFAULT VALUES statement available(Thomas) +New DECLARE and FETCH feature(Thomas) +libpq's internal structures now not exported(Tom) +Allow up to 8 key indexes(Bruce) +Remove ARCHIVE key word, that is no longer used(Thomas) +pg_dump -n flag to suppress quotes around indentifiers +disable system columns for views(Jan) +new INET and CIDR types for network addresses(TomH, Paul) +no more double quotes in psql output +pg_dump now dumps views(Terry) +new SET QUERY_LIMIT(Tatsuo,Jan) + +Source Tree Changes +------------------- +/contrib cleanup(Jun) +Inline some small functions called for every row(Bruce) +Alpha/linux fixes +HP-UX cleanups(Tom) +Multibyte regression tests(Soonmyung.) +Remove --disabled options from configure +Define PGDOC to use POSTGRESDIR by default +Make regression optional +Remove extra braces code to pgindent(Bruce) +Add bsdi shared library support(Bruce) +New --without-CXX support configure option(Brook) +New FAQ_CVS +Update backend flowchart in tools/backend(Bruce) +Change atttypmod from int16 to int32(Bruce, Tom) +Getrusage() fix for platforms that do not have it(Tom) +Add PQconnectdb, PGUSER, PGPASSWORD to libpq man page +NS32K platform fixes(Phil Nelson, John Buller) +SCO 7/UnixWare 2.x fixes(Billy,others) +Sparc/Solaris 2.5 fixes(Ryan) +Pgbuiltin.3 is obsolete, move to doc files(Thomas) +Even more documentation(Thomas) +Nextstep support(Jacek) +Aix support(David) +pginterface manual page(Bruce) +shared libraries all have version numbers +merged all OS-specific shared library defines into one file +smarter TCL/TK configuration checking(Billy) +smarter perl configuration(Brook) +configure uses supplied install-sh if no install script found(Tom) +new Makefile.shlib for shared library configuration(Tom) +</programlisting> +</para> +</sect2> +</sect1> + +<sect1 id="release-6-3-2"> +<title>Release 6.3.2</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>1998-04-07</simpara> + </note> + +<para> +This is a bug-fix release for 6.3.x. +Refer to the release notes for version 6.3 for a more complete summary of new features. +</para> +<para> +Summary: + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem> +<para> +Repairs automatic configuration support for some platforms, including Linux, +from breakage inadvertently introduced in version 6.3.1. +</para> +</listitem> + +<listitem> +<para> +Correctly handles function calls on the left side of BETWEEN and LIKE clauses. +</para> +</listitem> + +</itemizedlist> +</para> +<para> +A dump/restore is NOT required for those running 6.3 or 6.3.1. A +<literal>make distclean</>, <literal>make</>, and <literal>make install</> is all that is required. +This last step should be performed while the postmaster is not running. +You should re-link any custom applications that use <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> libraries. +</para> +<para> +For upgrades from pre-6.3 installations, +refer to the installation and migration instructions for version 6.3. +</para> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <para> + <programlisting> +Configure detection improvements for tcl/tk(Brook Milligan, Alvin) +Manual page improvements(Bruce) +BETWEEN and LIKE fix(Thomas) +fix for psql \connect used by pg_dump(Oliver Elphick) +New odbc driver +pgaccess, version 0.86 +qsort removed, now uses libc version, cleanups(Jeroen) +fix for buffer over-runs detected(Maurice Gittens) +fix for buffer overrun in libpgtcl(Randy Kunkee) +fix for UNION with DISTINCT or ORDER BY(Bruce) +gettimeofday configure check(Doug Winterburn) +Fix "indexes not used" bug(Vadim) +docs additions(Thomas) +Fix for backend memory leak(Bruce) +libreadline cleanup(Erwan MAS) +Remove DISTDIR(Bruce) +Makefile dependency cleanup(Jeroen van Vianen) +ASSERT fixes(Bruce) + </programlisting> + </para> + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-6-3-1"> + <title>Release 6.3.1</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>1998-03-23</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + Summary: + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem> +<para> +Additional support for multibyte character sets. +</para> +</listitem> + +<listitem> +<para> +Repair byte ordering for mixed-endian clients and servers. +</para> +</listitem> + +<listitem> +<para> +Minor updates to allowed SQL syntax. +</para> +</listitem> + +<listitem> +<para> +Improvements to the configuration autodetection for installation. +</para> +</listitem> + +</itemizedlist> +</para> +<para> +A dump/restore is NOT required for those running 6.3. A +<literal>make distclean</>, <literal>make</>, and <literal>make install</> is all that is required. +This last step should be performed while the postmaster is not running. +You should re-link any custom applications that use <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> libraries. +</para> +<para> +For upgrades from pre-6.3 installations, +refer to the installation and migration instructions for version 6.3. +</para> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <para> + <programlisting> +ecpg cleanup/fixes, now version 1.1(Michael Meskes) +pg_user cleanup(Bruce) +large object fix for pg_dump and tclsh (alvin) +LIKE fix for multiple adjacent underscores +fix for redefining builtin functions(Thomas) +ultrix4 cleanup +upgrade to pg_access 0.83 +updated CLUSTER manual page +multibyte character set support, see doc/README.mb(Tatsuo) +configure --with-pgport fix +pg_ident fix +big-endian fix for backend communications(Kataoka) +SUBSTR() and substring() fix(Jan) +several jdbc fixes(Peter) +libpgtcl improvements, see libptcl/README(Randy Kunkee) +Fix for "Datasize = 0" error(Vadim) +Prevent \do from wrapping(Bruce) +Remove duplicate Russian character set entries +Sunos4 cleanup +Allow optional TABLE key word in LOCK and SELECT INTO(Thomas) +CREATE SEQUENCE options to allow a negative integer(Thomas) +Add "PASSWORD" as an allowed column identifier(Thomas) +Add checks for UNION target fields(Bruce) +Fix Alpha port(Dwayne Bailey) +Fix for text arrays containing quotes(Doug Gibson) +Solaris compile fix(Albert Chin-A-Young) +Better identify tcl and tk libs and includes(Bruce) + </programlisting> + </para> + </sect2> + </sect1> + + <sect1 id="release-6-3"> + <title>Release 6.3</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>1998-03-01</simpara> + </note> + + <para> + There are <emphasis>many</emphasis> new features and improvements in this release. + Here is a brief, incomplete summary: + + <itemizedlist> + <listitem> + <para> + Many new SQL features, including + full <acronym>SQL92</acronym> subselect capability + (everything is here but target-list subselects). + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Support for client-side environment variables to specify time zone and date style. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Socket interface for client/server connection. This is the default now + so you might need to start <application>postmaster</application> with the + <option>-i</option> flag. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Better password authorization mechanisms. Default table privileges have changed. + </para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> + <para> + Old-style <firstterm>time travel</firstterm> + has been removed. Performance has been improved. + </para> + </listitem> + </itemizedlist> + </para> + + <note> + <para> + Bruce Momjian wrote the following notes to introduce the new release. + </para> + </note> + + <para> + There are some general 6.3 issues that I want to mention. These are + only the big items that cannot be described in one sentence. A review + of the detailed changes list is still needed. + </para> + <para> + First, we now have subselects. Now that we have them, I would like to + mention that without subselects, SQL is a very limited language. + Subselects are a major feature, and you should review your code for + places where subselects provide a better solution for your queries. I + think you will find that there are more uses for subselects than you might + think. Vadim has put us on the big SQL map with subselects, and fully + functional ones too. The only thing you cannot do with subselects is to + use them in the target list. + </para> + <para> + Second, 6.3 uses Unix domain sockets rather than TCP/IP by default. To + enable connections from other machines, you have to use the new + postmaster -i option, and of course edit <filename>pg_hba.conf</filename>. Also, for this + reason, the format of <filename>pg_hba.conf</filename> has changed. + </para> + <para> + Third, <type>char()</type> fields will now allow faster access than <type>varchar()</type> or + <type>text</type>. Specifically, the <type>text</> and <type>varchar()</type> have a penalty for access to + any columns after the first column of this type. <type>char()</type> used to also + have this access penalty, but it no longer does. This might suggest that + you redesign some of your tables, especially if you have short character + columns that you have defined as <type>varchar()</type> or <type>text</type>. This and other + changes make 6.3 even faster than earlier releases. + </para> + <para> + We now have passwords definable independent of any Unix file. There are + new SQL USER commands. + See the <citetitle>Administrator's Guide</citetitle> for more + information. There is a new table, pg_shadow, which is used to store + user information and user passwords, and it by default only SELECT-able + by the <systemitem>postgres</systemitem> super-user. pg_user is now a view of pg_shadow, and is + SELECT-able by PUBLIC. You should keep using pg_user in your + application without changes. + </para> + <para> + User-created tables now no longer have SELECT privilege to PUBLIC by + default. This was done because the ANSI standard requires it. You can + of course GRANT any privileges you want after the table is created. + System tables continue to be SELECT-able by PUBLIC. + </para> + <para> + We also have real deadlock detection code. No more sixty-second + timeouts. And the new locking code implements a <acronym>FIFO</acronym> better, so there + should be less resource starvation during heavy use. + </para> + <para> + Many complaints have been made about inadequate documentation in previous + releases. Thomas has put much effort into many new manuals for this + release. Check out the doc/ directory. + </para> + <para> + For performance reasons, time travel is gone, but can be implemented + using triggers (see <filename>pgsql/contrib/spi/README</filename>). Please check out the new + \d command for types, operators, etc. Also, views have their own + privileges now, not based on the underlying tables, so privileges on + them have to be set separately. Check <filename>/pgsql/interfaces</filename> for some new + ways to talk to <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>. + </para> + <para> + This is the first release that really required an explanation for + existing users. In many ways, this was necessary because the new + release removes many limitations, and the work-arounds people were using + are no longer needed. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Migration to Version 6.3</title> + + <para> + A dump/restore using <application>pg_dump</application> + or <application>pg_dumpall</application> + is required for those wishing to migrate data from any + previous release of <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>. + </para> + </sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <para> + <programlisting> +Bug Fixes +--------- +Fix binary cursors broken by MOVE implementation(Vadim) +Fix for tcl library crash(Jan) +Fix for array handling, from Gerhard Hintermayer +Fix acl error, and remove duplicate pqtrace(Bruce) +Fix psql \e for empty file(Bruce) +Fix for textcat on varchar() fields(Bruce) +Fix for DBT Sendproc (Zeugswetter Andres) +Fix vacuum analyze syntax problem(Bruce) +Fix for international identifiers(Tatsuo) +Fix aggregates on inherited tables(Bruce) +Fix substr() for out-of-bounds data +Fix for select 1=1 or 2=2, select 1=1 and 2=2, and select sum(2+2)(Bruce) +Fix notty output to show status result. -q option still turns it off(Bruce) +Fix for count(*), aggs with views and multiple tables and sum(3)(Bruce) +Fix cluster(Bruce) +Fix for PQtrace start/stop several times(Bruce) +Fix a variety of locking problems like newer lock waiters getting + lock before older waiters, and having readlock people not share + locks if a writer is waiting for a lock, and waiting writers not + getting priority over waiting readers(Bruce) +Fix crashes in psql when executing queries from external files(James) +Fix problem with multiple order by columns, with the first one having + NULL values(Jeroen) +Use correct hash table support functions for float8 and int4(Thomas) +Re-enable JOIN= option in CREATE OPERATOR statement (Thomas) +Change precedence for boolean operators to match expected behavior(Thomas) +Generate elog(ERROR) on over-large integer(Bruce) +Allow multiple-argument functions in constraint clauses(Thomas) +Check boolean input literals for 'true','false','yes','no','1','0' + and throw elog(ERROR) if unrecognized(Thomas) +Major large objects fix +Fix for GROUP BY showing duplicates(Vadim) +Fix for index scans in MergeJoin(Vadim) + +Enhancements +------------ +Subselects with EXISTS, IN, ALL, ANY key words (Vadim, Bruce, Thomas) +New User Manual(Thomas, others) +Speedup by inlining some frequently-called functions +Real deadlock detection, no more timeouts(Bruce) +Add SQL92 "constants" CURRENT_DATE, CURRENT_TIME, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, + CURRENT_USER(Thomas) +Modify constraint syntax to be SQL92-compliant(Thomas) +Implement SQL92 PRIMARY KEY and UNIQUE clauses using indexes(Thomas) +Recognize SQL92 syntax for FOREIGN KEY. Throw elog notice(Thomas) +Allow NOT NULL UNIQUE constraint clause (each allowed separately before)(Thomas) +Allow PostgreSQL-style casting ("::") of non-constants(Thomas) +Add support for SQL3 TRUE and FALSE boolean constants(Thomas) +Support SQL92 syntax for IS TRUE/IS FALSE/IS NOT TRUE/IS NOT FALSE(Thomas) +Allow shorter strings for boolean literals (e.g. "t", "tr", "tru")(Thomas) +Allow SQL92 delimited identifiers(Thomas) +Implement SQL92 binary and hexadecimal string decoding (b'10' and x'1F')(Thomas) +Support SQL92 syntax for type coercion of literal strings + (e.g. "DATETIME 'now'")(Thomas) +Add conversions for int2, int4, and OID types to and from text(Thomas) +Use shared lock when building indexes(Vadim) +Free memory allocated for an user query inside transaction block after + this query is done, was turned off in <= 6.2.1(Vadim) +New SQL statement CREATE PROCEDURAL LANGUAGE(Jan) +New <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> Procedural Language (PL) backend interface(Jan) +Rename pg_dump -H option to -h(Bruce) +Add Java support for passwords, European dates(Peter) +Use indexes for LIKE and ~, !~ operations(Bruce) +Add hash functions for datetime and timespan(Thomas) +Time Travel removed(Vadim, Bruce) +Add paging for \d and \z, and fix \i(Bruce) +Add Unix domain socket support to backend and to frontend library(Goran) +Implement CREATE DATABASE/WITH LOCATION and initlocation utility(Thomas) +Allow more SQL92 and/or <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> reserved words as column identifiers(Thomas) +Augment support for SQL92 SET TIME ZONE...(Thomas) +SET/SHOW/RESET TIME ZONE uses TZ backend environment variable(Thomas) +Implement SET keyword = DEFAULT and SET TIME ZONE DEFAULT(Thomas) +Enable SET TIME ZONE using TZ environment variable(Thomas) +Add PGDATESTYLE environment variable to frontend and backend initialization(Thomas) +Add PGTZ, PGCOSTHEAP, PGCOSTINDEX, PGRPLANS, PGGEQO + frontend library initialization environment variables(Thomas) +Regression tests time zone automatically set with "setenv PGTZ PST8PDT"(Thomas) +Add pg_description table for info on tables, columns, operators, types, and + aggregates(Bruce) +Increase 16 char limit on system table/index names to 32 characters(Bruce) +Rename system indexes(Bruce) +Add 'GERMAN' option to SET DATESTYLE(Thomas) +Define an "ISO-style" timespan output format with "hh:mm:ss" fields(Thomas) +Allow fractional values for delta times (e.g. '2.5 days')(Thomas) +Validate numeric input more carefully for delta times(Thomas) +Implement day of year as possible input to date_part()(Thomas) +Define timespan_finite() and text_timespan() functions(Thomas) +Remove archive stuff(Bruce) +Allow for a pg_password authentication database that is separate from + the system password file(Todd) +Dump ACLs, GRANT, REVOKE privileges(Matt) +Define text, varchar, and bpchar string length functions(Thomas) +Fix Query handling for inheritance, and cost computations(Bruce) +Implement CREATE TABLE/AS SELECT (alternative to SELECT/INTO)(Thomas) +Allow NOT, IS NULL, IS NOT NULL in constraints(Thomas) +Implement UNIONs for SELECT(Bruce) +Add UNION, GROUP, DISTINCT to INSERT(Bruce) +varchar() stores only necessary bytes on disk(Bruce) +Fix for BLOBs(Peter) +Mega-Patch for JDBC...see README_6.3 for list of changes(Peter) +Remove unused "option" from PQconnectdb() +New LOCK command and lock manual page describing deadlocks(Bruce) +Add new psql \da, \dd, \df, \do, \dS, and \dT commands(Bruce) +Enhance psql \z to show sequences(Bruce) +Show NOT NULL and DEFAULT in psql \d table(Bruce) +New psql .psqlrc file start-up(Andrew) +Modify sample start-up script in contrib/linux to show syslog(Thomas) +New types for IP and MAC addresses in contrib/ip_and_mac(TomH) +Unix system time conversions with date/time types in contrib/unixdate(Thomas) +Update of contrib stuff(Massimo) +Add Unix socket support to DBD::Pg(Goran) +New python interface (PyGreSQL 2.0)(D'Arcy) +New frontend/backend protocol has a version number, network byte order(Phil) +Security features in pg_hba.conf enhanced and documented, many cleanups(Phil) +CHAR() now faster access than VARCHAR() or TEXT +ecpg embedded SQL preprocessor +Reduce system column overhead(Vadmin) +Remove pg_time table(Vadim) +Add pg_type attribute to identify types that need length (bpchar, varchar) +Add report of offending line when COPY command fails +Allow VIEW privileges to be set separately from the underlying tables. + For security, use GRANT/REVOKE on views as appropriate(Jan) +Tables now have no default GRANT SELECT TO PUBLIC. You must + explicitly grant such privileges. +Clean up tutorial examples(Darren) + +Source Tree Changes +------------------- +Add new html development tools, and flow chart in /tools/backend +Fix for SCO compiles +Stratus computer port Robert Gillies +Added support for shlib for BSD44_derived & i386_solaris +Make configure more automated(Brook) +Add script to check regression test results +Break parser functions into smaller files, group together(Bruce) +Rename heap_create to heap_create_and_catalog, rename heap_creatr + to heap_create()(Bruce) +Sparc/Linux patch for locking(TomS) +Remove PORTNAME and reorganize port-specific stuff(Marc) +Add optimizer README file(Bruce) +Remove some recursion in optimizer and clean up some code there(Bruce) +Fix for NetBSD locking(Henry) +Fix for libptcl make(Tatsuo) +AIX patch(Darren) +Change IS TRUE, IS FALSE, ... to expressions using "=" rather than + function calls to istrue() or isfalse() to allow optimization(Thomas) +Various fixes NetBSD/Sparc related(TomH) +Alpha linux locking(Travis,Ryan) +Change elog(WARN) to elog(ERROR)(Bruce) +FAQ for FreeBSD(Marc) +Bring in the PostODBC source tree as part of our standard distribution(Marc) +A minor patch for HP/UX 10 vs 9(Stan) +New pg_attribute.atttypmod for type-specific info like varchar length(Bruce) +UnixWare patches(Billy) +New i386 'lock' for spinlock asm(Billy) +Support for multiplexed backends is removed +Start an OpenBSD port +Start an AUX port +Start a Cygnus port +Add string functions to regression suite(Thomas) +Expand a few function names formerly truncated to 16 characters(Thomas) +Remove un-needed malloc() calls and replace with palloc()(Bruce) +</programlisting> +</para> +</sect2> +</sect1> + +<sect1 id="release-6-2-1"> +<title>Release 6.2.1</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>1997-10-17</simpara> + </note> + +<para> +6.2.1 is a bug-fix and usability release on 6.2. +</para> +<para> +Summary: + +<itemizedlist> +<listitem> +<para> +Allow strings to span lines, per <acronym>SQL92</acronym>. +</para> +</listitem> + +<listitem> +<para> +Include example trigger function for inserting user names on table updates. +</para> +</listitem> + +</itemizedlist> +</para> +<para> +This is a minor bug-fix release on 6.2. +For upgrades from pre-6.2 systems, a full dump/reload is required. +Refer to the 6.2 release notes for instructions. +</para> + +<sect2> +<title>Migration from version 6.2 to version 6.2.1</title> + +<para> +This is a minor bug-fix release. A dump/reload is not required from version 6.2, +but is required from any release prior to 6.2. +</para> +<para> +In upgrading from version 6.2, if you choose to dump/reload you will find that +avg(money) is now calculated correctly. All other bug fixes take effect +upon updating the executables. +</para> +<para> +Another way to avoid dump/reload is to use the following SQL command +from <command>psql</command> to update the existing system table: + +<programlisting> + update pg_aggregate set aggfinalfn = 'cash_div_flt8' + where aggname = 'avg' and aggbasetype = 790; +</programlisting> +</para> +<para> +This will need to be done to every existing database, including template1. +</para> +</sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <para> + <programlisting> +Allow TIME and TYPE column names(Thomas) +Allow larger range of true/false as boolean values(Thomas) +Support output of "now" and "current"(Thomas) +Handle DEFAULT with INSERT of NULL properly(Vadim) +Fix for relation reference counts problem in buffer manager(Vadim) +Allow strings to span lines, like ANSI(Thomas) +Fix for backward cursor with ORDER BY(Vadim) +Fix avg(cash) computation(Thomas) +Fix for specifying a column twice in ORDER/GROUP BY(Vadim) +Documented new libpq function to return affected rows, PQcmdTuples(Bruce) +Trigger function for inserting user names for INSERT/UPDATE(Brook Milligan) + </programlisting> + </para> + </sect2> + </sect1> + +<sect1 id="release-6-2"> +<title>Release 6.2</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>1997-10-02</simpara> + </note> + +<para> +A dump/restore is required for those wishing to migrate data from +previous releases of <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>. +</para> + +<sect2> +<title>Migration from version 6.1 to version 6.2</title> + +<para> +This migration requires a complete dump of the 6.1 database and a +restore of the database in 6.2. +</para> +<para> +Note that the <command>pg_dump</command> and <command>pg_dumpall</command> utility from 6.2 should be used +to dump the 6.1 database. +</para> +</sect2> + +<sect2> +<title>Migration from version 1.<replaceable>x</> to version 6.2</title> + +<para> +Those migrating from earlier 1.* releases should first upgrade to 1.09 +because the COPY output format was improved from the 1.02 release. +</para> +</sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <para> + <programlisting> +Bug Fixes +--------- +Fix problems with pg_dump for inheritance, sequences, archive tables(Bruce) +Fix compile errors on overflow due to shifts, unsigned, and bad prototypes + from Solaris(Diab Jerius) +Fix bugs in geometric line arithmetic (bad intersection calculations)(Thomas) +Check for geometric intersections at endpoints to avoid rounding ugliness(Thomas) +Catch non-functional delete attempts(Vadim) +Change time function names to be more consistent(Michael Reifenberg) +Check for zero divides(Michael Reifenberg) +Fix very old bug which made rows changed/inserted by a command + visible to the command itself (so we had multiple update of + updated rows, etc.)(Vadim) +Fix for SELECT null, 'fail' FROM pg_am (Patrick) +SELECT NULL as EMPTY_FIELD now allowed(Patrick) +Remove un-needed signal stuff from contrib/pginterface +Fix OR (where x != 1 or x isnull didn't return rows with x NULL) (Vadim) +Fix time_cmp function (Vadim) +Fix handling of functions with non-attribute first argument in + WHERE clauses (Vadim) +Fix GROUP BY when order of entries is different from order + in target list (Vadim) +Fix pg_dump for aggregates without sfunc1 (Vadim) + +Enhancements +------------ +Default genetic optimizer GEQO parameter is now 8(Bruce) +Allow use parameters in target list having aggregates in functions(Vadim) +Added JDBC driver as an interface(Adrian & Peter) +pg_password utility +Return number of rows inserted/affected by INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE etc.(Vadim) +Triggers implemented with CREATE TRIGGER (SQL3)(Vadim) +SPI (Server Programming Interface) allows execution of queries inside + C-functions (Vadim) +NOT NULL implemented (SQL92)(Robson Paniago de Miranda) +Include reserved words for string handling, outer joins, and unions(Thomas) +Implement extended comments ("/* ... */") using exclusive states(Thomas) +Add "//" single-line comments(Bruce) +Remove some restrictions on characters in operator names(Thomas) +DEFAULT and CONSTRAINT for tables implemented (SQL92)(Vadim & Thomas) +Add text concatenation operator and function (SQL92)(Thomas) +Support WITH TIME ZONE syntax (SQL92)(Thomas) +Support INTERVAL unit TO unit syntax (SQL92)(Thomas) +Define types DOUBLE PRECISION, INTERVAL, CHARACTER, + and CHARACTER VARYING (SQL92)(Thomas) +Define type FLOAT(p) and rudimentary DECIMAL(p,s), NUMERIC(p,s) (SQL92)(Thomas) +Define EXTRACT(), POSITION(), SUBSTRING(), and TRIM() (SQL92)(Thomas) +Define CURRENT_DATE, CURRENT_TIME, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP (SQL92)(Thomas) +Add syntax and warnings for UNION, HAVING, INNER and OUTER JOIN (SQL92)(Thomas) +Add more reserved words, mostly for SQL92 compliance(Thomas) +Allow hh:mm:ss time entry for timespan/reltime types(Thomas) +Add center() routines for lseg, path, polygon(Thomas) +Add distance() routines for circle-polygon, polygon-polygon(Thomas) +Check explicitly for points and polygons contained within polygons + using an axis-crossing algorithm(Thomas) +Add routine to convert circle-box(Thomas) +Merge conflicting operators for different geometric data types(Thomas) +Replace distance operator "<===>" with "<->"(Thomas) +Replace "above" operator "!^" with ">^" and "below" operator "!|" with "<^"(Thomas) +Add routines for text trimming on both ends, substring, and string position(Thomas) +Added conversion routines circle(box) and poly(circle)(Thomas) +Allow internal sorts to be stored in memory rather than in files(Bruce & Vadim) +Allow functions and operators on internally-identical types to succeed(Bruce) +Speed up backend start-up after profiling analysis(Bruce) +Inline frequently called functions for performance(Bruce) +Reduce open() calls(Bruce) +psql: Add PAGER for \h and \?,\C fix +Fix for psql pager when no tty(Bruce) +New entab utility(Bruce) +General trigger functions for referential integrity (Vadim) +General trigger functions for time travel (Vadim) +General trigger functions for AUTOINCREMENT/IDENTITY feature (Vadim) +MOVE implementation (Vadim) + +Source Tree Changes +------------------- +HP-UX 10 patches (Vladimir Turin) +Added SCO support, (Daniel Harris) +MkLinux patches (Tatsuo Ishii) +Change geometric box terminology from "length" to "width"(Thomas) +Deprecate temporary unstored slope fields in geometric code(Thomas) +Remove restart instructions from INSTALL(Bruce) +Look in /usr/ucb first for install(Bruce) +Fix c++ copy example code(Thomas) +Add -o to psql manual page(Bruce) +Prevent relname unallocated string length from being copied into database(Bruce) +Cleanup for NAMEDATALEN use(Bruce) +Fix pg_proc names over 15 chars in output(Bruce) +Add strNcpy() function(Bruce) +remove some (void) casts that are unnecessary(Bruce) +new interfaces directory(Marc) +Replace fopen() calls with calls to fd.c functions(Bruce) +Make functions static where possible(Bruce) +enclose unused functions in #ifdef NOT_USED(Bruce) +Remove call to difftime() in timestamp support to fix SunOS(Bruce & Thomas) +Changes for Digital Unix +Portability fix for pg_dumpall(Bruce) +Rename pg_attribute.attnvals to attdispersion(Bruce) +"intro/unix" manual page now "pgintro"(Bruce) +"built-in" manual page now "pgbuiltin"(Bruce) +"drop" manual page now "drop_table"(Bruce) +Add "create_trigger", "drop_trigger" manual pages(Thomas) +Add constraints regression test(Vadim & Thomas) +Add comments syntax regression test(Thomas) +Add PGINDENT and support program(Bruce) +Massive commit to run PGINDENT on all *.c and *.h files(Bruce) +Files moved to /src/tools directory(Bruce) +SPI and Trigger programming guides (Vadim & D'Arcy) +</programlisting> +</para> +</sect2> +</sect1> + +<sect1 id="release-6-1-1"> +<title>Release 6.1.1</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>1997-07-22</simpara> + </note> + +<sect2> +<title>Migration from version 6.1 to version 6.1.1</title> + +<para> +This is a minor bug-fix release. A dump/reload is not required from version 6.1, +but is required from any release prior to 6.1. +Refer to the release notes for 6.1 for more details. +</para> +</sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <para> + <programlisting> +fix for SET with options (Thomas) +allow pg_dump/pg_dumpall to preserve ownership of all tables/objects(Bruce) +new psql \connect option allows changing usernames without changing databases +fix for initdb --debug option(Yoshihiko Ichikawa)) +lextest cleanup(Bruce) +hash fixes(Vadim) +fix date/time month boundary arithmetic(Thomas) +fix timezone daylight handling for some ports(Thomas, Bruce, Tatsuo) +timestamp overhauled to use standard functions(Thomas) +other code cleanup in date/time routines(Thomas) +psql's \d now case-insensitive(Bruce) +psql's backslash commands can now have trailing semicolon(Bruce) +fix memory leak in psql when using \g(Bruce) +major fix for endian handling of communication to server(Thomas, Tatsuo) +Fix for Solaris assembler and include files(Yoshihiko Ichikawa) +allow underscores in usernames(Bruce) +pg_dumpall now returns proper status, portability fix(Bruce) + </programlisting> + </para> + </sect2> + </sect1> + +<sect1 id="release-6-1"> +<title>Release 6.1</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>1997-06-08</simpara> + </note> + +<para> + The regression tests have been adapted and extensively modified for the + 6.1 release of <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>. +</para> + +<para> + Three new data types (<type>datetime</type>, <type>timespan</type>, and <type>circle</type>) have been added to + the native set of <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> types. Points, boxes, paths, and polygons + have had their output formats made consistent across the data types. + The polygon output in misc.out has only been spot-checked for correctness + relative to the original regression output. +</para> + +<para> + <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> 6.1 introduces a new, alternate +optimizer which uses <firstterm>genetic</firstterm> + algorithms. These algorithms introduce a random behavior in the ordering + of query results when the query contains multiple qualifiers or multiple + tables (giving the optimizer a choice on order of evaluation). Several + regression tests have been modified to explicitly order the results, and + hence are insensitive to optimizer choices. A few regression tests are + for data types which are inherently unordered (e.g. points and time + intervals) and tests involving those types are explicitly bracketed with + <command>set geqo to 'off'</command> and <command>reset geqo</command>. +</para> + +<para> + The interpretation of array specifiers (the curly braces around atomic + values) appears to have changed sometime after the original regression + tests were generated. The current <filename>./expected/*.out</filename> files reflect this + new interpretation, which might not be correct! +</para> + +<para> + The float8 regression test fails on at least some platforms. This is due + to differences in implementations of <function>pow()</function> and <function>exp()</function> and the signaling + mechanisms used for overflow and underflow conditions. +</para> + +<para> + The <quote>random</> results in the random test should cause the + <quote>random</quote> test to be <quote>failed</quote>, since the + regression tests are evaluated using a simple diff. However, + <quote>random</> does not seem to produce random results on my test + machine (Linux/<application>gcc</>/i686). +</para> + +<sect2> +<title>Migration to Version 6.1</title> + +<para> +This migration requires a complete dump of the 6.0 database and a +restore of the database in 6.1. +</para> +<para> +Those migrating from earlier 1.* releases should first upgrade to 1.09 +because the COPY output format was improved from the 1.02 release. +</para> +</sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <para> + <programlisting> +Bug Fixes +--------- +packet length checking in library routines +lock manager priority patch +check for under/over flow of float8(Bruce) +multitable join fix(Vadim) +SIGPIPE crash fix(Darren) +large object fixes(Sven) +allow btree indexes to handle NULLs(Vadim) +timezone fixes(D'Arcy) +select SUM(x) can return NULL on no rows(Thomas) +internal optimizer, executor bug fixes(Vadim) +fix problem where inner loop in < or <= has no rows(Vadim) +prevent re-commuting join index clauses(Vadim) +fix join clauses for multiple tables(Vadim) +fix hash, hashjoin for arrays(Vadim) +fix btree for abstime type(Vadim) +large object fixes(Raymond) +fix buffer leak in hash indexes (Vadim) +fix rtree for use in inner scan (Vadim) +fix gist for use in inner scan, cleanups (Vadim, Andrea) +avoid unnecessary local buffers allocation (Vadim, Massimo) +fix local buffers leak in transaction aborts (Vadim) +fix file manager memmory leaks, cleanups (Vadim, Massimo) +fix storage manager memmory leaks (Vadim) +fix btree duplicates handling (Vadim) +fix deleted rows reincarnation caused by vacuum (Vadim) +fix SELECT varchar()/char() INTO TABLE made zero-length fields(Bruce) +many psql, pg_dump, and libpq memory leaks fixed using Purify (Igor) + +Enhancements +------------ +attribute optimization statistics(Bruce) +much faster new btree bulk load code(Paul) +BTREE UNIQUE added to bulk load code(Vadim) +new lock debug code(Massimo) +massive changes to libpg++(Leo) +new GEQO optimizer speeds table multitable optimization(Martin) +new WARN message for non-unique insert into unique key(Marc) +update x=-3, no spaces, now valid(Bruce) +remove case-sensitive identifier handling(Bruce,Thomas,Dan) +debug backend now pretty-prints tree(Darren) +new Oracle character functions(Edmund) +new plaintext password functions(Dan) +no such class or insufficient privilege changed to distinct messages(Dan) +new ANSI timestamp function(Dan) +new ANSI Time and Date types (Thomas) +move large chunks of data in backend(Martin) +multicolumn btree indexes(Vadim) +new SET var TO value command(Martin) +update transaction status on reads(Dan) +new locale settings for character types(Oleg) +new SEQUENCE serial number generator(Vadim) +GROUP BY function now possible(Vadim) +re-organize regression test(Thomas,Marc) +new optimizer operation weights(Vadim) +new psql \z grant/permit option(Marc) +new MONEY data type(D'Arcy,Thomas) +tcp socket communication speed improved(Vadim) +new VACUUM option for attribute statistics, and for certain columns (Vadim) +many geometric type improvements(Thomas,Keith) +additional regression tests(Thomas) +new datestyle variable(Thomas,Vadim,Martin) +more comparison operators for sorting types(Thomas) +new conversion functions(Thomas) +new more compact btree format(Vadim) +allow pg_dumpall to preserve database ownership(Bruce) +new SET GEQO=# and R_PLANS variable(Vadim) +old (!GEQO) optimizer can use right-sided plans (Vadim) +typechecking improvement in SQL parser(Bruce) +new SET, SHOW, RESET commands(Thomas,Vadim) +new \connect database USER option +new destroydb -i option (Igor) +new \dt and \di psql commands (Darren) +SELECT "\n" now escapes newline (A. Duursma) +new geometry conversion functions from old format (Thomas) + +Source tree changes +------------------- +new configuration script(Marc) +readline configuration option added(Marc) +OS-specific configuration options removed(Marc) +new OS-specific template files(Marc) +no more need to edit Makefile.global(Marc) +re-arrange include files(Marc) +nextstep patches (Gregor Hoffleit) +removed Windows-specific code(Bruce) +removed postmaster -e option, now only postgres -e option (Bruce) +merge duplicate library code in front/backends(Martin) +now works with eBones, international Kerberos(Jun) +more shared library support +c++ include file cleanup(Bruce) +warn about buggy flex(Bruce) +DG/UX, Ultrix, IRIX, AIX portability fixes +</programlisting> +</para> +</sect2> +</sect1> + +<sect1 id="release-6-0"> +<title>Release 6.0</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>1997-01-29</simpara> + </note> + +<para> +A dump/restore is required for those wishing to migrate data from +previous releases of <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>. +</para> + +<sect2> +<title>Migration from version 1.09 to version 6.0</title> + +<para> +This migration requires a complete dump of the 1.09 database and a +restore of the database in 6.0. +</para> +</sect2> + +<sect2> +<title>Migration from pre-1.09 to version 6.0</title> + +<para> +Those migrating from earlier 1.* releases should first upgrade to 1.09 +because the COPY output format was improved from the 1.02 release. +</para> +</sect2> + + <sect2> + <title>Changes</title> + + <para> + <programlisting> +Bug Fixes +--------- +ALTER TABLE bug - running postgres process needs to re-read table definition +Allow vacuum to be run on one table or entire database(Bruce) +Array fixes +Fix array over-runs of memory writes(Kurt) +Fix elusive btree range/non-range bug(Dan) +Fix for hash indexes on some types like time and date +Fix for pg_log size explosion +Fix permissions on lo_export()(Bruce) +Fix uninitialized reads of memory(Kurt) +Fixed ALTER TABLE ... char(3) bug(Bruce) +Fixed a few small memory leaks +Fixed EXPLAIN handling of options and changed full_path option name +Fixed output of group acl privileges +Memory leaks (hunt and destroy with tools like Purify(Kurt) +Minor improvements to rules system +NOTIFY fixes +New asserts for run-checking +Overhauled parser/analyze code to properly report errors and increase speed +Pg_dump -d now handles NULL's properly(Bruce) +Prevent SELECT NULL from crashing server (Bruce) +Properly report errors when INSERT ... SELECT columns did not match +Properly report errors when insert column names were not correct +psql \g filename now works(Bruce) +psql fixed problem with multiple statements on one line with multiple outputs +Removed duplicate system OIDs +SELECT * INTO TABLE . GROUP/ORDER BY gives unlink error if table exists(Bruce) +Several fixes for queries that crashed the backend +Starting quote in insert string errors(Bruce) +Submitting an empty query now returns empty status, not just " " query(Bruce) + +Enhancements +------------ +Add EXPLAIN manual page(Bruce) +Add UNIQUE index capability(Dan) +Add hostname/user level access control rather than just hostname and user +Add synonym of != for <>(Bruce) +Allow "select oid,* from table" +Allow BY,ORDER BY to specify columns by number, or by non-alias table.column(Bruce) +Allow COPY from the frontend(Bryan) +Allow GROUP BY to use alias column name(Bruce) +Allow actual compression, not just reuse on the same page(Vadim) +Allow installation-configuration option to auto-add all local users(Bryan) +Allow libpq to distinguish between text value '' and null(Bruce) +Allow non-postgres users with createdb privs to destroydb's +Allow restriction on who can create C functions(Bryan) +Allow restriction on who can do backend COPY(Bryan) +Can shrink tables, pg_time and pg_log(Vadim & Erich) +Change debug level 2 to print queries only, changed debug heading layout(Bruce) +Change default decimal constant representation from float4 to float8(Bruce) +European date format now set when postmaster is started +Execute lowercase function names if not found with exact case +Fixes for aggregate/GROUP processing, allow 'select sum(func(x),sum(x+y) from z' +Gist now included in the distribution(Marc) +Idend authentication of local users(Bryan) +Implement BETWEEN qualifier(Bruce) +Implement IN qualifier(Bruce) +libpq has PQgetisnull()(Bruce) +libpq++ improvements +New options to initdb(Bryan) +Pg_dump allow dump of OIDs(Bruce) +Pg_dump create indexes after tables are loaded for speed(Bruce) +Pg_dumpall dumps all databases, and the user table +Pginterface additions for NULL values(Bruce) +Prevent postmaster from being run as root +psql \h and \? is now readable(Bruce) +psql allow backslashed, semicolons anywhere on the line(Bruce) +psql changed command prompt for lines in query or in quotes(Bruce) +psql char(3) now displays as (bp)char in \d output(Bruce) +psql return code now more accurate(Bryan?) +psql updated help syntax(Bruce) +Re-visit and fix vacuum(Vadim) +Reduce size of regression diffs, remove timezone name difference(Bruce) +Remove compile-time parameters to enable binary distributions(Bryan) +Reverse meaning of HBA masks(Bryan) +Secure Authentication of local users(Bryan) +Speed up vacuum(Vadim) +Vacuum now had VERBOSE option(Bruce) + +Source tree changes +------------------- +All functions now have prototypes that are compared against the calls +Allow asserts to be disabled easily from Makefile.global(Bruce) +Change oid constants used in code to #define names +Decoupled sparc and solaris defines(Kurt) +Gcc -Wall compiles cleanly with warnings only from unfixable constructs +Major include file reorganization/reduction(Marc) +Make now stops on compile failure(Bryan) +Makefile restructuring(Bryan, Marc) +Merge bsdi_2_1 to bsdi(Bruce) +Monitor program removed +Name change from Postgres95 to PostgreSQL +New config.h file(Marc, Bryan) +PG_VERSION now set to 6.0 and used by postmaster +Portability additions, including Ultrix, DG/UX, AIX, and Solaris +Reduced the number of #define's, centralized #define's +Remove duplicate OIDS in system tables(Dan) +Remove duplicate system catalog info or report mismatches(Dan) +Removed many os-specific #define's +Restructured object file generation/location(Bryan, Marc) +Restructured port-specific file locations(Bryan, Marc) +Unused/uninitialized variables corrected +</programlisting> +</para> +</sect2> +</sect1> + +<sect1 id="release-1-09"> +<title>Release 1.09</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>1996-11-04</simpara> + </note> + +<para> +Sorry, we didn't keep track of changes from 1.02 to 1.09. Some of +the changes listed in 6.0 were actually included in the 1.02.1 to 1.09 +releases. +</para> +</sect1> + +<sect1 id="release-1-02"> +<title>Release 1.02</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>1996-08-01</simpara> + </note> + +<sect2> +<title>Migration from version 1.02 to version 1.02.1</title> + +<para> +Here is a new migration file for 1.02.1. It includes the 'copy' change +and a script to convert old <acronym>ASCII</acronym> files. +</para> +<note> +<para> +The following notes are for the benefit of users who want to migrate +databases from <productname>Postgres95</> 1.01 and 1.02 to <productname>Postgres95</> 1.02.1. +</para> +<para> +If you are starting afresh with <productname>Postgres95</> 1.02.1 and do not need +to migrate old databases, you do not need to read any further. +</para> +</note> + +<para> +In order to upgrade older <productname>Postgres95</> version 1.01 or 1.02 databases to +version 1.02.1, the following steps are required: +</para> +<procedure> +<step> +<para> +Start up a new 1.02.1 postmaster +</para> +</step> +<step> +<para> +Add the new built-in functions and operators of 1.02.1 to 1.01 or 1.02 + databases. This is done by running the new 1.02.1 server against + your own 1.01 or 1.02 database and applying the queries attached at + the end of the file. This can be done easily through <command>psql</>. If your + 1.01 or 1.02 database is named <literal>testdb</literal> and you have cut the commands + from the end of this file and saved them in <filename>addfunc.sql</filename>: +<programlisting> + % psql testdb -f addfunc.sql +</programlisting> + +Those upgrading 1.02 databases will get a warning when executing the +last two statements in the file because they are already present in 1.02. This is +not a cause for concern. +</para> +</step> +</procedure> +</sect2> + +<sect2> +<title>Dump/Reload Procedure</title> + +<para> +If you are trying to reload a pg_dump or text-mode, <literal>copy tablename to +stdout</literal> generated with a previous version, you will need to run the +attached <command>sed</command> script on the ASCII file before loading it into the +database. The old format used '.' as end-of-data, while '\.' is now the +end-of-data marker. Also, empty strings are now loaded in as '' rather +than NULL. See the copy manual page for full details. + +<programlisting> + sed 's/^\.$/\\./g' <in_file >out_file +</programlisting> +</para> +<para> +If you are loading an older binary copy or non-<systemitem>stdout</> copy, there is no +end-of-data character, and hence no conversion necessary. + +<programlisting> +-- following lines added by agc to reflect the case-insensitive +-- regexp searching for varchar (in 1.02), and bpchar (in 1.02.1) +create operator ~* (leftarg = bpchar, rightarg = text, procedure = texticregexeq); +create operator !~* (leftarg = bpchar, rightarg = text, procedure = texticregexne); +create operator ~* (leftarg = varchar, rightarg = text, procedure = texticregexeq); +create operator !~* (leftarg = varchar, rightarg = text, procedure = texticregexne); +</programlisting> +</para> +</sect2> + +<sect2> +<title>Changes</title> + +<para> +<programlisting> +Source code maintenance and development + * worldwide team of volunteers + * the source tree now in CVS at ftp.ki.net + +Enhancements + * psql (and underlying libpq library) now has many more options for + formatting output, including HTML + * pg_dump now output the schema and/or the data, with many fixes to + enhance completeness. + * psql used in place of monitor in administration shell scripts. + monitor to be deprecated in next release. + * date/time functions enhanced + * NULL insert/update/comparison fixed/enhanced + * TCL/TK lib and shell fixed to work with both tck7.4/tk4.0 and tcl7.5/tk4.1 + +Bug Fixes (almost too numerous to mention) + * indexes + * storage management + * check for NULL pointer before dereferencing + * Makefile fixes + +New Ports + * added SolarisX86 port + * added BSD/OS 2.1 port + * added DG/UX port +</programlisting> +</para> +<!-- +Contributors (apologies to any missed) + * Kurt J. Lidl <lidl@va.pubnix.com> + (missed in first run, but no less important) + * Erich Stamberger <eberger@gewi.kfunigraz.ac.at> + * Jason Wright <jason@shiloh.vnet.net> + * Cees de Groot <C.deGroot@inter.NL.net> + * ernst.molitor@uni-bonn.de + * michael.siebenborn@ae3.Hypo.DE (Michael Siebenborn (6929)) + * Brian E. Gallew <geek+@cmu.edu> + * Vadim B. Mikheev <vadim@sable.krasnoyarsk.su> + * Adam Sussman <myddryn@vidya.com> + * Chris Dunlop <chris@onthe.net.au> + * Marc G. Fournier <scrappy@ki.net> + * Dan McGuirk <mcguirk@indirect.com> + * Dr_George_D_Detlefsen <drgeorge@ilt.com> + * Erich Stamberger <eberger@gewi.kfunigraz.ac.at> + * Massimo Dal Zotto <dz@cs.unitn.it> + * Randy Kunkee <kunkee@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM> + * Rick Weldon <rick@wisetech.com> + * Thomas van Reimersdahl <reimersd@dali.techinfo.rwth-aachen.de> + * david bennett <dave@bensoft.com> + * ernst.molitor@uni-bonn.de + * Julian Assange <proff@suburbia.net> + * Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> + * Paul "Shag" Walmsley <ccshag@cclabs.missouri.edu> + * "Alistair G. Crooks" <azcb0@sde.uts.amdahl.com> +--> +</sect2> +</sect1> + +<sect1 id="release-1-01"> +<title>Release 1.01</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>1996-02-23</simpara> + </note> + + +<sect2> +<title>Migration from version 1.0 to version 1.01</title> + +<para> +The following notes are for the benefit of users who want to migrate +databases from <productname>Postgres95</> 1.0 to <productname>Postgres95</> 1.01. +</para> +<para> +If you are starting afresh with <productname>Postgres95</> 1.01 and do not need +to migrate old databases, you do not need to read any further. +</para> +<para> +In order to <productname>Postgres95</> version 1.01 with databases created with +<productname>Postgres95</> version 1.0, the following steps are required: +</para> +<procedure> +<step> +<para> +Set the definition of <symbol>NAMEDATALEN</symbol> in <filename>src/Makefile.global</filename> to 16 + and <symbol>OIDNAMELEN</symbol> to 20. +</para> +</step> +<step> +<para> +Decide whether you want to use Host based authentication. +</para> +<substeps> +<step> +<para> +If you do, you must create a file name <literal>pg_hba</literal> in your top-level data + directory (typically the value of your <envar>$PGDATA</envar>). <filename>src/libpq/pg_hba</filename> + shows an example syntax. +</para> +</step> +<step> +<para> +If you do not want host-based authentication, you can comment out + the line: +<programlisting> + HBA = 1 +</programlisting> + in <filename>src/Makefile.global</filename> +</para> +<para> + Note that host-based authentication is turned on by default, and if + you do not take steps A or B above, the out-of-the-box 1.01 will + not allow you to connect to 1.0 databases. +</para> +</step> +</substeps> +</step> + +<step> +<para> +Compile and install 1.01, but DO NOT do the <command>initdb</command> step. +</para> +</step> +<step> +<para> +Before doing anything else, terminate your 1.0 postmaster, and + backup your existing <envar>$PGDATA</envar> directory. +</para> +</step> +<step> +<para> +Set your <envar>PGDATA</envar> environment variable to your 1.0 databases, but set up + path up so that 1.01 binaries are being used. +</para> +</step> +<step> +<para> +Modify the file <filename><envar>$PGDATA</envar>/PG_VERSION</filename> from 5.0 to 5.1 +</para> +</step> +<step> +<para> +Start up a new 1.01 postmaster +</para> +</step> +<step> +<para> +Add the new built-in functions and operators of 1.01 to 1.0 + databases. This is done by running the new 1.01 server against + your own 1.0 database and applying the queries attached and saving + in the file 1.0_to_1.01.sql. This can be done easily through <command>psql</command>. + If your 1.0 database is name <literal>testdb</literal>: + +<programlisting> + % psql testdb -f 1.0_to_1.01.sql +</programlisting> + +and then execute the following commands (cut and paste from here): + +<programlisting> +-- add builtin functions that are new to 1.01 + +create function int4eqoid (int4, oid) returns bool as 'foo' +language 'internal'; +create function oideqint4 (oid, int4) returns bool as 'foo' +language 'internal'; +create function char2icregexeq (char2, text) returns bool as 'foo' +language 'internal'; +create function char2icregexne (char2, text) returns bool as 'foo' +language 'internal'; +create function char4icregexeq (char4, text) returns bool as 'foo' +language 'internal'; +create function char4icregexne (char4, text) returns bool as 'foo' +language 'internal'; +create function char8icregexeq (char8, text) returns bool as 'foo' +language 'internal'; +create function char8icregexne (char8, text) returns bool as 'foo' +language 'internal'; +create function char16icregexeq (char16, text) returns bool as 'foo' +language 'internal'; +create function char16icregexne (char16, text) returns bool as 'foo' +language 'internal'; +create function texticregexeq (text, text) returns bool as 'foo' +language 'internal'; +create function texticregexne (text, text) returns bool as 'foo' +language 'internal'; + +-- add builtin functions that are new to 1.01 + +create operator = (leftarg = int4, rightarg = oid, procedure = int4eqoid); +create operator = (leftarg = oid, rightarg = int4, procedure = oideqint4); +create operator ~* (leftarg = char2, rightarg = text, procedure = char2icregexeq); +create operator !~* (leftarg = char2, rightarg = text, procedure = char2icregexne); +create operator ~* (leftarg = char4, rightarg = text, procedure = char4icregexeq); +create operator !~* (leftarg = char4, rightarg = text, procedure = char4icregexne); +create operator ~* (leftarg = char8, rightarg = text, procedure = char8icregexeq); +create operator !~* (leftarg = char8, rightarg = text, procedure = char8icregexne); +create operator ~* (leftarg = char16, rightarg = text, procedure = char16icregexeq); +create operator !~* (leftarg = char16, rightarg = text, procedure = char16icregexne); +create operator ~* (leftarg = text, rightarg = text, procedure = texticregexeq); +create operator !~* (leftarg = text, rightarg = text, procedure = texticregexne); +</programlisting> +</para> +</step> +</procedure> +</sect2> + +<sect2> +<title>Changes</title> + +<para> +<programlisting> +Incompatibilities: + * 1.01 is backwards compatible with 1.0 database provided the user + follow the steps outlined in the MIGRATION_from_1.0_to_1.01 file. + If those steps are not taken, 1.01 is not compatible with 1.0 database. + +Enhancements: + * added PQdisplayTuples() to libpq and changed monitor and psql to use it + * added NeXT port (requires SysVIPC implementation) + * added CAST .. AS ... syntax + * added ASC and DESC key words + * added 'internal' as a possible language for CREATE FUNCTION + internal functions are C functions which have been statically linked + into the postgres backend. + * a new type "name" has been added for system identifiers (table names, + attribute names, etc.) This replaces the old char16 type. The + of name is set by the NAMEDATALEN #define in src/Makefile.global + * a readable reference manual that describes the query language. + * added host-based access control. A configuration file ($PGDATA/pg_hba) + is used to hold the configuration data. If host-based access control + is not desired, comment out HBA=1 in src/Makefile.global. + * changed regex handling to be uniform use of Henry Spencer's regex code + regardless of platform. The regex code is included in the distribution + * added functions and operators for case-insensitive regular expressions. + The operators are ~* and !~*. + * pg_dump uses COPY instead of SELECT loop for better performance + +Bug fixes: + * fixed an optimizer bug that was causing core dumps when + functions calls were used in comparisons in the WHERE clause + * changed all uses of getuid to geteuid so that effective uids are used + * psql now returns non-zero status on errors when using -c + * applied public patches 1-14 +</programlisting> +</para> +</sect2> +</sect1> + +<sect1 id="release-1-0"> +<title>Release 1.0</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>1995-09-05</simpara> + </note> + +<sect2> +<title>Changes</title> + +<para> +<programlisting> +Copyright change: + * The copyright of <productname>Postgres</productname> 1.0 has been loosened to be freely modifiable + and modifiable for any purpose. Please read the COPYRIGHT file. + Thanks to Professor Michael Stonebraker for making this possible. + +Incompatibilities: + * date formats have to be MM-DD-YYYY (or DD-MM-YYYY if you're using + EUROPEAN STYLE). This follows SQL-92 specs. + * "delimiters" is now a key word + +Enhancements: + * sql LIKE syntax has been added + * copy command now takes an optional USING DELIMITER specification. + delimiters can be any single-character string. + * IRIX 5.3 port has been added. + Thanks to Paul Walmsley and others. + * updated pg_dump to work with new libpq + * \d has been added psql + Thanks to Keith Parks + * regexp performance for architectures that use POSIX regex has been + improved due to caching of precompiled patterns. + Thanks to Alistair Crooks + * a new version of libpq++ + Thanks to William Wanders + +Bug fixes: + * arbitrary userids can be specified in the createuser script + * \c to connect to other databases in psql now works. + * bad pg_proc entry for float4inc() is fixed + * users with usecreatedb field set can now create databases without + having to be usesuper + * remove access control entries when the entry no longer has any + privileges + * fixed non-portable datetimes implementation + * added kerberos flags to the src/backend/Makefile + * libpq now works with kerberos + * typographic errors in the user manual have been corrected. + * btrees with multiple index never worked, now we tell you they don't + work when you try to use them +</programlisting> +</para> +</sect2> +</sect1> + +<sect1 id="release-0-03"> +<title><productname>Postgres95</productname> Release 0.03</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>1995-07-21</simpara> + </note> + +<sect2> +<title>Changes</title> +<para> +<programlisting> +Incompatible changes: + * BETA-0.3 IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH DATABASES CREATED WITH PREVIOUS VERSIONS + (due to system catalog changes and indexing structure changes). + * double-quote (") is deprecated as a quoting character for string literals; + you need to convert them to single quotes ('). <!-- " --> + * name of aggregates (eg. int4sum) are renamed in accordance with the + SQL standard (eg. sum). + * CHANGE ACL syntax is replaced by GRANT/REVOKE syntax. + * float literals (eg. 3.14) are now of type float4 (instead of float8 in + previous releases); you might have to do typecasting if you depend on it + being of type float8. If you neglect to do the typecasting and you assign + a float literal to a field of type float8, you might get incorrect values + stored! + * LIBPQ has been totally revamped so that frontend applications + can connect to multiple backends + * the usesysid field in pg_user has been changed from int2 to int4 to + allow wider range of Unix user ids. + * the netbsd/freebsd/bsd o/s ports have been consolidated into a + single BSD44_derived port. (thanks to Alistair Crooks) + +SQL standard-compliance (the following details changes that makes postgres95 +more compliant to the SQL-92 standard): + * the following SQL types are now built-in: smallint, int(eger), float, real, + char(N), varchar(N), date and time. + + The following are aliases to existing postgres types: + smallint -> int2 + integer, int -> int4 + float, real -> float4 + char(N) and varchar(N) are implemented as truncated text types. In + addition, char(N) does blank-padding. + * single-quote (') is used for quoting string literals; '' (in addition to + \') is supported as means of inserting a single quote in a string + * SQL standard aggregate names (MAX, MIN, AVG, SUM, COUNT) are used + (Also, aggregates can now be overloaded, i.e. you can define your + own MAX aggregate to take in a user-defined type.) + * CHANGE ACL removed. GRANT/REVOKE syntax added. + - Privileges can be given to a group using the "GROUP" key word. + For example: + GRANT SELECT ON foobar TO GROUP my_group; + The key word 'PUBLIC' is also supported to mean all users. + + Privileges can only be granted or revoked to one user or group + at a time. + + "WITH GRANT OPTION" is not supported. Only class owners can change + access control + - The default access control is to grant users readonly access. + You must explicitly grant insert/update access to users. To change + this, modify the line in + src/backend/utils/acl.h + that defines ACL_WORLD_DEFAULT + +Bug fixes: + * the bug where aggregates of empty tables were not run has been fixed. Now, + aggregates run on empty tables will return the initial conditions of the + aggregates. Thus, COUNT of an empty table will now properly return 0. + MAX/MIN of an empty table will return a row of value NULL. + * allow the use of \; inside the monitor + * the LISTEN/NOTIFY asynchronous notification mechanism now work + * NOTIFY in rule action bodies now work + * hash indexes work, and access methods in general should perform better. + creation of large btree indexes should be much faster. (thanks to Paul + Aoki) + +Other changes and enhancements: + * addition of an EXPLAIN statement used for explaining the query execution + plan (eg. "EXPLAIN SELECT * FROM EMP" prints out the execution plan for + the query). + * WARN and NOTICE messages no longer have timestamps on them. To turn on + timestamps of error messages, uncomment the line in + src/backend/utils/elog.h: + /* define ELOG_TIMESTAMPS */ + * On an access control violation, the message + "Either no such class or insufficient privilege" + will be given. This is the same message that is returned when + a class is not found. This dissuades non-privileged users from + guessing the existence of privileged classes. + * some additional system catalog changes have been made that are not + visible to the user. + +libpgtcl changes: + * The -oid option has been added to the "pg_result" tcl command. + pg_result -oid returns oid of the last row inserted. If the + last command was not an INSERT, then pg_result -oid returns "". + * the large object interface is available as pg_lo* tcl commands: + pg_lo_open, pg_lo_close, pg_lo_creat, etc. + +Portability enhancements and New Ports: + * flex/lex problems have been cleared up. Now, you should be able to use + flex instead of lex on any platforms. We no longer make assumptions of + what lexer you use based on the platform you use. + * The Linux-ELF port is now supported. Various configuration have been + tested: The following configuration is known to work: + kernel 1.2.10, gcc 2.6.3, libc 4.7.2, flex 2.5.2, bison 1.24 + with everything in ELF format, + +New utilities: + * ipcclean added to the distribution + ipcclean usually does not need to be run, but if your backend crashes + and leaves shared memory segments hanging around, ipcclean will + clean them up for you. + +New documentation: + * the user manual has been revised and libpq documentation added. +</programlisting> +</para> +</sect2> +</sect1> + +<sect1 id="release-0-02"> +<title><productname>Postgres95</productname> Release 0.02</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>1995-05-25</simpara> + </note> + +<sect2> +<title>Changes</title> + +<para> +<programlisting> +Incompatible changes: + * The SQL statement for creating a database is 'CREATE DATABASE' instead + of 'CREATEDB'. Similarly, dropping a database is 'DROP DATABASE' instead + of 'DESTROYDB'. However, the names of the executables 'createdb' and + 'destroydb' remain the same. + +New tools: + * pgperl - a Perl (4.036) interface to Postgres95 + * pg_dump - a utility for dumping out a postgres database into a + script file containing query commands. The script files are in a ASCII + format and can be used to reconstruct the database, even on other + machines and other architectures. (Also good for converting + a Postgres 4.2 database to Postgres95 database.) + +The following ports have been incorporated into postgres95-beta-0.02: + * the NetBSD port by Alistair Crooks + * the AIX port by Mike Tung + * the Windows NT port by Jon Forrest (more stuff but not done yet) + * the Linux ELF port by Brian Gallew + +The following bugs have been fixed in postgres95-beta-0.02: + * new lines not escaped in COPY OUT and problem with COPY OUT when first + attribute is a '.' + * cannot type return to use the default user id in createuser + * SELECT DISTINCT on big tables crashes + * Linux installation problems + * monitor doesn't allow use of 'localhost' as PGHOST + * psql core dumps when doing \c or \l + * the "pgtclsh" target missing from src/bin/pgtclsh/Makefile + * libpgtcl has a hard-wired default port number + * SELECT DISTINCT INTO TABLE hangs + * CREATE TYPE doesn't accept 'variable' as the internallength + * wrong result using more than 1 aggregate in a SELECT +</programlisting> +</para> +</sect2> +</sect1> + +<sect1 id="release-0-01"> +<title><productname>Postgres95</productname> Release 0.01</title> + + <note> + <title>Release date</title> + <simpara>1995-05-01</simpara> + </note> + +<para> +Initial release. +</para> +</sect1> + +<![IGNORE[ + <sect1 id="timing-results"> + <title>Timing Results</title> + + <para> + These timing results are from running the regression test with the commands + + <programlisting> +% cd src/test/regress +% make all +% time make runtest + </programlisting> + </para> + <para> + Timing under Linux 2.0.27 seems to have a roughly 5% variation from run + to run, presumably due to the scheduling vagaries of multitasking systems. + </para> + + <sect2> + <title>Version 6.5</title> + + <para> + As has been the case for previous releases, timing between + releases is not directly comparable since new regression tests + have been added. In general, 6.5 is faster than previous + releases. + </para> + + <para> + Timing with <function>fsync()</function> disabled: + + <programlisting> + Time System + 02:00 Dual Pentium Pro 180, 224MB, UW-SCSI, Linux 2.0.36, gcc 2.7.2.3 -O2 -m486 + 04:38 Sparc Ultra 1 143MHz, 64MB, Solaris 2.6 + </programlisting> + </para> + + <para> + Timing with <function>fsync()</function> enabled: + + <programlisting> + Time System + 04:21 Dual Pentium Pro 180, 224MB, UW-SCSI, Linux 2.0.36, gcc 2.7.2.3 -O2 -m486 + </programlisting> + + For the <systemitem class="osname">Linux</systemitem> system above, using <acronym>UW-SCSI</acronym> disks rather than (older) <acronym>IDE</acronym> + disks leads to a 50% improvement in speed on the regression test. + </para> + </sect2> + +<sect2> +<title>Version 6.4beta</title> + +<para> +The times for this release are not directly comparable to those for previous releases +since some additional regression tests have been included. +In general, however, 6.4 should be slightly faster than the previous release (thanks, Bruce!). +</para> +<para> +<programlisting> + Time System + 02:26 Dual Pentium Pro 180, 96MB, UW-SCSI, Linux 2.0.30, gcc 2.7.2.1 -O2 -m486 +</programlisting> +</para> +</sect2> + +<sect2> +<title>Version 6.3</title> + +<para> +The times for this release are not directly comparable to those for previous releases +since some additional regression tests have been included and some obsolete tests involving +time travel have been removed. +In general, however, 6.3 is substantially faster than previous releases (thanks, Bruce!). +</para> +<para> +<programlisting> + Time System + 02:30 Dual Pentium Pro 180, 96MB, UW-SCSI, Linux 2.0.30, gcc 2.7.2.1 -O2 -m486 + 04:12 Dual Pentium Pro 180, 96MB, EIDE, Linux 2.0.30, gcc 2.7.2.1 -O2 -m486 +</programlisting> +</para> +</sect2> + +<sect2> +<title>Version 6.1</title> + +<para> +<programlisting> + Time System + 06:12 Pentium Pro 180, 32MB, EIDE, Linux 2.0.30, gcc 2.7.2 -O2 -m486 + 12:06 P-100, 48MB, Linux 2.0.29, gcc + 39:58 Sparc IPC 32MB, Solaris 2.5, gcc 2.7.2.1 -O -g +</programlisting> +</para> +</sect2> +</sect1> +]]> diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/release.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/release.sgml index ed6465021e6..d8813ff9125 100644 --- a/doc/src/sgml/release.sgml +++ b/doc/src/sgml/release.sgml @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -<!-- $PostgreSQL: pgsql/doc/src/sgml/release.sgml,v 1.632 2009/04/26 20:08:30 tgl Exp $ --> +<!-- $PostgreSQL: pgsql/doc/src/sgml/release.sgml,v 1.633 2009/05/02 20:17:19 tgl Exp $ --> <!-- Typical markup: @@ -27,9 +27,8 @@ non-ASCII characters convert to HTML4 entity (&) escapes wrap long lines For new features, add links to the documentation sections. Use </link> -so that Perl can remove it so HISTORY.html can be created with no -links to the main documentation. This was added only in 8.2, so don't -do it for earlier branch release files. +not just </> so that generate_history.pl can remove it, so HISTORY.html +can be created without links to the main documentation. --> @@ -64,31991 +63,19 @@ do it for earlier branch release files. review, so each item is truly a community effort. </para> - <sect1 id="release-8-4"> - <title>Release 8.4</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2009-??-??, ITEMS CURRENT AS OF 2009-04-08</simpara> - </note> - - <sect2> - <title>Overview</title> - - <para> - After many years of development, <productname>PostgreSQL</> has - become feature-complete in many areas. This release shows a - targeted approach to adding features (e.g., authentication, - monitoring, space reuse), and adds capabilities defined in the - later SQL standards. The major areas of enhancement are: - </para> - - <itemizedlist> - - <!-- This list duplicates items below, but without authors or details--> - - <listitem> - <para> - Windowing Functions - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Common Table Expressions and Recursive Joins - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Default and variadic parameters for functions - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Parallel Restore - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Column Permissions - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Per-database locale settings - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improved hash indexes - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improved join performance for <literal>EXISTS</> and <literal>NOT EXISTS</> queries - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Easier-to-use Warm Standby - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Automatic sizing of the Free Space Map - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Visibility Map (greatly reduces vacuum overhead for slowly-changing tables) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Version-aware psql (backslash commands work against older servers) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support SSL certificates for user authentication - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Per-function runtime statistics - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Easy editing of functions in psql - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - New contrib modules: pg_stat_statements, auto_explain, citext, btree_gin - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - <para> - The above items are explained in more detail in the sections below. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.4</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore using <application>pg_dump</application> is - required for those wishing to migrate data from any previous - release. - </para> - - <para> - Observe the following incompatibilities: - </para> - - <sect3> - <title>General</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Use 64-bit integer datetimes by default (Neil Conway) - </para> - - <para> - Previously this was selected by <application>configure</>'s - <option>--enable-integer-datetimes</> option. To retain - the old behavior, build with <option>--disable-integer-datetimes</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove <application>ipcclean</> utility command (Bruce) - </para> - - <para> - The utility only worked on a few platforms. Users should use - their operating system tools instead. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Server Settings</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Change default setting for - <literal>log_min_messages</> to <literal>warning</> (previously - it was <literal>notice</>) to reduce log file volume (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <literal>debug_print_parse</>, <literal>debug_print_rewritten</>, - and <literal>debug_print_plan</> - output appear at <literal>LOG</> message level, not - <literal>DEBUG1</> as formerly (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <literal>debug_pretty_print</> default to <literal>on</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove <varname>explain_pretty_print</> parameter (no longer needed) (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <varname>log_temp_files</> settable by superusers only, like other - logging options (Simon Riggs) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove automatic appending of the epoch timestamp when no <literal>%</> - escapes are present in <literal>log_filename</> (Robert Haas) - </para> - - <para> - This change was made because some users wanted a fixed log filename, - for use with an external log rotation tool. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove <varname>log_restartpoints</> from <filename>recovery.conf</>; - instead use <varname>log_checkpoints</> (Simon) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove support for the (insecure) <literal>crypt</> authentication method - (Magnus) - </para> - - <para> - This effectively obsoletes pre-<productname>PostgreSQL</> 7.2 client - libraries, as there is no longer any non-plaintext password method that - they can use. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove <varname>krb_realm</> and <varname>krb_server_hostname</>; - these are now set in <filename>pg_hba.conf</> instead (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - There are also significant changes in <link - linkend="release-8-4-pg-hba-conf"><filename>pg_hba.conf</></link>, - as described below. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Queries</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Change <command>TRUNCATE</> and <command>LOCK</> to - apply to child tables of the specified table(s) (Peter) - </para> - - <para> - These commands now accept an <literal>ONLY</> option that prevents - processing child tables; this option must be used if the old - behavior is needed. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <command>SELECT DISTINCT</> and - <literal>UNION</>/<literal>INTERSECT</>/<literal>EXCEPT</> - no longer always produce sorted output (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Previously, these types of queries always removed duplicate rows - by means of Sort/Unique processing (i.e., sort then remove adjacent - duplicates). Now they can be implemented by hashing, which will not - produce sorted output. If an application relied on the output being - in sorted order, the recommended fix is to add an <literal>ORDER BY</> - clause. As a short-term workaround, the previous behavior can be - restored by disabling <literal>enable_hashagg</>, but that is a very - performance-expensive fix. <literal>SELECT DISTINCT ON</> never uses - hashing, however, so its behavior is unchanged. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Force child tables to inherit <literal>CHECK</> constraints from parents - (Alex Hunsaker, Nikhil Sontakke, Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Formerly it was possible to drop such a constraint from a child - table, allowing rows that violate the constraint to be visible - when scanning the parent table. This was deemed inconsistent, - as well as contrary to SQL standard. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Disallow negative <literal>LIMIT</> or <literal>OFFSET</> - values, rather than treating them as zero (Simon) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Disallow <command>LOCK TABLE</> outside a transaction block - (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Such an operation is useless because the lock would be released - immediately. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Sequences now contain an additional <structfield>start_value</> column - (Zoltan Boszormenyi) - </para> - - <para> - This supports <command>ALTER SEQUENCE ... RESTART</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - - <sect3> - <title>Functions and Operators</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <type>numeric</> zero raised to a fractional power return - <literal>0</>, rather than throwing an error, and make - <type>numeric</> zero raised to the zero power return <literal>1</>, - rather than error (Bruce) - </para> - - <para> - This matches the longstanding <type>float8</> behavior. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow unary minus of floating-point values to produce minus zero (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The changed behavior is more <acronym>IEEE</>-standard - compliant. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Throw an error if an escape character is the last character in - a <literal>LIKE</> pattern (i.e., it has nothing to escape) (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Previously, such an escape character was silently ignored, - thus possibly masking application logic errors. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove <literal>~=~</> and <literal>~<>~</> operators - formerly used for <literal>LIKE</> index comparisons (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Pattern indexes now use the regular equality operator. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <function>xpath()</> now passes its arguments to <application>libxml</> - without any changes (Andrew) - </para> - - <para> - This means that the XML argument must be a well-formed XML document. - The previous coding attempted to allow XML fragments, but it did not - work well. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <function>xmlelement()</> format attribute values just like - content values (Peter) - </para> - - <para> - Previously, attribute values were formatted according to the - normal SQL output behavior, which is sometimes at odds with - XML rules. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Adopt a faster algorithm for hash functions (Kenneth Marshall, - based on work of Bob Jenkins) - </para> - - <para> - Many of the built-in hash functions now deliver different results on - little-endian and big-endian platforms. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - <sect4> - <title>Temporal Functions and Operators</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - <varname>DateStyle</> no longer controls <type>interval</> output - formatting; instead there is a new variable <varname>IntervalStyle</> - (Ron Mayer) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve consistency of handling of fractional seconds in - <type>timestamp</> and <type>interval</> output (Ron Mayer) - </para> - - <para> - This may result in displaying a different number of fractional - digits than before, or rounding instead of truncating. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <function>to_char()</>'s localized month/day names depend - on <varname>LC_TIME</>, not <varname>LC_MESSAGES</> (Euler - Taveira de Oliveira) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Cause <function>to_date()</> and <function>to_timestamp()</> - to more consistently report errors for invalid input (Brendan - Jurd) - </para> - - <para> - Previous versions would often ignore or silently misread input - that did not match the format string. Such cases will now - result in an error. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <function>to_timestamp()</> to not require upper/lower case - matching for meridian (<literal>AM</>/<literal>PM</>) and era - (<literal>BC</>/<literal>AD</>) format designations (Brendan - Jurd) - </para> - - <para> - For example, input value <literal>ad</> now matches the format - string <literal>AD</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect4> - - </sect3> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <para> - Below you will find a detailed account of the changes between - <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> 8.4 and the previous major - release. - </para> - - <sect3> - <title>Performance</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve optimizer statistics calculations (Jan Urbanski, Tom) - </para> - - <para> - In particular, estimates for full-text-search operators are - greatly improved. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <command>SELECT DISTINCT</> and - <literal>UNION</>/<literal>INTERSECT</>/<literal>EXCEPT</> to - use hashing (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This means that these types of queries no longer automatically - produce sorted output. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Create explicit concepts of semi-joins and anti-joins (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This work formalizes our previous ad-hoc treatment of <literal>IN - (SELECT ...)</> clauses, and extends it to <literal>EXISTS</> and - <literal>NOT EXISTS</> clauses. It should result in significantly - better planning of <literal>EXISTS</> and <literal>NOT EXISTS</> - queries. In general, logically equivalent <literal>IN</> and - <literal>EXISTS</> clauses should now have similar performance, - whereas previously <literal>IN</> often won. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve optimization of sub-selects beneath outer joins (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Formerly, a sub-select or view could not be optimized very well if it - appeared within the nullable side of an outer join and contained - non-strict expressions (for instance, constants) in its result list. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve the performance of <function>text_position()</> and - related functions by using Boyer-Moore-Horspool searching (David - Rowley) - </para> - - <para> - This is particularly helpful for long search patterns. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Reduce I/O load of writing the statistics collection file - by writing the file only when requested (Martin Pihlak) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve performance for bulk inserts (Robert Haas, Simon) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Increase the default value of <varname>default_statistics_target</> - from <literal>10</> to <literal>100</> (Greg Sabino Mullane, - Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The maximum value was also increased from <literal>1000</> to - <literal>10000</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Perform <varname>constraint_exclusion</> checking by default - in queries involving inheritance or <literal>UNION ALL</> (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - A new <varname>constraint_exclusion</> setting, - <literal>partition</>, was added to specify this behavior. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow I/O read-ahead for bitmap index scans (Greg Stark) - </para> - - <para> - The amount of read-ahead is controlled by - <varname>effective_io_concurrency</>. This feature is available only - if the kernel has <function>posix_fadvise()</> support. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Inline simple set-returning <acronym>SQL</> functions in - <literal>FROM</> clauses (Richard Rowell) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve performance of multi-batch hash joins by providing a special - case for join key values that are especially common in the outer - relation (Bryce Cutt, Ramon Lawrence) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Reduce volume of temporary data in multi-batch hash joins - by suppressing <quote>physical tlist</> optimization (Michael - Henderson, Ramon Lawrence) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Avoid waiting for idle-in-transaction sessions during - <command>CREATE INDEX CONCURRENTLY</> (Simon) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve performance of shared cache invalidation (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Server</title> - - <sect4> - <title>Settings</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Convert many <filename>postgresql.conf</> settings to enumerated - values so that <literal>pg_settings</> can display the valid - values (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <varname>cursor_tuple_fraction</> parameter to control the - fraction of a cursor's rows that the planner assumes will be - fetched (Robert Hell) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow underscores in the names of custom variable - classes in <filename>postgresql.conf</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect4> - - <sect4> - <title>Authentication</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Report appropriate error message for combination of <literal>MD5</> - authentication and <varname>db_user_namespace</> enabled (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support regular expressions in <filename>pg_ident.conf</> - (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <productname>Kerberos</>/<acronym>GSSAPI</> parameters - to be changed without restarting the postmaster (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect4> - - <sect4 id="release-8-4-pg-hba-conf"> - <title><filename>pg_hba.conf</></title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Parse <filename>pg_hba.conf</> fully when it is loaded, - so that errors are reported immediately (Magnus) - </para> - - <para> - Previously, most errors in the file wouldn't be detected until clients - tried to connect, so an erroneous file could render the system - unusable. With the new behavior, if an error is detected during - reload then the bad file is rejected and the postmaster continues - to use its old copy. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Show all parsing errors in <filename>pg_hba.conf</> instead of - aborting after the first one (Selena Deckelmann) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove the <literal>ident sameuser</> option, instead making that - behavior the default if no usermap is specified (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Change all authentication options to use <literal>name=value</> - syntax (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow a usermap parameter for all external authentication methods - (Magnus) - </para> - - <para> - Previously a usermap was only supported for <literal>ident</> - authentication. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>clientcert</> option to control requesting of a - client certificate (Magnus) - </para> - - <para> - Previously this was controlled by the presence of a root - certificate file in the server's data directory. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>cert</> authentication method to allow - <emphasis>user</> authentication via <acronym>SSL</> certificates - (Magnus) - </para> - - <para> - Previously <acronym>SSL</> certificates could only verify that - the client had access to a certificate, not authenticate a - user. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <literal>krb5</>, <literal>gssapi</> and <literal>sspi</> - realm and <literal>krb5</> host settings to be specified in - <filename>pg_hba.conf</> (Magnus) - </para> - - <para> - These override the settings in <filename>postgresql.conf</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <varname>include_realm</> parameter for <literal>krb5</>, - <literal>gssapi</>, and <literal>sspi</> methods (Magnus) - </para> - - <para> - This allows identical usernames from different realms to be - authenticated as different database users using usermaps. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support <literal>ident</> authentication over Unix-domain sockets - on <productname>Solaris</> (Garick Hamlin) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect4> - - <sect4> - <title>Continuous Archiving</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Provide an option to <function>pg_start_backup()</> to force its - implied checkpoint to finish as quickly as possible (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The default behavior avoids excess I/O consumption, but that is - pointless if no concurrent query activity is going on. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <function>pg_stop_backup()</> wait for modified <acronym>WAL</> - files to be archived (Simon) - </para> - - <para> - This guarantees that the backup is valid at the time - <function>pg_stop_backup()</> completes. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Delay <quote>smart</> shutdown while a continuous archiving base backup - is in progress (Laurenz Albe) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Cancel a continuous archiving base backup if <quote>fast</> shutdown - is requested (Laurenz Albe) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <filename>recovery.conf</> boolean variables to take the - same range of string values as <filename>postgresql.conf</> - boolean variables - (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect4> - - <sect4> - <title>Monitoring</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>pg_conf_load_time()</> to report when - the <productname>PostgreSQL</> configuration files were last loaded - (George Gensure) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>pg_terminate_backend()</> to safely terminate a - backend (the <literal>SIGTERM</> signal works also) (Tom, Bruce) - </para> - - <para> - While it's always been possible to <literal>SIGTERM</> a single - backend, this was previously considered unsupported; and testing - of the case found some bugs that are now fixed. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add ability to track user-defined functions' call counts and - runtimes (Martin Pihlak) - </para> - - <para> - Function statistics appear in a new system view, - <literal>pg_stat_user_functions</>. Tracking is controlled - by the new parameter <varname>track_functions</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow specification of the maximum query string size in - <literal>pg_stat_activity</> via new - <varname>track_activity_query_size</> parameter (Thomas Lee) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Increase the maximum line length sent to <application>syslog</>, in - hopes of improving performance (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add read-only configuration variables <varname>segment_size</>, - <varname>wal_block_size</>, and <varname>wal_segment_size</> - (Bernd Helmle) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - When reporting a deadlock, report the text of all queries involved - in the deadlock to the server log (Itagaki Takahiro) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>pg_stat_get_activity(pid)</> function to return - information about a specific process id (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow the location of the server's statistics file to be specified - via <varname>stats_temp_directory</> (Magnus) - </para> - - <para> - This allows the statistics file to be placed in a - <acronym>RAM</>-resident directory to reduce I/O requirements. - On startup/shutdown, the file is copied to its traditional location - (<literal>$PGDATA/global/</>) so it is preserved across restarts. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect4> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Queries</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add support for <literal>WINDOW</> functions (Hitoshi Harada) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add support for <literal>WITH</> clauses (CTEs), including <literal>WITH - RECURSIVE</> (Yoshiyuki Asaba, Tatsuo Ishii, Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <command>TABLE</> command (Peter) - </para> - - <para> - <literal>TABLE tablename</> is a SQL standard short-hand for - <literal>SELECT * FROM tablename</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <literal>AS</> to be optional when specifying a - <command>SELECT</> (or <literal>RETURNING</>) column output - label (Hiroshi Saito) - </para> - - <para> - This works so long as the column label is not any - <productname>PostgreSQL</> keyword; otherwise <literal>AS</> is still - needed. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support set-returning functions in <command>SELECT</> result lists - even for functions that return their result via a tuplestore (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - In particular, this means that functions written in PL/PgSQL - and other PL languages can now be called this way. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support set-returning functions in the output of aggregation - and grouping queries (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <command>SELECT FOR UPDATE</>/<literal>SHARE</> to work - on inheritance trees (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add infrastructure for <acronym>SQL/MED</> (Martin Pihlak, - Peter) - </para> - - <para> - There are no remote or external <acronym>SQL/MED</> capabilities - yet, but this change provides a standardized and future-proof - system for managing connection information for modules like - <filename>dblink</> and <filename>plproxy</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Invalidate cached plans when referenced schemas, functions, operators, - or operator classes are modified (Martin Pihlak, Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This improves the system's ability to respond to on-the-fly - DDL changes. - </para> - </listitem> - <listitem> - <para> - Allow comparison of composite types and allow arrays of - anonymous composite types (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This allows constructs such as - <literal>row(1, 1.1) = any (array[row(7, 7.7), row(1, 1.0)])</>. - This is particularly useful in recursive queries. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add support for Unicode string literal and identifier specifications - using code points, e.g. <literal>U&'d\0061t\+000061'</> - (Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve the parser's ability to report error locations (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - An error location is now reported for many semantic errors, - such as mismatched datatypes, that previously could not be localized. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - <sect4> - <title><command>TRUNCATE</></title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support statement-level <literal>ON TRUNCATE</> triggers (Simon) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>RESTART</>/<literal>CONTINUE IDENTITY</> options - for <command>TRUNCATE TABLE</> - (Zoltan Boszormenyi) - </para> - - <para> - The start value of a sequence can be changed by <command>ALTER - SEQUENCE START WITH</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <command>TRUNCATE tab1, tab1</> to succeed (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add a separate <command>TRUNCATE</> permission (Robert Haas) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect4> - - <sect4> - <title><command>EXPLAIN</></title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>EXPLAIN VERBOSE</> show the output columns of each - plan node (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Previously <command>EXPLAIN VERBOSE</> output an internal - representation of the query plan. (That behavior is now - available via <varname>debug_print_plan</>.) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>EXPLAIN</> identify subplans and initplans with - individual labels (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>EXPLAIN</> honor <varname>debug_print_plan</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <command>EXPLAIN</> on <command>CREATE TABLE AS</> (Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect4> - - <sect4> - <title><literal>LIMIT</>/<literal>OFFSET</></title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow sub-selects in <literal>LIMIT</> and <literal>OFFSET</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <acronym>SQL</>-standard syntax for - <literal>LIMIT</>/<literal>OFFSET</> capabilities (Peter) - </para> - - <para> - To wit, - <literal>OFFSET num {ROW|ROWS} FETCH {FIRST|NEXT} [num] {ROW|ROWS} - ONLY</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect4> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Object Manipulation</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add support for column-level privileges (Stephen Frost, KaiGai - Kohei) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Refactor multi-object <command>DROP</> operations to reduce the - need for <literal>CASCADE</> (Alex Hunsaker) - </para> - - <para> - For example, if table <literal>B</> has a dependency on table - <literal>A</>, the command <literal>DROP TABLE A, B</> no longer - requires the <literal>CASCADE</> option. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix various problems with concurrent <command>DROP</> commands - by ensuring that locks are taken before we begin to drop dependencies - of an object (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve reporting of dependencies during <command>DROP</> - commands (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>WITH [NO] DATA</> clause to <command>CREATE TABLE - AS</>, per the <acronym>SQL</> standard (Peter, Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add support for user-defined I/O conversion casts (Heikki) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <command>CREATE AGGREGATE</> to use an <type>internal</> - transition datatype (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>LIKE</> clause to <command>CREATE TYPE</> (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This simplifies creation of data types that use the same internal - representation as an existing type. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow specification of the type category and <quote>preferred</> - status for user-defined base types (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This allows more control over the coercion behavior of user-defined - types. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <command>CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW</> to add columns to the - end of a view (Robert Haas) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - <sect4> - <title><command>ALTER</></title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <command>ALTER TYPE RENAME</> (Petr Jelinek) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <command>ALTER SEQUENCE ... RESTART</> (with no parameter) to - reset a sequence to its initial value (Zoltan Boszormenyi) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Modify the <command>ALTER TABLE</> syntax to allow all reasonable - combinations for tables, indexes, sequences, and views (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This change allows the following new syntaxes: - - <itemizedlist> - <listitem> - <para> - <command>ALTER SEQUENCE OWNER TO</> - </para> - </listitem> - <listitem> - <para> - <command>ALTER VIEW ALTER COLUMN SET/DROP DEFAULT</> - </para> - </listitem> - <listitem> - <para> - <command>ALTER VIEW OWNER TO</> - </para> - </listitem> - <listitem> - <para> - <command>ALTER VIEW SET SCHEMA</> - </para> - </listitem> - </itemizedlist> - - There is no actual new functionality here, but formerly - you had to say <command>ALTER TABLE</> to do these things, - which was confusing. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add support for the syntax <command>ALTER TABLE ... ALTER COLUMN - ... SET DATA TYPE</> (Peter) - </para> - - <para> - This is <acronym>SQL</>-standard syntax for functionality that - was already supported. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>ALTER TABLE SET WITHOUT OIDS</> rewrite the table - to physically remove <type>OID</> values (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Also, add <command>ALTER TABLE SET WITH OIDS</> to rewrite the - table to add <type>OID</>s. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect4> - - <sect4> - <title>Database Manipulation</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve reporting of - <command>CREATE</>/<command>DROP</>/<command>RENAME DATABASE</> - failure when uncommitted prepared transactions are the cause - (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <varname>LC_COLLATE</> and <varname>LC_CTYPE</> into - per-database settings (Radek Strnad, Heikki) - </para> - - <para> - This makes collation similar to encoding, which was always - configurable per database. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve checks that the database encoding, collation - (<varname>LC_COLLATE</>), and character classes - (<varname>LC_CTYPE</>) match (Heikki) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <command>ALTER DATABASE SET TABLESPACE</> to move a database - to a new tablespace (Guillaume Lelarge, Bernd Helmle) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect4> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Utility Operations</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add a <literal>VERBOSE</> option to the <command>CLUSTER</> command and - <application>clusterdb</> (Jim Cox) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Decrease memory requirements for recording pending trigger - events (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - <sect4> - <title>Indexes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Dramatically improve the speed of building and accessing hash - indexes (Tom Raney, Shreya Bhargava) - </para> - - <para> - This allows hash indexes to be sometimes faster than btree - indexes. However, hash indexes are still not crash-safe. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make hash indexes store only the hash code, not the full value of - the indexed column (Xiao Meng) - </para> - - <para> - This greatly reduces the size of hash indexes for long indexed - values, improving performance. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Implement fast update option for GIN indexes (Teodor, Oleg) - </para> - - <para> - This option greatly improves update speed at a small penalty in search - speed. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <literal>xxx_pattern_ops</> indexes can now be used for simple - equality comparisons, not only for <literal>LIKE</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect4> - - <sect4> - <title>Full Text Indexes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove the requirement to use <literal>@@@</> when doing - <acronym>GIN</> weighted lookups on full text indexes (Tom, Teodor) - </para> - - <para> - The normal <literal>@@</> text search operator can be used - instead. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add an optimizer selectivity function for <literal>@@</> text - search operations (Jan Urbanski) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow prefix matching in full text searches (Teodor Sigaev, - Oleg Bartunov) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support multi-column <acronym>GIN</> indexes (Teodor Sigaev) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve support for Nepali language and Devanagari alphabet (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect4> - - <sect4> - <title><command>VACUUM</></title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Track free space in separate per-relation <quote>fork</> files (Heikki) - </para> - - <para> - Free space discovered by <command>VACUUM</> is now recorded in - <filename>*_fsm</> files, rather than in a fixed-sized shared memory - area. The <varname>max_fsm_pages</> and <varname>max_fsm_relations</> - settings have been removed, greatly simplifying administration of - free space management. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add a visibility map to track pages that do not require - vacuuming (Heikki) - </para> - - <para> - This allows <command>VACUUM</> to avoid scanning all of - a table when only a portion of the table needs vacuuming. - The visibility map is stored in per-relation <quote>fork</> files. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <varname>vacuum_freeze_table_age</> parameter to control - when <command>VACUUM</> should ignore the visibility map and - do a full table scan to freeze tuples (Heikki) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Track transaction snapshots more carefully (Alvaro) - </para> - - <para> - This improves <command>VACUUM</>'s ability to reclaim space - in the presence of long-running transactions. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add ability to specify per-relation autovacuum and <acronym>TOAST</> - parameters in <command>CREATE TABLE</> (Alvaro, Euler Taveira de - Oliveira) - </para> - - <para> - Autovacuum options used to be stored in a system table. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>--freeze</> option to <application>vacuumdb</> - (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect4> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Data Types</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add a <literal>CaseSensitive</> option for text search synonym - dictionaries (Simon) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve the precision of <type>NUMERIC</> division (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add basic arithmetic operators for <type>int2</> with <type>int8</> - (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This eliminates the need for explicit casting in some situations. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <type>UUID</> input to accept an optional hyphen after - every fourth digit (Robert Haas) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <literal>on</>/<literal>off</> as input for the boolean data type - (Itagaki Takahiro) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow spaces around <literal>NaN</> in the input string for - type <type>numeric</> (Sam Mason) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - <sect4> - <title>Temporal Data Types</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Reject year <literal>0 BC</> and years <literal>000</> and - <literal>0000</> (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Previously these were interpreted as <literal>1 BC</>. - (Note: years <literal>0</> and <literal>00</> are still assumed to be - the year 2000.) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Include <literal>SGT</> (Singapore time) in the default list of - known time zone abbreviations (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support <literal>infinity</> and <literal>-infinity</> as - values of type <type>date</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make parsing of <type>interval</> literals more standard-compliant (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - For example, <literal>INTERVAL '1' YEAR</> now does what it's - supposed to. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <type>interval</> fractional-seconds precision to be specified - after the <literal>second</> keyword, for <acronym>SQL</> standard - compliance (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Formerly the precision had to be specified after the keyword - <type>interval</>. (For backwards compatibility, this syntax is still - supported, though deprecated.) Data type definitions will now be - output using the standard format. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support the <acronym>IS0 8601</> <type>interval</> syntax (Ron - Mayer, Kevin Grittner) - </para> - - <para> - For example, <literal>INTERVAL 'P1Y2M3DT4H5M6.7S'</> is now - supported. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <varname>IntervalStyle</> parameter - which controls how <type>interval</> values are output (Ron Mayer) - </para> - - <para> - Valid values are: <literal>postgres</>, <literal>postgres_verbose</>, - <literal>sql_standard</>, <literal>iso_8601</>. This setting also - controls the handling of negative <type>interval</> input when only - some fields have positive/negative designations. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve consistency of handling of fractional seconds in - <type>timestamp</> and <type>interval</> output (Ron Mayer) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect4> - - <sect4> - <title>Arrays</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve the handling of casts applied to <literal>ARRAY[]</> - constructs, such as <literal>ARRAY[...]::integer[]</> - (Brendan Jurd) - </para> - - <para> - Formerly <productname>PostgreSQL</> attempted to determine a data type - for the <literal>ARRAY[]</> construct without reference to the ensuing - cast. This could fail unnecessarily in many cases, in particular when - the <literal>ARRAY[]</> construct was empty or contained only - ambiguous entries such as <literal>NULL</>. Now the cast is consulted - to determine the type that the array elements must be. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <acronym>SQL</>-syntax <type>ARRAY</> dimensions optional - to match the <acronym>SQL</> standard (Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>array_ndims()</> to return the number - of dimensions of an array (Robert Haas) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>array_length()</> to return the length - of an array for a specified dimension (Jim Nasby, Robert - Haas, Peter Eisentraut) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add aggregate function <function>array_agg()</>, which - returns all aggregated values as a single array (Robert Haas, - Jeff Davis, Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>unnest()</>, which converts an array to - individual row values (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This is the opposite of <function>array_agg()</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>array_fill()</> to create arrays initialized with - a value (Pavel Stehule) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>generate_subscripts()</> to simplify generating - the range of an array's subscripts (Pavel Stehule) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect4> - - <sect4> - <title>Wide-Value Storage (<acronym>TOAST</>)</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Consider <acronym>TOAST</> compression on values as short as - 32 bytes (previously 256 bytes) (Greg Stark) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Require 25% minimum space savings before using <acronym>TOAST</> - compression (previously 20% for small values and any-savings-at-all - for large values) (Greg) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve <acronym>TOAST</> heuristics for rows that have a mix of large - and small toastable fields, so that we prefer to push large values out - of line and don't compress small values unnecessarily (Greg, Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect4> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Functions</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Document that <function>setseed()</> allows values from - <literal>-1</> to <literal>1</> (not just <literal>0</> to - <literal>1</>), and enforce the valid range (Kris Jurka) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add server-side function <function>lo_import(filename, oid)</> - (Tatsuo) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>quote_nullable()</>, which behaves like - <function>quote_literal()</> but returns the string <literal>NULL</> for - a null argument (Brendan Jurd) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve full text search <function>headline()</> function to - allow extracting several fragments of text (Sushant Sinha) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>suppress_redundant_updates_trigger()</> trigger - function to avoid overhead for non-data-changing updates (Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>div(numeric, numeric)</> to perform <type>numeric</> - division without rounding (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <type>timestamp</> and <type>timestamptz</> versions of - <function>generate_series()</> (Hitoshi Harada) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - <sect4> - <title>Object Information Functions</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Implement <function>current_query()</> for use by functions - that need to know the currently running query (Tomas Doran) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>pg_get_keywords()</> to return a list of the - parser keywords (Dave Page) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>pg_get_functiondef()</> to see a function's - definition (Abhijit Menon-Sen) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Modify <function>pg_relation_size()</> to use <literal>regclass</> - (Heikki) - </para> - - <para> - <function>pg_relation_size(data_type_name)</> no longer works. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>boot_val</> and <literal>reset_val</> columns to - <literal>pg_settings</> output (Greg Smith) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add source file name and line number columns to - <literal>pg_settings</> output for variables set in a configuration - file (Magnus, Alvaro) - </para> - - <para> - For security reasons, these columns are only visible to superusers. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add support for <varname>CURRENT_CATALOG</>, - <varname>CURRENT_SCHEMA</>, <varname>SET CATALOG</>, <varname>SET - SCHEMA</> (Peter) - </para> - - <para> - These provide <acronym>SQL</>-standard syntax for existing features. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>pg_typeof()</> which returns the data type - of any value (Brendan Jurd) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <function>version()</> return information about whether - the server is a 32- or 64-bit binary (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix the behavior of information schema columns - <literal>is_insertable_into</> and <literal>is_updatable</> to - be consistent (Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Convert remaining builtin set-returning functions to use - <literal>OUT</> parameters (Jaime Casanova) - </para> - - <para> - This makes it possible to call these functions without specifying - a column list: <function>pg_show_all_settings()</>, - <function>pg_lock_status()</>, <function>pg_prepared_xact()</>, - <function>pg_prepared_statement()</>, <function>pg_cursor()</> - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <function>pg_*_is_visible()</> and - <function>has_*_privilege()</> functions return <literal>NULL</> - for invalid OIDs, rather than reporting an error (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Extend <function>has_*_privilege()</> functions to allow inquiring - about the OR of multiple privileges in one call (Stephen - Frost, Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>has_column_privilege()</> and - <function>has_any_column_privilege()</> functions (Stephen - Frost, Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect4> - - <sect4> - <title>Function Creation</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support variadic functions (functions with a variable number - of arguments) (Pavel Stehule) - </para> - - <para> - Only trailing arguments can be optional, and they all must be - of the same data type. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support default values for function arguments (Pavel Stehule) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <command>CREATE FUNCTION ... RETURNS TABLE</> clause (Pavel - Stehule) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <acronym>SQL</>-language functions to return the output - of an <command>INSERT</>/<command>UPDATE</>/<command>DELETE</> - <literal>RETURNING</> clause (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect4> - - <sect4> - <title>PL/PgSQL Server-Side Language</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support <literal>EXECUTE USING</> for easier insertion of data - values into a dynamic query string (Pavel Stehule) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow looping over the results of a cursor using a <literal>FOR</> - loop (Pavel Stehule) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support <literal>RETURN QUERY EXECUTE</> (Pavel - Stehule) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve the <literal>RAISE</> command (Pavel Stehule) - - <itemizedlist> - <listitem> - <para> - Support <literal>DETAIL</> and <literal>HINT</> fields - </para> - </listitem> - <listitem> - <para> - Support specification of the <literal>SQLSTATE</> error code - </para> - </listitem> - <listitem> - <para> - Support an exception name parameter - </para> - </listitem> - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <literal>RAISE</> without parameters in an exception - block to re-throw the current error - </para> - </listitem> - </itemizedlist> - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow specification of <varname>SQLSTATE</> codes - in <literal>EXCEPTION</> lists (Pavel Stehule) - </para> - - <para> - This is useful for handling custom <varname>SQLSTATE</> codes. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support the <literal>CASE</> statement (Pavel Stehule) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>RETURN QUERY</> set the special <literal>FOUND</> and - <command>GET DIAGNOSTICS</> <literal>ROW_COUNT</> variables - (Pavel Stehule) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>FETCH</> and <command>MOVE</> set the - <command>GET DIAGNOSTICS</> <literal>ROW_COUNT</> variable - (Andrew Gierth) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Avoid memory leakage when the same function is called at varying - exception-block nesting depths (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect4> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Client Applications</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <literal>pg_ctl restart</> to preserve command-line arguments - (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>-w</>/<literal>--no-password</> option that - prevents password prompting in all utilities that have a - <literal>-W</>/<literal>--password</> option (Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove <option>-q</> (quiet) option of <application>createdb</>, - <application>createuser</>, <application>dropdb</>, - <application>dropuser</> (Peter) - </para> - - <para> - These options have had no effect since <productname>PostgreSQL</> - 8.3. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - <sect4> - <title><application>psql</></title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove verbose startup banner; now just suggest <literal>help</> - (Joshua Drake) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <literal>help</> show common backslash commands (Greg - Sabino Mullane) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>\pset format wrapped</> mode to wrap output to the - screen width, or file/pipe output too if <literal>\pset columns</> - is set (Bryce Nesbitt) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow all supported spellings of boolean values in <command>\pset</>, - rather than just <literal>on</> and <literal>off</> (Bruce) - </para> - - <para> - Formerly, any string other than <quote>off</> was silently taken - to mean <literal>true</>. <application>psql</> will now complain - about unrecognized spellings (but still take them as <literal>true</>). - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Use the pager for wide output (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Require a space between a one-letter backslash command and its first - argument (Bernd Helmle) - </para> - - <para> - This removes a historical source of ambiguity. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve tab completion support for schema-qualified and - quoted identifiers (Greg Sabino Mullane) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add optional <literal>on</>/<literal>off</> argument for - <command>\timing</> (David Fetter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Display access control rights on multiple lines (Brendan - Jurd, Andreas Scherbaum) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>\l</> show database access privileges (Andrew Gilligan) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>\l+</> show database sizes, if permissions - allow (Andrew Gilligan) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add the <command>\ef</> command to edit function definitions - (Abhijit Menon-Sen) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect4> - - <sect4> - <title><application>psql</> \d* commands</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>\d*</> commands that do not have a pattern argument - show system objects only if the <literal>S</> modifier is specified - (Greg Sabino Mullane, Bruce) - </para> - - <para> - The former behavior was inconsistent across different variants - of <command>\d</>, and in most cases it provided no easy way to see - just user objects. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve <command>\d*</> commands to work with older - <productname>PostgreSQL</> server versions (back to 7.4), - not only the current server version - (Guillaume Lelarge) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>\d</> show foreign-key constraints that reference - the selected table (Kenneth D'Souza) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>\d</> on a sequence show its column values - (Euler Taveira de Oliveira) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add column storage type and other relation options to the - <command>\d+</> display (Gregory Stark, Euler Taveira de - Oliveira) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Show relation size in <command>\dt+</> output (Dickson S. - Guedes) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Show the possible values of <literal>enum</> types in <command>\dT+</> - (David Fetter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <command>\dC</> to accept a wildcard pattern, which matches - either datatype involved in the cast (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>\df</> not hide functions that take or return - type <type>cstring</> (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Previously, such functions were hidden because most of them are - datatype I/O functions, which were deemed uninteresting. The new - policy about hiding system functions by default makes this wart - unnecessary. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect4> - - <sect4> - <title><application>pg_dump</></title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add a <literal>--no-tablespaces</> option to - <application>pg_dump</>/<application>pg_dumpall</>/<application>pg_restore</> - so that dumps can be restored to clusters that have non-matching - tablespace layouts (Gavin Roy) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove <option>-d</> and <option>-D</> options from - <application>pg_dump</> and <application>pg_dumpall</> (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - These options were too frequently confused with the option to - select a database name in other <productname>PostgreSQL</> - client applications. The functionality is still available, - but you must now spell out the long option name - <option>--inserts</> or <option>--column-inserts</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove <option>-i</>/<option>--ignore-version</> option from - <application>pg_dump</> and <application>pg_dumpall</> (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Use of this option does not throw an error, but it has no - effect. This option was removed because the version checks - are necessary for safety. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Disable <varname>statement_timeout</> during dump and restore - (Joshua Drake) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <application>pg_dump</>/<application>pg_dumpall</> option - <option>--lock-wait-timeout</> (David Gould) - </para> - - <para> - This allows dumps to fail if unable to acquire a shared lock - within the specified amount of time. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Reorder <application>pg_dump</> <literal>--data-only</> output - to dump tables referenced by foreign keys before - the referencing tables (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This allows data loads when foreign keys are already present. - If circular references make a safe ordering impossible, a - <literal>NOTICE</> is issued. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <application>pg_dump</>, <application>pg_dumpall</>, and - <application>pg_restore</> to use a specified role (Benedek - László) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <application>pg_restore</> to use multiple concurrent - connections to do the restore (Andrew) - </para> - - <para> - The number of concurrent connections is controlled by the option - <literal>--jobs</>. This is supported only for custom-format archives. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect4> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Programming Tools</title> - - <sect4> - <title><application>libpq</></title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow the <type>OID</> to be specified when importing a large - object, via new function <function>lo_import_with_oid()</> (Tatsuo) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <quote>events</> support (Andrew Chernow, Merlin Moncure) - </para> - - <para> - This adds the ability to register callbacks to manage private - data associated with <structname>PGconn</> and <structname>PGresult</> - objects. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve error handling to allow the return of multiple - error messages as multi-line error reports (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <function>PQexecParams()</> and related functions return - <varname>PGRES_EMPTY_QUERY</> for an empty query (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - They previously returned <varname>PGRES_COMMAND_OK</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Document how to avoid the overhead of <function>WSACleanup()</> - on Windows (Andrew Chernow) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect4> - - <sect4> - <title><application>libpq</> <acronym>SSL</> (Secure Sockets Layer) - support</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix certificate validation for <acronym>SSL</> connections - (Magnus) - </para> - - <para> - <application>libpq</> now supports verifying both the certificate - and the name of the server when making <acronym>SSL</> - connections. If a root certificate is not available to use for - verification, <acronym>SSL</> connections will fail. The - <literal>sslmode</> parameter is used to enable the certificate - verification. - </para> - - <para> - The default is still not to do any verification. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow the file locations for client certificates to be specified - (Mark Woodward, Alvaro, Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add a <function>PQinitOpenSSL</> function to allow greater control - over OpenSSL/libcrypto initialization (Andrew Chernow) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <application>libpq</> unregister its <application>OpenSSL</> - callbacks when no database connections remain open - (Bruce, Magnus, Russell Smith) - </para> - - <para> - This is required for applications that unload the libpq library, - otherwise invalid <application>OpenSSL</> callbacks will remain. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect4> - - <sect4> - <title><application>ecpg</></title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add localization support for messages (Euler Taveira de - Oliveira) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - ecpg parser is now automatically generated from the server - parser (Michael) - </para> - - <para> - Previously the ecpg parser was hand-maintained. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect4> - - <sect4> - <title>Server Programming Interface (<acronym>SPI</>)</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add support for single-use plans with out-of-line - parameters (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add new <varname>SPI_OK_REWRITTEN</> return code for - <function>SPI_execute()</> (Heikki) - </para> - - <para> - This is used when a command is rewritten to another type of - command. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove unnecessary inclusions from <filename>executor/spi.h</> (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - SPI-using modules might need to add some <literal>#include</> - lines if they were depending on <filename>spi.h</> to include - things for them. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect4> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Build Options</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update build system to use <productname>Autoconf</> 2.61 (Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Require <productname>GNU bison</> for source code builds (Peter) - </para> - - <para> - This has effectively been required for several years, but now there - is no infrastructure claiming to support other parser tools. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <application>pg_config</> <literal>--htmldir</> option - (Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Pass <type>float4</> by value inside the server (Zoltan - Boszormenyi) - </para> - - <para> - Add <application>configure</> option - <literal>--disable-float4-byval</> to use the old behavior. - External C functions that use old-style (version 0) call convention - and pass or return <type>float4</> values will be broken by this - change, so you may need the <application>configure</> option if you - have such functions and don't want to update them. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Pass <type>float8</>, <type>int8</>, and related datatypes - by value inside the server on 64-bit platforms (Zoltan Boszormenyi) - </para> - - <para> - Add <application>configure</> option - <literal>--disable-float8-byval</> to use the old behavior. - As above, this change might break old-style external C functions. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add configure options <literal>--with-segsize</>, - <literal>--with-blocksize</>, <literal>--with-wal-blocksize</>, - <literal>--with-wal-segsize</> (Zdenek Kotala, Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This simplifies build-time control over several constants that - previously could only be changed by editing - <filename>pg_config_manual.h</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow threaded builds on <productname>Solaris</> 2.5 (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Use the system's <function>getopt_long()</> on <productname>Solaris</> - (Zdenek Kotala, Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This makes option processing more consistent with what Solaris users - expect. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add support for the <productname>Sun Studio</> compiler on - <productname>Linux</> (Julius Stroffek) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Append the major version number to the backend <application>gettext</> - domain, and the <literal>soname</> major version number to - libraries' <application>gettext</> domain (Peter) - </para> - - <para> - This simplifies parallel installations of multiple versions. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add support for code coverage testing with <application>gcov</> - (Michelle Caisse) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow out-of-tree builds on <productname>Mingw</> and - <productname>Cygwin</> (Richard Evans) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix the use of <productname>Mingw</> as a cross-compiling source - platform (Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Source Code</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support 64-bit time zone data files (Heikki) - </para> - - <para> - This adds support for daylight saving time (<acronym>DST</>) - calculations beyond the year 2038. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Deprecate use of platform's <type>time_t</> data type (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Some platforms have migrated to 64-bit <type>time_t</>, some have - not, and Windows can't make up its mind what it's doing. Define - <type>pg_time_t</> to have the same meaning as <type>time_t</>, - but always be 64 bits (unless the platform has no 64-bit integer type), - and use that type in all module APIs and on-disk data formats. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix bug in handling of the time zone database when cross-compiling - (Richard Evans) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Link backend object files in one step, rather than in stages - (Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve <application>gettext</> support to allow better translation - of plurals (Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add message translation support to the PL languages (Alvaro, Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add more <application>DTrace</> probes (Robert Lor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Enable <application>DTrace</> support on <application>Mac OS X - Leopard</> and other non-Solaris platforms (Robert Lor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Simplify and standardize conversions between C strings and - <type>text</> datums, by providing common functions for the purpose - (Brendan Jurd, Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Clean up the <filename>include/catalog/</> header files so that - frontend programs can include them without including - <filename>postgres.h</> - (Zdenek Kotala) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <type>name</> char-aligned, and suppress zero-padding of - <type>name</> entries in indexes (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add a hook to let plug-ins monitor the executor (Itagaki - Takahiro) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add a hook to allow the planner's statistics lookup behavior to - be overridden (Simon Riggs) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>shmem_startup_hook()</> for custom shared memory - requirements (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Replace the index access method <function>amgetmulti</> entry point - with <function>amgetbitmap</>, and extend the API for - <function>amgettuple</> to support run-time determination of - operator lossiness (Heikki, Tom, Teodor) - </para> - - <para> - The API for GIN and GiST opclass <function>consistent</> functions - has been extended as well. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add support for partial-match searches in <acronym>GIN</> indexes - (Teodor Sigaev, Oleg Bartunov) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Replace <structname>pg_class</> column <structfield>reltriggers</> - with boolean <structfield>relhastriggers</> (Simon) - </para> - - <para> - Also remove unused <structname>pg_class</> columns - <structfield>relukeys</>, <structfield>relfkeys</>, and - <structfield>relrefs</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add a <structfield>relistemp</> column to <structname>pg_class</> - to ease identification of temporary tables (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Move platform <acronym>FAQ</>s into the main documentation - (Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent parser input files from being built with any conflicts - (Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add support for the <literal>KOI8U</> (Ukrainian) encoding - (Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add Japanese message translations (Japan PostgreSQL Users Group) - </para> - - <para> - This used to be maintained as a separate project. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix problem when setting <varname>LC_MESSAGES</> on - <application>MSVC</>-built systems (Hiroshi Inoue, Hiroshi - Saito, Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Contrib</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <filename>contrib/auto_explain</> to automatically run - <command>EXPLAIN</> on queries exceeding a specified duration - (Itagaki Takahiro, Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <filename>contrib/btree_gin</> to allow GIN indexes to - handle more datatypes (Oleg, Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <filename>contrib/citext</> to provide a case-insensitive, - multibyte-aware text data type (David Wheeler) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <filename>contrib/pg_stat_statements</> for server-wide - tracking of statement execution statistics (Itagaki Takahiro) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add duration and query mode options to <filename>contrib/pgbench</> - (Itagaki Takahiro) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <filename>contrib/pgstattuple</> to handle tables and - indexes with over 2 billion pages (Tatsuhito Kasahara) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - In <filename>contrib/fuzzystrmatch</>, add a version of the - Levenshtein string-distance function that allows the user to - specify the costs of insertion, deletion, and substitution - (Volkan Yazici) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <filename>contrib/ltree</> support multibyte encodings - (laser) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve <filename>contrib/dblink</>'s reporting of errors from - the remote server (Joe Conway) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make sure <filename>contrib/dblink</> uses a password supplied - by the user, and not accidentally taken from the server's - <filename>.pgpass</> file (Joe Conway) - </para> - - <para> - This is a minor security enhancement. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>fsm_page_contents()</> - to <filename>contrib/pageinspect</> (Heikki) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Modify <function>get_raw_page()</> to support free space map - (<filename>*_fsm</>) files. Also update - <filename>contrib/pg_freespacemap</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add support for multibyte encodings to <filename>contrib/pg_trgm</> - (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Rewrite <filename>contrib/intagg</> to use new - functions <function>array_agg()</> and <function>unnest()</> - (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove <filename>contrib/intarray</>'s definitions of the - <literal><@</> and <literal>@></> operators (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This avoids confusion with the equivalent built-in operators. - If needed, the <filename>contrib/intarray</> implementations - are still available under their historical names <literal>@</> - and <literal>~</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-3-7"> - <title>Release 8.3.7</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2009-03-16</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.3.6. - For information about new features in the 8.3 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-3">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.3.7</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.3.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.3.5, - see the release notes for 8.3.5. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent error recursion crashes when encoding conversion fails (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This change extends fixes made in the last two minor releases for - related failure scenarios. The previous fixes were narrowly tailored - for the original problem reports, but we have now recognized that - <emphasis>any</> error thrown by an encoding conversion function could - potentially lead to infinite recursion while trying to report the - error. The solution therefore is to disable translation and encoding - conversion and report the plain-ASCII form of any error message, - if we find we have gotten into a recursive error reporting situation. - (CVE-2009-0922) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Disallow <command>CREATE CONVERSION</> with the wrong encodings - for the specified conversion function (Heikki) - </para> - - <para> - This prevents one possible scenario for encoding conversion failure. - The previous change is a backstop to guard against other kinds of - failures in the same area. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <function>xpath()</> to not modify the path expression unless - necessary, and to make a saner attempt at it when necessary (Andrew) - </para> - - <para> - The SQL standard suggests that <function>xpath</> should work on data - that is a document fragment, but <application>libxml</> doesn't support - that, and indeed it's not clear that this is sensible according to the - XPath standard. <function>xpath</> attempted to work around this - mismatch by modifying both the data and the path expression, but the - modification was buggy and could cause valid searches to fail. Now, - <function>xpath</> checks whether the data is in fact a well-formed - document, and if so invokes <application>libxml</> with no change to the - data or path expression. Otherwise, a different modification method - that is somewhat less likely to fail is used. - </para> - - <note> - <para> - The new modification method is still not 100% satisfactory, and it - seems likely that no real solution is possible. This patch should - therefore be viewed as a band-aid to keep from breaking existing - applications unnecessarily. It is likely that - <productname>PostgreSQL</> 8.4 will simply reject use of - <function>xpath</> on data that is not a well-formed document. - </para> - </note> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix core dump when <function>to_char()</> is given format codes that - are inappropriate for the type of the data argument (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible failure in text search when C locale is used with - a multi-byte encoding (Teodor) - </para> - - <para> - Crashes were possible on platforms where <type>wchar_t</> is narrower - than <type>int</>; Windows in particular. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix extreme inefficiency in text search parser's handling of an - email-like string containing multiple <literal>@</> characters (Heikki) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix planner problem with sub-<command>SELECT</> in the output list - of a larger subquery (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The known symptom of this bug is a <quote>failed to locate grouping - columns</> error that is dependent on the datatype involved; - but there could be other issues as well. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix decompilation of <literal>CASE WHEN</> with an implicit coercion - (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This mistake could lead to Assert failures in an Assert-enabled build, - or an <quote>unexpected CASE WHEN clause</> error message in other - cases, when trying to examine or dump a view. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible misassignment of the owner of a TOAST table's rowtype (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - If <command>CLUSTER</> or a rewriting variant of <command>ALTER TABLE</> - were executed by someone other than the table owner, the - <structname>pg_type</> entry for the table's TOAST table would end up - marked as owned by that someone. This caused no immediate problems, - since the permissions on the TOAST rowtype aren't examined by any - ordinary database operation. However, it could lead to unexpected - failures if one later tried to drop the role that issued the command - (in 8.1 or 8.2), or <quote>owner of data type appears to be invalid</> - warnings from <application>pg_dump</> after having done so (in 8.3). - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Change <command>UNLISTEN</> to exit quickly if the current session has - never executed any <command>LISTEN</> command (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Most of the time this is not a particularly useful optimization, but - since <command>DISCARD ALL</> invokes <command>UNLISTEN</>, the previous - coding caused a substantial performance problem for applications that - made heavy use of <command>DISCARD ALL</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix PL/pgSQL to not treat <literal>INTO</> after <command>INSERT</> as - an INTO-variables clause anywhere in the string, not only at the start; - in particular, don't fail for <command>INSERT INTO</> within - <command>CREATE RULE</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Clean up PL/pgSQL error status variables fully at block exit - (Ashesh Vashi and Dave Page) - </para> - - <para> - This is not a problem for PL/pgSQL itself, but the omission could cause - the PL/pgSQL Debugger to crash while examining the state of a function. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Retry failed calls to <function>CallNamedPipe()</> on Windows - (Steve Marshall, Magnus) - </para> - - <para> - It appears that this function can sometimes fail transiently; - we previously treated any failure as a hard error, which could - confuse <command>LISTEN</>/<command>NOTIFY</> as well as other - operations. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>MUST</> (Mauritius Island Summer Time) to the default list - of known timezone abbreviations (Xavier Bugaud) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-3-6"> - <title>Release 8.3.6</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2009-02-02</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.3.5. - For information about new features in the 8.3 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-3">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.3.6</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.3.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.3.5, - see the release notes for 8.3.5. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>DISCARD ALL</> release advisory locks, in addition - to everything it already did (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This was decided to be the most appropriate behavior. This could - affect existing applications, however. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix whole-index GiST scans to work correctly (Teodor) - </para> - - <para> - This error could cause rows to be lost if a table is clustered - on a GiST index. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix crash of <literal>xmlconcat(NULL)</> (Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible crash in <literal>ispell</> dictionary if high-bit-set - characters are used as flags (Teodor) - </para> - - <para> - This is known to be done by one widely available Norwegian dictionary, - and the same condition may exist in others. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix misordering of <application>pg_dump</> output for composite types - (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The most likely problem was for user-defined operator classes to - be dumped after indexes or views that needed them. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve handling of URLs in <function>headline()</> function (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve handling of overlength headlines in <function>headline()</> - function (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent possible Assert failure or misconversion if an encoding - conversion is created with the wrong conversion function for the - specified pair of encodings (Tom, Heikki) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible Assert failure if a statement executed in PL/pgSQL is - rewritten into another kind of statement, for example if an - <command>INSERT</> is rewritten into an <command>UPDATE</> (Heikki) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Ensure that a snapshot is available to datatype input functions (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This primarily affects domains that are declared with <literal>CHECK</> - constraints involving user-defined stable or immutable functions. Such - functions typically fail if no snapshot has been set. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make it safer for SPI-using functions to be used within datatype I/O; - in particular, to be used in domain check constraints (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Avoid unnecessary locking of small tables in <command>VACUUM</> - (Heikki) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix a problem that sometimes kept <command>ALTER TABLE ENABLE/DISABLE - RULE</> from being recognized by active sessions (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix a problem that made <literal>UPDATE RETURNING tableoid</> - return zero instead of the correct OID (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow functions declared as taking <type>ANYARRAY</> to work on - the <structname>pg_statistic</> columns of that type (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This used to work, but was unintentionally broken in 8.3. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix planner misestimation of selectivity when transitive equality - is applied to an outer-join clause (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This could result in bad plans for queries like - <literal>... from a left join b on a.a1 = b.b1 where a.a1 = 42 ...</> - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve optimizer's handling of long <literal>IN</> lists (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This change avoids wasting large amounts of time on such lists - when constraint exclusion is enabled. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent synchronous scan during GIN index build (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Because GIN is optimized for inserting tuples in increasing TID order, - choosing to use a synchronous scan could slow the build by a factor of - three or more. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Ensure that the contents of a holdable cursor don't depend on the - contents of TOAST tables (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Previously, large field values in a cursor result might be represented - as TOAST pointers, which would fail if the referenced table got dropped - before the cursor is read, or if the large value is deleted and then - vacuumed away. This cannot happen with an ordinary cursor, - but it could with a cursor that is held past its creating transaction. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix memory leak when a set-returning function is terminated without - reading its whole result (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix encoding conversion problems in XML functions when the database - encoding isn't UTF-8 (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <filename>contrib/dblink</>'s - <function>dblink_get_result(text,bool)</> function (Joe) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible garbage output from <filename>contrib/sslinfo</> functions - (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix incorrect behavior of <filename>contrib/tsearch2</> compatibility - trigger when it's fired more than once in a command (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible mis-signaling in autovacuum (Heikki) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support running as a service on Windows 7 beta (Dave and Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>ecpg</>'s handling of varchar structs (Michael) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>configure</> script to properly report failure when - unable to obtain linkage information for PL/Perl (Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make all documentation reference <literal>pgsql-bugs</> and/or - <literal>pgsql-hackers</> as appropriate, instead of the - now-decommissioned <literal>pgsql-ports</> and <literal>pgsql-patches</> - mailing lists (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2009a (for - Kathmandu and historical DST corrections in Switzerland, Cuba) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-3-5"> - <title>Release 8.3.5</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2008-11-03</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.3.4. - For information about new features in the 8.3 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-3">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.3.5</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.3.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.3.1, - see the release notes for 8.3.1. Also, if you were running a previous - 8.3.X release, it is recommended to <command>REINDEX</> all GiST - indexes after the upgrade. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix GiST index corruption due to marking the wrong index entry - <quote>dead</> after a deletion (Teodor) - </para> - - <para> - This would result in index searches failing to find rows they - should have found. Corrupted indexes can be fixed with - <command>REINDEX</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix backend crash when the client encoding cannot represent a localized - error message (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - We have addressed similar issues before, but it would still fail if - the <quote>character has no equivalent</> message itself couldn't - be converted. The fix is to disable localization and send the plain - ASCII error message when we detect such a situation. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible crash in <type>bytea</>-to-XML mapping (Michael McMaster) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible crash when deeply nested functions are invoked from - a trigger (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve optimization of <replaceable>expression</> <literal>IN</> - (<replaceable>expression-list</>) queries (Tom, per an idea from Robert - Haas) - </para> - - <para> - Cases in which there are query variables on the right-hand side had been - handled less efficiently in 8.2.x and 8.3.x than in prior versions. - The fix restores 8.1 behavior for such cases. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix mis-expansion of rule queries when a sub-<literal>SELECT</> appears - in a function call in <literal>FROM</>, a multi-row <literal>VALUES</> - list, or a <literal>RETURNING</> list (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The usual symptom of this problem is an <quote>unrecognized node type</> - error. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix Assert failure during rescan of an <literal>IS NULL</> - search of a GiST index (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix memory leak during rescan of a hashed aggregation plan (Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Ensure an error is reported when a newly-defined PL/pgSQL trigger - function is invoked as a normal function (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Force a checkpoint before <command>CREATE DATABASE</> starts to copy - files (Heikki) - </para> - - <para> - This prevents a possible failure if files had recently been deleted - in the source database. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent possible collision of <structfield>relfilenode</> numbers - when moving a table to another tablespace with <command>ALTER SET - TABLESPACE</> (Heikki) - </para> - - <para> - The command tried to re-use the existing filename, instead of - picking one that is known unused in the destination directory. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix incorrect text search headline generation when single query - item matches first word of text (Sushant Sinha) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix improper display of fractional seconds in interval values when - using a non-ISO datestyle in an <option>--enable-integer-datetimes</> - build (Ron Mayer) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <literal>ILIKE</> compare characters case-insensitively - even when they're escaped (Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Ensure <command>DISCARD</> is handled properly by statement logging (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix incorrect logging of last-completed-transaction time during - PITR recovery (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Ensure <function>SPI_getvalue</> and <function>SPI_getbinval</> - behave correctly when the passed tuple and tuple descriptor have - different numbers of columns (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This situation is normal when a table has had columns added or removed, - but these two functions didn't handle it properly. - The only likely consequence is an incorrect error indication. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Mark <varname>SessionReplicationRole</> as <literal>PGDLLIMPORT</> - so it can be used by <application>Slony</> on Windows (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix small memory leak when using <application>libpq</>'s - <literal>gsslib</> parameter (Magnus) - </para> - - <para> - The space used by the parameter string was not freed at connection - close. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Ensure <application>libgssapi</> is linked into <application>libpq</> - if needed (Markus Schaaf) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>ecpg</>'s parsing of <command>CREATE ROLE</> (Michael) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix recent breakage of <literal>pg_ctl restart</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Ensure <filename>pg_control</> is opened in binary mode - (Itagaki Takahiro) - </para> - - <para> - <application>pg_controldata</> and <application>pg_resetxlog</> - did this incorrectly, and so could fail on Windows. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2008i (for - DST law changes in Argentina, Brazil, Mauritius, Syria) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-3-4"> - <title>Release 8.3.4</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2008-09-22</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.3.3. - For information about new features in the 8.3 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-3">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.3.4</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.3.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.3.1, - see the release notes for 8.3.1. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix bug in btree WAL recovery code (Heikki) - </para> - - <para> - Recovery failed if the WAL ended partway through a page split operation. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix potential use of wrong cutoff XID for HOT page pruning (Alvaro) - </para> - - <para> - This error created a risk of corruption in system - catalogs that are consulted by <command>VACUUM</>: dead tuple versions - might be removed too soon. The impact of this on actual database - operations would be minimal, since the system doesn't follow MVCC - rules while examining catalogs, but it might result in transiently - wrong output from <application>pg_dump</> or other client programs. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix potential miscalculation of <structfield>datfrozenxid</> (Alvaro) - </para> - - <para> - This error may explain some recent reports of failure to remove old - <structname>pg_clog</> data. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix incorrect HOT updates after <structname>pg_class</> is reindexed - (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Corruption of <structname>pg_class</> could occur if <literal>REINDEX - TABLE pg_class</> was followed in the same session by an <literal>ALTER - TABLE RENAME</> or <literal>ALTER TABLE SET SCHEMA</> command. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix missed <quote>combo cid</> case (Karl Schnaitter) - </para> - - <para> - This error made rows incorrectly invisible to a transaction in which they - had been deleted by multiple subtransactions that all aborted. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent autovacuum from crashing if the table it's currently - checking is deleted at just the wrong time (Alvaro) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Widen local lock counters from 32 to 64 bits (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This responds to reports that the counters could overflow in - sufficiently long transactions, leading to unexpected <quote>lock is - already held</> errors. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible duplicate output of tuples during a GiST index scan (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Regenerate foreign key checking queries from scratch when either - table is modified (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Previously, 8.3 would attempt to replan the query, but would work from - previously generated query text. This led to failures if a - table or column was renamed. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix missed permissions checks when a view contains a simple - <literal>UNION ALL</> construct (Heikki) - </para> - - <para> - Permissions for the referenced tables were checked properly, but not - permissions for the view itself. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add checks in executor startup to ensure that the tuples produced by an - <command>INSERT</> or <command>UPDATE</> will match the target table's - current rowtype (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This situation is believed to be impossible in 8.3, but it can happen in - prior releases, so a check seems prudent. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible repeated drops during <command>DROP OWNED</> (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This would typically result in strange errors such as <quote>cache - lookup failed for relation NNN</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix several memory leaks in XML operations (Kris Jurka, Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <function>xmlserialize()</> to raise error properly for - unacceptable target data type (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix a couple of places that mis-handled multibyte characters in text - search configuration file parsing (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Certain characters occurring in configuration files would always cause - <quote>invalid byte sequence for encoding</> failures. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Provide file name and line number location for all errors reported - in text search configuration files (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <literal>AT TIME ZONE</> to first try to interpret its timezone - argument as a timezone abbreviation, and only try it as a full timezone - name if that fails, rather than the other way around as formerly (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The timestamp input functions have always resolved ambiguous zone names - in this order. Making <literal>AT TIME ZONE</> do so as well improves - consistency, and fixes a compatibility bug introduced in 8.1: - in ambiguous cases we now behave the same as 8.0 and before did, - since in the older versions <literal>AT TIME ZONE</> accepted - <emphasis>only</> abbreviations. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix datetime input functions to correctly detect integer overflow when - running on a 64-bit platform (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent integer overflows during units conversion when displaying a - configuration parameter that has units (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve performance of writing very long log messages to syslog (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow spaces in the suffix part of an LDAP URL in - <filename>pg_hba.conf</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix bug in backwards scanning of a cursor on a <literal>SELECT DISTINCT - ON</> query (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix planner bug that could improperly push down <literal>IS NULL</> - tests below an outer join (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This was triggered by occurrence of <literal>IS NULL</> tests for - the same relation in all arms of an upper <literal>OR</> clause. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix planner bug with nested sub-select expressions (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - If the outer sub-select has no direct dependency on the parent query, - but the inner one does, the outer value might not get recalculated - for new parent query rows. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix planner to estimate that <literal>GROUP BY</> expressions yielding - boolean results always result in two groups, regardless of the - expressions' contents (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This is very substantially more accurate than the regular <literal>GROUP - BY</> estimate for certain boolean tests like <replaceable>col</> - <literal>IS NULL</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix PL/PgSQL to not fail when a <literal>FOR</> loop's target variable - is a record containing composite-type fields (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix PL/Tcl to behave correctly with Tcl 8.5, and to be more careful - about the encoding of data sent to or from Tcl (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve performance of <function>PQescapeBytea()</> (Rudolf Leitgeb) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - On Windows, work around a Microsoft bug by preventing - <application>libpq</> from trying to send more than 64kB per system call - (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>ecpg</> to handle variables properly in <command>SET</> - commands (Michael) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve <application>pg_dump</> and <application>pg_restore</>'s - error reporting after failure to send a SQL command (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>pg_ctl</> to properly preserve postmaster - command-line arguments across a <literal>restart</> (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix erroneous WAL file cutoff point calculation in - <application>pg_standby</> (Simon) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2008f (for - DST law changes in Argentina, Bahamas, Brazil, Mauritius, Morocco, - Pakistan, Palestine, and Paraguay) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-3-3"> - <title>Release 8.3.3</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2008-06-12</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains one serious and one minor bug fix over 8.3.2. - For information about new features in the 8.3 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-3">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.3.3</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.3.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.3.1, - see the release notes for 8.3.1. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <function>pg_get_ruledef()</> parenthesize negative constants (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Before this fix, a negative constant in a view or rule might be dumped - as, say, <literal>-42::integer</>, which is subtly incorrect: it should - be <literal>(-42)::integer</> due to operator precedence rules. - Usually this would make little difference, but it could interact with - another recent patch to cause - <productname>PostgreSQL</> to reject what had been a valid - <command>SELECT DISTINCT</> view query. Since this could result in - <application>pg_dump</> output failing to reload, it is being treated - as a high-priority fix. The only released versions in which dump - output is actually incorrect are 8.3.1 and 8.2.7. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>ALTER AGGREGATE ... OWNER TO</> update - <structname>pg_shdepend</> (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This oversight could lead to problems if the aggregate was later - involved in a <command>DROP OWNED</> or <command>REASSIGN OWNED</> - operation. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-3-2"> - <title>Release 8.3.2</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>never released</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.3.1. - For information about new features in the 8.3 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-3">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.3.2</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.3.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.3.1, - see the release notes for 8.3.1. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <literal>ERRORDATA_STACK_SIZE exceeded</literal> crash that - occurred on Windows when using UTF-8 database encoding and a different - client encoding (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix incorrect archive truncation point calculation for the - <literal>%r</> macro in <varname>recovery_command</> parameters - (Simon) - </para> - - <para> - This could lead to data loss if a warm-standby script relied on - <literal>%r</> to decide when to throw away WAL segment files. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <command>ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN ... PRIMARY KEY</> so that the new - column is correctly checked to see if it's been initialized to all - non-nulls (Brendan Jurd) - </para> - - <para> - Previous versions neglected to check this requirement at all. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <command>REASSIGN OWNED</> so that it works on procedural - languages too (Alvaro) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix problems with <command>SELECT FOR UPDATE/SHARE</> occurring as a - subquery in a query with a non-<command>SELECT</> top-level operation - (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible <command>CREATE TABLE</> failure when inheriting the - <quote>same</> constraint from multiple parent relations that - inherited that constraint from a common ancestor (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <function>pg_get_ruledef()</> to show the alias, if any, attached - to the target table of an <command>UPDATE</> or <command>DELETE</> - (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Restore the pre-8.3 behavior that an out-of-range block number in a - TID being used in a TidScan plan results in silently not matching any - rows (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - 8.3.0 and 8.3.1 threw an error instead. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix GIN bug that could result in a <literal>too many LWLocks - taken</literal> failure (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix broken GiST comparison function for <type>tsquery</> (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <function>tsvector_update_trigger()</> and <function>ts_stat()</> - to accept domains over the types they expect to work with (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix failure to support enum data types as foreign keys (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Avoid possible crash when decompressing corrupted data - (Zdenek Kotala) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix race conditions between delayed unlinks and <command>DROP - DATABASE</> (Heikki) - </para> - - <para> - In the worst case this could result in deleting a newly created table - in a new database that happened to get the same OID as the - recently-dropped one; but of course that is an extremely - low-probability scenario. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Repair two places where SIGTERM exit of a backend could leave corrupted - state in shared memory (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Neither case is very important if SIGTERM is used to shut down the - whole database cluster together, but there was a problem if someone - tried to SIGTERM individual backends. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible crash due to incorrect plan generated for an - <literal><replaceable>x</> IN (SELECT <replaceable>y</> - FROM ...)</literal> clause when <replaceable>x</> and <replaceable>y</> - have different data types; and make sure the behavior is semantically - correct when the conversion from <replaceable>y</>'s type to - <replaceable>x</>'s type is lossy (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix oversight that prevented the planner from substituting known Param - values as if they were constants (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This mistake partially disabled optimization of unnamed - extended-Query statements in 8.3.0 and 8.3.1: in particular the - LIKE-to-indexscan optimization would never be applied if the LIKE - pattern was passed as a parameter, and constraint exclusion - depending on a parameter value didn't work either. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix planner failure when an indexable <function>MIN</> or - <function>MAX</> aggregate is used with <literal>DISTINCT</> or - <literal>ORDER BY</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix planner to ensure it never uses a <quote>physical tlist</> for a - plan node that is feeding a Sort node (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This led to the sort having to push around more data than it really - needed to, since unused column values were included in the sorted - data. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Avoid unnecessary copying of query strings (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This fixes a performance problem introduced in 8.3.0 when a very large - number of commands are submitted as a single query string. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <function>TransactionIdIsCurrentTransactionId()</> use binary - search instead of linear search when checking child-transaction XIDs - (Heikki) - </para> - - <para> - This fixes some cases in which 8.3.0 was significantly - slower than earlier releases. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix conversions between ISO-8859-5 and other encodings to handle - Cyrillic <quote>Yo</> characters (<literal>e</> and <literal>E</> with - two dots) (Sergey Burladyan) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix several datatype input functions, notably <function>array_in()</>, - that were allowing unused bytes in their results to contain - uninitialized, unpredictable values (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This could lead to failures in which two apparently identical literal - values were not seen as equal, resulting in the parser complaining - about unmatched <literal>ORDER BY</> and <literal>DISTINCT</> - expressions. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix a corner case in regular-expression substring matching - (<literal>substring(<replaceable>string</> from - <replaceable>pattern</>)</literal>) (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The problem occurs when there is a match to the pattern overall but - the user has specified a parenthesized subexpression and that - subexpression hasn't got a match. An example is - <literal>substring('foo' from 'foo(bar)?')</>. - This should return NULL, since <literal>(bar)</> isn't matched, but - it was mistakenly returning the whole-pattern match instead (ie, - <literal>foo</>). - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent cancellation of an auto-vacuum that was launched to prevent - XID wraparound (Alvaro) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve <command>ANALYZE</>'s handling of in-doubt tuples (those - inserted or deleted by a not-yet-committed transaction) so that the - counts it reports to the stats collector are more likely to be correct - (Pavan Deolasee) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>initdb</> to reject a relative path for its - <literal>--xlogdir</> (<literal>-X</>) option (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <application>psql</> print tab characters as an appropriate - number of spaces, rather than <literal>\x09</literal> as was done in - 8.3.0 and 8.3.1 (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2008c (for - DST law changes in Morocco, Iraq, Choibalsan, Pakistan, Syria, Cuba, and - Argentina/San_Luis) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>ECPGget_PGconn()</> function to - <application>ecpglib</> (Michael) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix incorrect result from <application>ecpg</>'s - <function>PGTYPEStimestamp_sub()</> function (Michael) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix handling of continuation line markers in <application>ecpg</> - (Michael) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible crashes in <filename>contrib/cube</> functions (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix core dump in <filename>contrib/xml2</>'s - <function>xpath_table()</> function when the input query returns a - NULL value (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <filename>contrib/xml2</>'s makefile to not override - <literal>CFLAGS</>, and make it auto-configure properly for - <application>libxslt</> present or not (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-3-1"> - <title>Release 8.3.1</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2008-03-17</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.3.0. - For information about new features in the 8.3 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-3">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.3.1</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.3.X. - However, you might need to <command>REINDEX</> indexes on textual - columns after updating, if you are affected by the Windows locale - issue described below. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix character string comparison for Windows locales that consider - different character combinations as equal (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This fix applies only on Windows and only when using UTF-8 - database encoding. The same fix was made for all other cases - over two years ago, but Windows with UTF-8 uses a separate code - path that was not updated. If you are using a locale that - considers some non-identical strings as equal, you may need to - <command>REINDEX</> to fix existing indexes on textual columns. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Repair corner-case bugs in <command>VACUUM FULL</> (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - A potential deadlock between concurrent <command>VACUUM FULL</> - operations on different system catalogs was introduced in 8.2. - This has now been corrected. 8.3 made this worse because the - deadlock could occur within a critical code section, making it - a PANIC rather than just ERROR condition. - </para> - - <para> - Also, a <command>VACUUM FULL</> that failed partway through - vacuuming a system catalog could result in cache corruption in - concurrent database sessions. - </para> - - <para> - Another <command>VACUUM FULL</> bug introduced in 8.3 could - result in a crash or out-of-memory report when dealing with - pages containing no live tuples. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix misbehavior of foreign key checks involving <type>character</> - or <type>bit</> columns (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - If the referencing column were of a different but compatible type - (for instance <type>varchar</>), the constraint was enforced incorrectly. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Avoid needless deadlock failures in no-op foreign-key checks (Stephan - Szabo, Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible core dump when re-planning a prepared query (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This bug affected only protocol-level prepare operations, not - SQL <command>PREPARE</>, and so tended to be seen only with - JDBC, DBI, and other client-side drivers that use prepared - statements heavily. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible failure when re-planning a query that calls an SPI-using - function (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix failure in row-wise comparisons involving columns of different - datatypes (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix longstanding <command>LISTEN</>/<command>NOTIFY</> - race condition (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - In rare cases a session that had just executed a - <command>LISTEN</> might not get a notification, even though - one would be expected because the concurrent transaction executing - <command>NOTIFY</> was observed to commit later. - </para> - - <para> - A side effect of the fix is that a transaction that has executed - a not-yet-committed <command>LISTEN</> command will not see any - row in <structname>pg_listener</> for the <command>LISTEN</>, - should it choose to look; formerly it would have. This behavior - was never documented one way or the other, but it is possible that - some applications depend on the old behavior. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Disallow <command>LISTEN</> and <command>UNLISTEN</> within a - prepared transaction (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This was formerly allowed but trying to do it had various unpleasant - consequences, notably that the originating backend could not exit - as long as an <command>UNLISTEN</> remained uncommitted. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Disallow dropping a temporary table within a - prepared transaction (Heikki) - </para> - - <para> - This was correctly disallowed by 8.1, but the check was inadvertently - broken in 8.2 and 8.3. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix rare crash when an error occurs during a query using a hash index - (Heikki) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix incorrect comparison of <type>tsquery</> values (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix incorrect behavior of <literal>LIKE</> with non-ASCII characters - in single-byte encodings (Rolf Jentsch) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Disable <function>xmlvalidate</> (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This function should have been removed before 8.3 release, but - was inadvertently left in the source code. It poses a small - security risk since unprivileged users could use it to read the - first few characters of any file accessible to the server. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix memory leaks in certain usages of set-returning functions (Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <function>encode(<replaceable>bytea</>, 'escape')</> convert all - high-bit-set byte values into <literal>\</><replaceable>nnn</> octal - escape sequences (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This is necessary to avoid encoding problems when the database - encoding is multi-byte. This change could pose compatibility issues - for applications that are expecting specific results from - <function>encode</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix input of datetime values for February 29 in years BC (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The former coding was mistaken about which years were leap years. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <quote>unrecognized node type</> error in some variants of - <command>ALTER OWNER</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Avoid tablespace permissions errors in <command>CREATE TABLE LIKE - INCLUDING INDEXES</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Ensure <structname>pg_stat_activity</>.<structfield>waiting</> flag - is cleared when a lock wait is aborted (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix handling of process permissions on Windows Vista (Dave, Magnus) - </para> - - <para> - In particular, this fix allows starting the server as the Administrator - user. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2008a - (in particular, recent Chile changes); adjust timezone abbreviation - <literal>VET</> (Venezuela) to mean UTC-4:30, not UTC-4:00 (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>ecpg</> problems with arrays (Michael) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>pg_ctl</> to correctly extract the postmaster's port - number from command-line options (Itagaki Takahiro, Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Previously, <literal>pg_ctl start -w</> could try to contact the - postmaster on the wrong port, leading to bogus reports of startup - failure. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Use <option>-fwrapv</> to defend against possible misoptimization - in recent <application>gcc</> versions (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This is known to be necessary when building <productname>PostgreSQL</> - with <application>gcc</> 4.3 or later. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Enable building <filename>contrib/uuid-ossp</> with MSVC (Hiroshi Saito) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-3"> - <title>Release 8.3</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2008-02-04</simpara> - </note> - - <sect2> - <title>Overview</title> - - <para> - With significant new functionality and performance enhancements, - this release represents a major leap forward for - <productname>PostgreSQL</>. This was made possible by a growing - community that has dramatically accelerated the pace of - development. This release adds the following major features: - </para> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Full text search is integrated into the core database system - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support for the SQL/XML standard, including new operators and an - <type>XML</type> data type - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Enumerated data types (<type>ENUM</type>) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Arrays of composite types - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Universally Unique Identifier (<type>UUID</>) data type - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add control over whether <literal>NULL</>s sort first or last - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Updatable cursors - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Server configuration parameters can now be set on a per-function - basis - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - User-defined types can now have type modifiers - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Automatically re-plan cached queries when table - definitions change or statistics are updated - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Numerous improvements in logging and statistics collection - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support Security Service Provider Interface (<acronym>SSPI</>) for - authentication on Windows - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support multiple concurrent autovacuum processes, and other - autovacuum improvements - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow the whole <productname>PostgreSQL</> distribution to be compiled - with <productname>Microsoft Visual C++</> - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - <para> - Major performance improvements are listed below. Most of - these enhancements are automatic and do not require user changes or - tuning: - </para> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Asynchronous commit delays writes to WAL during transaction commit - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Checkpoint writes can be spread over a longer time period to smooth - the I/O spike during each checkpoint - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Heap-Only Tuples (<acronym>HOT</>) accelerate space reuse for - most <command>UPDATE</>s and <command>DELETE</>s - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Just-in-time background writer strategy improves disk write - efficiency - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Using non-persistent transaction IDs for read-only transactions - reduces overhead and <command>VACUUM</> requirements - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Per-field and per-row storage overhead has been reduced - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Large sequential scans no longer force out frequently used - cached pages - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Concurrent large sequential scans can now share disk reads - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <literal>ORDER BY ... LIMIT</> can be done without sorting - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - <para> - The above items are explained in more detail in the sections below. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.3</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore using <application>pg_dump</application> is - required for those wishing to migrate data from any previous - release. - </para> - - <para> - Observe the following incompatibilities: - </para> - - <sect3> - <title>General</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Non-character data types are no longer automatically cast to - <type>TEXT</> (Peter, Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Previously, if a non-character value was supplied to an operator or - function that requires <type>text</> input, it was automatically - cast to <type>text</>, for most (though not all) built-in data types. - This no longer happens: an explicit cast to <type>text</> is now - required for all non-character-string types. For example, these - expressions formerly worked: - -<programlisting> -substr(current_date, 1, 4) -23 LIKE '2%' -</programlisting> - - but will now draw <quote>function does not exist</> and <quote>operator - does not exist</> errors respectively. Use an explicit cast instead: - -<programlisting> -substr(current_date::text, 1, 4) -23::text LIKE '2%' -</programlisting> - - (Of course, you can use the more verbose <literal>CAST()</> syntax too.) - The reason for the change is that these automatic casts too often caused - surprising behavior. An example is that in previous releases, this - expression was accepted but did not do what was expected: - -<programlisting> -current_date < 2017-11-17 -</programlisting> - - This is actually comparing a date to an integer, which should be - (and now is) rejected — but in the presence of automatic - casts both sides were cast to <type>text</> and a textual comparison - was done, because the <literal>text < text</> operator was able - to match the expression when no other <literal><</> operator could. - </para> - - <para> - Types <type>char(<replaceable>n</>)</type> and - <type>varchar(<replaceable>n</>)</type> still cast to <type>text</> - automatically. Also, automatic casting to <type>text</> still works for - inputs to the concatenation (<literal>||</>) operator, so long as least - one input is a character-string type. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Full text search features from <filename>contrib/tsearch2</> have - been moved into the core server, with some minor syntax changes - </para> - - <para> - <filename>contrib/tsearch2</> now contains a compatibility - interface. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <literal>ARRAY(SELECT ...)</literal>, where the <command>SELECT</> - returns no rows, now returns an empty array, rather than NULL - (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - The array type name for a base data type is no longer always the base - type's name with an underscore prefix - </para> - - <para> - The old naming convention is still honored when possible, but - application code should no longer depend on it. Instead - use the new <literal>pg_type.typarray</literal> column to - identify the array data type associated with a given type. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <literal>ORDER BY ... USING</> <replaceable>operator</> must now - use a less-than or greater-than <replaceable>operator</> that is - defined in a btree operator class - </para> - - <para> - This restriction was added to prevent inconsistent results. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <command>SET LOCAL</command> changes now persist until - the end of the outermost transaction, unless rolled back (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Previously <command>SET LOCAL</command>'s effects were lost - after subtransaction commit (<command>RELEASE SAVEPOINT</> - or exit from a PL/pgSQL exception block). - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Commands rejected in transaction blocks are now also rejected in - multiple-statement query strings (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - For example, <literal>"BEGIN; DROP DATABASE; COMMIT"</> will now be - rejected even if submitted as a single query message. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <command>ROLLBACK</> outside a transaction block now - issues <literal>NOTICE</> instead of <literal>WARNING</> (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent <command>NOTIFY</command>/<command>LISTEN</command>/<command>UNLISTEN</command> - from accepting schema-qualified names (Bruce) - </para> - - <para> - Formerly, these commands accepted <literal>schema.relation</> but - ignored the schema part, which was confusing. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <command>ALTER SEQUENCE</> no longer affects the sequence's - <function>currval()</> state (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Foreign keys now must match indexable conditions for - cross-data-type references (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This improves semantic consistency and helps avoid - performance problems. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Restrict object size functions to users who have reasonable - permissions to view such information (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - For example, <function>pg_database_size()</function> now requires - <literal>CONNECT</> permission, which is granted to everyone by - default. <function>pg_tablespace_size()</function> requires - <literal>CREATE</> permission in the tablespace, or is allowed if - the tablespace is the default tablespace for the database. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove the undocumented <literal>!!=</> (not in) operator (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - <literal>NOT IN (SELECT ...)</literal> is the proper way to - perform this operation. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Internal hashing functions are now more uniformly-distributed (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - If application code was computing and storing hash values using - internal <productname>PostgreSQL</> hashing functions, the hash - values must be regenerated. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - C-code conventions for handling variable-length data values - have changed (Greg Stark, Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The new <function>SET_VARSIZE()</> macro <emphasis>must</> be used - to set the length of generated <type>varlena</> values. Also, it - might be necessary to expand (<quote>de-TOAST</quote>) input values - in more cases. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Continuous archiving no longer reports each successful archive - operation to the server logs unless <literal>DEBUG</> level is used - (Simon) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Configuration Parameters</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Numerous changes in administrative server parameters - </para> - - <para> - <varname>bgwriter_lru_percent</>, - <varname>bgwriter_all_percent</>, - <varname>bgwriter_all_maxpages</>, - <varname>stats_start_collector</>, and - <varname>stats_reset_on_server_start</> are removed. - <varname>redirect_stderr</> is renamed to - <varname>logging_collector</>. - <varname>stats_command_string</> is renamed to - <varname>track_activities</>. - <varname>stats_block_level</> and <varname>stats_row_level</> - are merged into <varname>track_counts</>. - A new boolean configuration parameter, <varname>archive_mode</>, - controls archiving. Autovacuum's default settings have changed. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove <varname>stats_start_collector</varname> parameter (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - We now always start the collector process, unless <acronym>UDP</> - socket creation fails. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove <varname>stats_reset_on_server_start</varname> parameter (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This was removed because <function>pg_stat_reset()</function> - can be used for this purpose. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Commenting out a parameter in <filename>postgresql.conf</> now - causes it to revert to its default value (Joachim Wieland) - </para> - - <para> - Previously, commenting out an entry left the parameter's value unchanged - until the next server restart. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - - <sect3> - <title>Character Encodings</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add more checks for invalidly-encoded data (Andrew) - </para> - - <para> - This change plugs some holes that existed in literal backslash - escape string processing and <command>COPY</command> escape - processing. Now the de-escaped string is rechecked to see if the - result created an invalid multi-byte character. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Disallow database encodings that are inconsistent with the server's - locale setting (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - On most platforms, <literal>C</> locale is the only locale that - will work with any database encoding. Other locale settings imply - a specific encoding and will misbehave if the database encoding - is something different. (Typical symptoms include bogus textual - sort order and wrong results from <function>upper()</> or - <function>lower()</>.) The server now rejects attempts to create - databases that have an incompatible encoding. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Ensure that <function>chr()</function> cannot create - invalidly-encoded values (Andrew) - </para> - - <para> - In UTF8-encoded databases the argument of <function>chr()</function> is - now treated as a Unicode code point. In other multi-byte encodings - <function>chr()</function>'s argument must designate a 7-bit ASCII - character. Zero is no longer accepted. - <function>ascii()</function> has been adjusted to match. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Adjust <function>convert()</function> behavior to ensure encoding - validity (Andrew) - </para> - - <para> - The two argument form of <function>convert()</function> has been - removed. The three argument form now takes a <type>bytea</type> - first argument and returns a <type>bytea</type>. To cover the - loss of functionality, three new functions have been added: - </para> - - <itemizedlist> - <listitem> - <para> - <function>convert_from(bytea, name)</function> returns - <type>text</> — converts the first argument from the named - encoding to the database encoding - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <function>convert_to(text, name)</function> returns - <type>bytea</> — converts the first argument from the - database encoding to the named encoding - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <function>length(bytea, name)</function> returns - <type>integer</> — gives the length of the first - argument in characters in the named encoding - </para> - </listitem> - </itemizedlist> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove <literal>convert(argument USING conversion_name)</literal> - (Andrew) - </para> - - <para> - Its behavior did not match the SQL standard. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make JOHAB encoding client-only (Tatsuo) - </para> - - <para> - JOHAB is not safe as a server-side encoding. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <para> - Below you will find a detailed account of the - changes between <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> 8.3 and - the previous major release. - </para> - - <sect3> - <title>Performance</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Asynchronous commit delays writes to WAL during transaction commit - (Simon) - </para> - - <para> - This feature dramatically increases performance for short data-modifying - transactions. The disadvantage is that because disk writes are delayed, - if the database or operating system crashes before data is written to - the disk, committed data will be lost. This feature is useful for - applications that can accept some data loss. Unlike turning off - <varname>fsync</varname>, using asynchronous commit does not put - database consistency at risk; the worst case is that after a crash the - last few reportedly-committed transactions might not be committed after - all. - This feature is enabled by turning off <varname>synchronous_commit</> - (which can be done per-session or per-transaction, if some transactions - are critical and others are not). - <varname>wal_writer_delay</> can be adjusted to control the maximum - delay before transactions actually reach disk. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Checkpoint writes can be spread over a longer time period to smooth - the I/O spike during each checkpoint (Itagaki Takahiro and Heikki - Linnakangas) - </para> - - <para> - Previously all modified buffers were forced to disk as quickly as - possible during a - checkpoint, causing an I/O spike that decreased server performance. - This new approach spreads out disk writes during checkpoints, - reducing peak I/O usage. (User-requested and shutdown checkpoints - are still written as quickly as possible.) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Heap-Only Tuples (<acronym>HOT</>) accelerate space reuse for most - <command>UPDATE</>s and <command>DELETE</>s (Pavan Deolasee, with - ideas from many others) - </para> - - <para> - <command>UPDATE</>s and <command>DELETE</>s leave dead tuples - behind, as do failed <command>INSERT</>s. Previously only - <command>VACUUM</> could reclaim space taken by dead tuples. With - <acronym>HOT</> dead tuple space can be automatically reclaimed at - the time of <command>INSERT</> or <command>UPDATE</> if no changes - are made to indexed columns. This allows for more consistent - performance. Also, <acronym>HOT</> avoids adding duplicate index - entries. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Just-in-time background writer strategy improves disk write - efficiency (Greg Smith, Itagaki Takahiro) - </para> - - <para> - This greatly reduces the need for manual tuning of the background - writer. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Per-field and per-row storage overhead have been reduced - (Greg Stark, Heikki Linnakangas) - </para> - - <para> - Variable-length data types with data values less than 128 bytes long - will see a storage decrease of 3 to 6 bytes. For example, two adjacent - <type>char(1)</type> fields now use 4 bytes instead of 16. Row headers - are also 4 bytes shorter than before. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Using non-persistent transaction IDs for read-only transactions - reduces overhead and <command>VACUUM</> requirements (Florian Pflug) - </para> - - <para> - Non-persistent transaction IDs do not increment the global - transaction counter. Therefore, they reduce the load on - <structname>pg_clog</> and increase the time between forced - vacuums to prevent transaction ID wraparound. - Other performance - improvements were also made that should improve concurrency. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Avoid incrementing the command counter after a read-only command (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - There was formerly a hard limit of 2<superscript>32</> - (4 billion) commands per transaction. Now only commands that - actually changed the database count, so while this limit still - exists, it should be significantly less annoying. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Create a dedicated <acronym>WAL</> writer process to off-load - work from backends (Simon) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Skip unnecessary WAL writes for <command>CLUSTER</command> and - <command>COPY</command> (Simon) - </para> - - <para> - Unless WAL archiving is enabled, the system now avoids WAL writes - for <command>CLUSTER</command> and just <function>fsync()</>s the - table at the end of the command. It also does the same for - <command>COPY</command> if the table was created in the same - transaction. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Large sequential scans no longer force out frequently used - cached pages (Simon, Heikki, Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Concurrent large sequential scans can now share disk reads (Jeff Davis) - </para> - - <para> - This is accomplished by starting the new sequential scan in the - middle of the table (where another sequential scan is already - in-progress) and wrapping around to the beginning to finish. This - can affect the order of returned rows in a query that does not - specify <literal>ORDER BY</>. The <varname>synchronize_seqscans</> - configuration parameter can be used to disable this if necessary. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <literal>ORDER BY ... LIMIT</> can be done without sorting - (Greg Stark) - </para> - - <para> - This is done by sequentially scanning the table and tracking just - the <quote>top N</> candidate rows, rather than performing a - full sort of the entire table. This is useful when there is no - matching index and the <literal>LIMIT</> is not large. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Put a rate limit on messages sent to the statistics - collector by backends - (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This reduces overhead for short transactions, but might sometimes - increase the delay before statistics are tallied. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve hash join performance for cases with many NULLs (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Speed up operator lookup for cases with non-exact datatype matches (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Server</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Autovacuum is now enabled by default (Alvaro) - </para> - - <para> - Several changes were made to eliminate disadvantages of having - autovacuum enabled, thereby justifying the change in default. - Several other autovacuum parameter defaults were also modified. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support multiple concurrent autovacuum processes (Alvaro, Itagaki - Takahiro) - </para> - - <para> - This allows multiple vacuums to run concurrently. This prevents - vacuuming of a large table from delaying vacuuming of smaller tables. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Automatically re-plan cached queries when table - definitions change or statistics are updated (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Previously PL/PgSQL functions that referenced temporary tables - would fail if the temporary table was dropped and recreated - between function invocations, unless <literal>EXECUTE</> was - used. This improvement fixes that problem and many related issues. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add a <varname>temp_tablespaces</varname> parameter to control - the tablespaces for temporary tables and files (Jaime Casanova, - Albert Cervera, Bernd Helmle) - </para> - - <para> - This parameter defines a list of tablespaces to be used. This - enables spreading the I/O load across multiple tablespaces. A random - tablespace is chosen each time a temporary object is created. - Temporary files are no longer stored in per-database - <filename>pgsql_tmp/</filename> directories but in per-tablespace - directories. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Place temporary tables' TOAST tables in special schemas named - <literal>pg_toast_temp_<replaceable>nnn</></literal> (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This allows low-level code to recognize these tables as temporary, - which enables various optimizations such as not WAL-logging changes - and using local rather than shared buffers for access. This also - fixes a bug wherein backends unexpectedly held open file references - to temporary TOAST tables. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix problem that a constant flow of new connection requests could - indefinitely delay the postmaster from completing a shutdown or - a crash restart (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Guard against a very-low-probability data loss scenario by preventing - re-use of a deleted table's relfilenode until after the next - checkpoint (Heikki) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <command>CREATE CONSTRAINT TRIGGER</> - to convert old-style foreign key trigger definitions into regular - foreign key constraints (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This will ease porting of foreign key constraints carried forward from - pre-7.3 databases, if they were never converted using - <filename>contrib/adddepend</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <literal>DEFAULT NULL</> to override inherited defaults (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - <literal>DEFAULT NULL</> was formerly considered a noise phrase, but it - should (and now does) override non-null defaults that would otherwise - be inherited from a parent table or domain. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add new encodings EUC_JIS_2004 and SHIFT_JIS_2004 (Tatsuo) - </para> - - <para> - These new encodings can be converted to and from UTF-8. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Change server startup log message from <quote>database system is - ready</quote> to <quote>database system is ready to accept - connections</quote>, and adjust its timing - </para> - - <para> - The message now appears only when the postmaster is really ready - to accept connections. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Monitoring</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <varname>log_autovacuum_min_duration</varname> parameter to - support configurable logging of autovacuum activity (Simon, Alvaro) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <varname>log_lock_waits</varname> parameter to log lock waiting - (Simon) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <varname>log_temp_files</varname> parameter to log temporary - file usage (Bill Moran) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <varname>log_checkpoints</varname> parameter to improve logging - of checkpoints (Greg Smith, Heikki) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <varname>log_line_prefix</varname> now supports - <literal>%s</literal> and <literal>%c</literal> escapes in all - processes (Andrew) - </para> - - <para> - Previously these escapes worked only for user sessions, not for - background database processes. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <varname>log_restartpoints</varname> to control logging of - point-in-time recovery restart points (Simon) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Last transaction end time is now logged at end of recovery and at - each logged restart point (Simon) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Autovacuum now reports its activity start time in - <literal>pg_stat_activity</literal> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow server log output in comma-separated value (CSV) format (Arul - Shaji, Greg Smith, Andrew Dunstan) - </para> - - <para> - CSV-format log files can easily be loaded into a database table for - subsequent analysis. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Use PostgreSQL-supplied timezone support for formatting timestamps - displayed in the server log (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This avoids Windows-specific problems with localized time zone - names that are in the wrong encoding. There is a new - <varname>log_timezone</> parameter that controls the timezone - used in log messages, independently of the client-visible - <varname>timezone</> parameter. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - New system view <literal>pg_stat_bgwriter</literal> displays - statistics about background writer activity (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add new columns for database-wide tuple statistics to - <literal>pg_stat_database</literal> (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add an <literal>xact_start</literal> (transaction start time) column to - <literal>pg_stat_activity</literal> (Neil) - </para> - - <para> - This makes it easier to identify long-running transactions. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>n_live_tuples</> and <literal>n_dead_tuples</> columns - to <literal>pg_stat_all_tables</literal> and related views (Glen - Parker) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Merge <varname>stats_block_level</> and <varname>stats_row_level</> - parameters into a single parameter <varname>track_counts</>, which - controls all messages sent to the statistics collector process - (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Rename <varname>stats_command_string</varname> parameter to - <varname>track_activities</varname> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix statistical counting of live and dead tuples to recognize that - committed and aborted transactions have different effects (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Authentication</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support Security Service Provider Interface (<acronym>SSPI</>) for - authentication on Windows (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support GSSAPI authentication (Henry Hotz, Magnus) - </para> - - <para> - This should be preferred to native Kerberos authentication because - GSSAPI is an industry standard. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support a global SSL configuration file (Victor Wagner) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <varname>ssl_ciphers</> parameter to control accepted SSL ciphers - (Victor Wagner) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add a Kerberos realm parameter, <varname>krb_realm</> (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Write-Ahead Log (<acronym>WAL</>) and Continuous Archiving</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Change the timestamps recorded in transaction WAL records from - time_t to TimestampTz representation (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This provides sub-second resolution in WAL, which can be useful for - point-in-time recovery. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Reduce WAL disk space needed by warm standby servers (Simon) - </para> - - <para> - This change allows a warm standby server to pass the name of the earliest - still-needed WAL file to the recovery script, allowing automatic removal - of no-longer-needed WAL files. This is done using <literal>%r</> in - the <varname>restore_command</varname> parameter of - <filename>recovery.conf</filename>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - New boolean configuration parameter, <varname>archive_mode</>, - controls archiving (Simon) - </para> - - <para> - Previously setting <varname>archive_command</> to an empty string - turned off archiving. Now <varname>archive_mode</> turns archiving - on and off, independently of <varname>archive_command</>. This is - useful for stopping archiving temporarily. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Queries</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Full text search is integrated into the core database - system (Teodor, Oleg) - </para> - - <para> - Text search has been improved, moved into the core code, and is now - installed by default. <filename>contrib/tsearch2</> now contains - a compatibility interface. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add control over whether <literal>NULL</>s sort first or last (Teodor, Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The syntax is <literal>ORDER BY ... NULLS FIRST/LAST</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow per-column ascending/descending (<literal>ASC</>/<literal>DESC</>) - ordering options for indexes (Teodor, Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Previously a query using <literal>ORDER BY</> with mixed - <literal>ASC</>/<literal>DESC</> specifiers could not fully use - an index. Now an index can be fully used in such cases if the - index was created with matching - <literal>ASC</>/<literal>DESC</> specifications. - <literal>NULL</> sort order within an index can be controlled, too. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <literal>col IS NULL</> to use an index (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Updatable cursors (Arul Shaji, Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This eliminates the need to reference a primary key to - <command>UPDATE</> or <command>DELETE</> rows returned by a cursor. - The syntax is <literal>UPDATE/DELETE WHERE CURRENT OF</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <literal>FOR UPDATE</literal> in cursors (Arul Shaji, Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Create a general mechanism that supports casts to and from the - standard string types (<type>TEXT</type>, <type>VARCHAR</type>, - <type>CHAR</type>) for <emphasis>every</emphasis> datatype, by - invoking the datatype's I/O functions (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Previously, such casts were available only for types that had - specialized function(s) for the purpose. - These new casts are assignment-only in the to-string direction, - explicit-only in the other direction, and therefore should create no - surprising behavior. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <literal>UNION</> and related constructs to return a domain - type, when all inputs are of that domain type (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Formerly, the output would be considered to be of the domain's base - type. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow limited hashing when using two different data types (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This allows hash joins, hash indexes, hashed subplans, and hash - aggregation to be used in situations involving cross-data-type - comparisons, if the data types have compatible hash functions. - Currently, cross-data-type hashing support exists for - <type>smallint</type>/<type>integer</type>/<type>bigint</type>, - and for <type>float4</type>/<type>float8</type>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve optimizer logic for detecting when variables are equal - in a <literal>WHERE</> clause (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This allows mergejoins to work with descending sort orders, and - improves recognition of redundant sort columns. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve performance when planning large inheritance trees in - cases where most tables are excluded by constraints (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Object Manipulation</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - - <para> - Arrays of composite types (David Fetter, Andrew, Tom) - </para> - - <para> - In addition to arrays of explicitly-declared composite types, - arrays of the rowtypes of regular tables and views are now - supported, except for rowtypes of system catalogs, sequences, and TOAST - tables. - </para> - - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Server configuration parameters can now be set on a per-function - basis (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - For example, functions can now set their own - <varname>search_path</> to prevent unexpected behavior if a - different <varname>search_path</> exists at run-time. Security - definer functions should set <varname>search_path</varname> to - avoid security loopholes. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <command>CREATE/ALTER FUNCTION</command> now supports - <literal>COST</literal> and <literal>ROWS</literal> options (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - <literal>COST</literal> allows specification of the cost of a - function call. <literal>ROWS</literal> allows specification of - the average number or rows returned by a set-returning function. - These values are used by the optimizer in choosing the best plan. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Implement <command>CREATE TABLE LIKE ... INCLUDING - INDEXES</command> (Trevor Hardcastle, Nikhil Sontakke, Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <command>CREATE INDEX CONCURRENTLY</command> to ignore - transactions in other databases (Simon) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <command>ALTER VIEW ... RENAME TO</command> and <command>ALTER - SEQUENCE ... RENAME TO</command> (David Fetter, Neil) - </para> - - <para> - Previously this could only be done via <command>ALTER TABLE ... - RENAME TO</command>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>CREATE/DROP/RENAME DATABASE</> wait briefly for - conflicting backends to exit before failing (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This increases the likelihood that these commands will succeed. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow triggers and rules to be deactivated in groups using a - configuration parameter, for replication purposes (Jan) - </para> - - <para> - This allows replication systems to disable triggers and rewrite - rules as a group without modifying the system catalogs directly. - The behavior is controlled by <command>ALTER TABLE</> and a new - parameter <varname>session_replication_role</varname>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - User-defined types can now have type modifiers (Teodor, Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This allows a user-defined type to take a modifier, like - <type>ssnum(7)</>. Previously only built-in - data types could have modifiers. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Utility Commands</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Non-superuser database owners now are able to add trusted procedural - languages to their databases by default (Jeremy Drake) - </para> - - <para> - While this is reasonably safe, some administrators might wish to - revoke the privilege. It is controlled by - <structname>pg_pltemplate</>.<structfield>tmpldbacreate</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow a session's current parameter setting to be used as the - default for future sessions (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This is done with <literal>SET ... FROM CURRENT</literal> in - <command>CREATE/ALTER FUNCTION</command>, <command>ALTER - DATABASE</command>, or <command>ALTER ROLE</command>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Implement new commands <command>DISCARD ALL</command>, - <command>DISCARD PLANS</command>, <command>DISCARD - TEMPORARY</command>, <command>CLOSE ALL</command>, and - <command>DEALLOCATE ALL</command> (Marko Kreen, Neil) - </para> - - <para> - These commands simplify resetting a database session to its initial - state, and are particularly useful for connection-pooling software. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>CLUSTER</command> MVCC-safe (Heikki Linnakangas) - </para> - - <para> - Formerly, <command>CLUSTER</command> would discard all tuples - that were committed dead, even if there were still transactions - that should be able to see them under MVCC visibility rules. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add new <command>CLUSTER</command> syntax: <literal>CLUSTER - <replaceable>table</> USING <replaceable>index</></literal> - (Holger Schurig) - </para> - - <para> - The old <command>CLUSTER</command> syntax is still supported, but - the new form is considered more logical. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <command>EXPLAIN</command> so it can show complex plans - more accurately (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - References to subplan outputs are now always shown correctly, - instead of using <literal>?column<replaceable>N</>?</literal> - for complicated cases. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Limit the amount of information reported when a user is dropped - (Alvaro) - </para> - - <para> - Previously, dropping (or attempting to drop) a user who owned many - objects could result in large <literal>NOTICE</literal> or - <literal>ERROR</literal> messages listing all these objects; this - caused problems for some client applications. The length of the - message is now limited, although a full list is still sent to the - server log. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Data Types</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support for the SQL/XML standard, including new operators and an - <type>XML</type> data type (Nikolay Samokhvalov, Pavel Stehule, Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Enumerated data types (<type>ENUM</type>) (Tom Dunstan) - </para> - - <para> - This feature provides convenient support for fields that have a - small, fixed set of allowed values. An example of creating an - <literal>ENUM</> type is - <literal>CREATE TYPE mood AS ENUM ('sad', 'ok', 'happy')</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Universally Unique Identifier (<type>UUID</>) data type (Gevik - Babakhani, Neil) - </para> - - <para> - This closely matches <acronym>RFC</> 4122. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Widen the <type>MONEY</type> data type to 64 bits (D'Arcy Cain) - </para> - - <para> - This greatly increases the range of supported <type>MONEY</> - values. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <type>float4</type>/<type>float8</type> to handle - <literal>Infinity</> and <literal>NAN</> (Not A Number) - consistently (Bruce) - </para> - - <para> - The code formerly was not consistent about distinguishing - <literal>Infinity</> from overflow conditions. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow leading and trailing whitespace during input of - <type>boolean</type> values (Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent <command>COPY</> from using digits and lowercase letters as - delimiters (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Functions</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add new regular expression functions - <function>regexp_matches()</function>, - <function>regexp_split_to_array()</function>, and - <function>regexp_split_to_table()</function> (Jeremy Drake, Neil) - </para> - - <para> - These functions provide extraction of regular expression - subexpressions and allow splitting a string using a POSIX regular - expression. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>lo_truncate()</function> for large object truncation - (Kris Jurka) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Implement <function>width_bucket()</function> for the <type>float8</> - data type (Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>pg_stat_clear_snapshot()</function> to discard - statistics snapshots collected during the current transaction - (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The first request for statistics in a transaction takes a statistics - snapshot that does not change during the transaction. This function - allows the snapshot to be discarded and a new snapshot loaded during - the next statistics query. This is particularly useful for PL/PgSQL - functions, which are confined to a single transaction. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>isodow</> option to <function>EXTRACT()</> and - <function>date_part()</> (Bruce) - </para> - - <para> - This returns the day of the week, with Sunday as seven. - (<literal>dow</> returns Sunday as zero.) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>ID</> (ISO day of week) and <literal>IDDD</> (ISO - day of year) format codes for <function>to_char()</>, - <function>to_date()</>, and <function>to_timestamp()</> (Brendan - Jurd) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <function>to_timestamp()</> and <function>to_date()</> - assume <literal>TM</literal> (trim) option for potentially - variable-width fields (Bruce) - </para> - - <para> - This matches <productname>Oracle</>'s behavior. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix off-by-one conversion error in - <function>to_date()</function>/<function>to_timestamp()</function> - <literal>D</> (non-ISO day of week) fields (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <function>setseed()</function> return void, rather than a - useless integer value (Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add a hash function for <type>NUMERIC</type> (Neil) - </para> - - <para> - This allows hash indexes and hash-based plans to be used with - <type>NUMERIC</type> columns. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve efficiency of - <literal>LIKE</literal>/<literal>ILIKE</literal>, especially for - multi-byte character sets like UTF-8 (Andrew, Itagaki Takahiro) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <function>currtid()</function> functions require - <literal>SELECT</literal> privileges on the target table (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add several <function>txid_*()</function> functions to query - active transaction IDs (Jan) - </para> - - <para> - This is useful for various replication solutions. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>PL/PgSQL Server-Side Language</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add scrollable cursor support, including directional control in - <command>FETCH</command> (Pavel Stehule) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <literal>IN</literal> as an alternative to - <literal>FROM</literal> in PL/PgSQL's <command>FETCH</command> - statement, for consistency with the backend's - <command>FETCH</command> command (Pavel Stehule) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <command>MOVE</command> to PL/PgSQL (Magnus, Pavel Stehule, - Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Implement <command>RETURN QUERY</command> (Pavel Stehule, Neil) - </para> - - <para> - This adds convenient syntax for PL/PgSQL set-returning functions - that want to return the result of a query. <command>RETURN QUERY</> - is easier and more efficient than a loop - around <command>RETURN NEXT</command>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow function parameter names to be qualified with the - function's name (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - For example, <literal>myfunc.myvar</>. This is particularly - useful for specifying variables in a query where the variable - name might match a column name. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make qualification of variables with block labels work properly (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Formerly, outer-level block labels could unexpectedly interfere with - recognition of inner-level record or row references. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Tighten requirements for <literal>FOR</literal> loop - <literal>STEP</> values (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Prevent non-positive <literal>STEP</> values, and handle - loop overflows. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve accuracy when reporting syntax error locations (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Other Server-Side Languages</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow type-name arguments to PL/Perl - <function>spi_prepare()</function> to be data type aliases in - addition to names found in <literal>pg_type</literal> (Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow type-name arguments to PL/Python - <function>plpy.prepare()</function> to be data type aliases in - addition to names found in <literal>pg_type</literal> (Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow type-name arguments to PL/Tcl <function>spi_prepare</> to - be data type aliases in addition to names found in - <literal>pg_type</literal> (Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Enable PL/PythonU to compile on Python 2.5 (Marko Kreen) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support a true PL/Python boolean type in compatible Python versions - (Python 2.3 and later) (Marko Kreen) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix PL/Tcl problems with thread-enabled <filename>libtcl</> spawning - multiple threads within the backend (Steve Marshall, Paul Bayer, - Doug Knight) - </para> - - <para> - This caused all sorts of unpleasantness. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title><link linkend="APP-PSQL"><application>psql</></link></title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - List disabled triggers separately in <literal>\d</literal> output - (Brendan Jurd) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - In <literal>\d</literal> patterns, always match <literal>$</literal> - literally (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Show aggregate return types in <literal>\da</literal> output - (Greg Sabino Mullane) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add the function's volatility status to the output of - <literal>\df+</literal> (Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>\prompt</literal> capability (Chad Wagner) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <literal>\pset</literal>, <literal>\t</literal>, and - <literal>\x</literal> to specify <literal>on</> or <literal>off</>, - rather than just toggling (Chad Wagner) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>\sleep</> capability (Jan) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Enable <literal>\timing</> output for <literal>\copy</> (Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve <literal>\timing</literal> resolution on Windows - (Itagaki Takahiro) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Flush <literal>\o</> output after each backslash command (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Correctly detect and report errors while reading a <literal>-f</> - input file (Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove <literal>-u</> option (this option has long been deprecated) - (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title><link linkend="APP-PGDUMP"><application>pg_dump</></link></title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>--tablespaces-only</> and <literal>--roles-only</> - options to <application>pg_dumpall</application> (Dave Page) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add an output file option to - <application>pg_dumpall</application> (Dave Page) - </para> - - <para> - This is primarily useful on Windows, where output redirection of - child <application>pg_dump</application> processes does not work. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <application>pg_dumpall</> to accept an initial-connection - database name rather than the default - <literal>template1</literal> (Dave Page) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - In <literal>-n</> and <literal>-t</> switches, always match - <literal>$</literal> literally (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve performance when a database has thousands of objects (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove <literal>-u</> option (this option has long been deprecated) - (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Other Client Applications</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - In <application>initdb</>, allow the location of the - <filename>pg_xlog</filename> directory to be specified - (Euler Taveira de Oliveira) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Enable server core dump generation in <application>pg_regress</> - on supported operating systems (Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add a <literal>-t</> (timeout) parameter to <application>pg_ctl</> - (Bruce) - </para> - - <para> - This controls how long <application>pg_ctl</> will wait when waiting - for server startup or shutdown. Formerly the timeout was hard-wired - as 60 seconds. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add a <application>pg_ctl</> option to control generation - of server core dumps (Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow Control-C to cancel <application>clusterdb</>, - <application>reindexdb</>, and <application>vacuumdb</> (Itagaki - Takahiro, Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Suppress command tag output for <application>createdb</>, - <application>createuser</>, <application>dropdb</>, and - <application>dropuser</> (Peter) - </para> - - <para> - The <literal>--quiet</> option is ignored and will be removed in 8.4. - Progress messages when acting on all databases now go to stdout - instead of stderr because they are not actually errors. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title><link linkend="libpq"><application>libpq</></link></title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Interpret the <literal>dbName</> parameter of - <function>PQsetdbLogin()</> as a <literal>conninfo</> string if - it contains an equals sign (Andrew) - </para> - - <para> - This allows use of <literal>conninfo</> strings in client - programs that still use <literal>PQsetdbLogin()</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support a global <acronym>SSL</> configuration file (Victor - Wagner) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add environment variable <varname>PGSSLKEY</> to control - <acronym>SSL</> hardware keys (Victor Wagner) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>lo_truncate()</function> for large object - truncation (Kris Jurka) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>PQconnectionNeedsPassword()</function> that returns - true if the server required a password but none was supplied - (Joe Conway, Tom) - </para> - - <para> - If this returns true after a failed connection attempt, a client - application should prompt the user for a password. In the past - applications have had to check for a specific error message string to - decide whether a password is needed; that approach is now - deprecated. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>PQconnectionUsedPassword()</function> that returns - true if the supplied password was actually used - (Joe Conway, Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This is useful in some security contexts where it is important - to know whether a user-supplied password is actually valid. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title><link linkend="ecpg"><application>ecpg</></link></title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Use V3 frontend/backend protocol (Michael) - </para> - - <para> - This adds support for server-side prepared statements. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Use native threads, instead of pthreads, on Windows (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve thread-safety of ecpglib (Itagaki Takahiro) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make the ecpg libraries export only necessary API symbols (Michael) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title><application>Windows</> Port</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow the whole <productname>PostgreSQL</> distribution to be compiled - with <productname>Microsoft Visual C++</> (Magnus and others) - </para> - - <para> - This allows Windows-based developers to use familiar development - and debugging tools. - Windows executables made with Visual C++ might also have better - stability and performance than those made with other tool sets. - The client-only Visual C++ build scripts have been removed. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Drastically reduce postmaster's memory usage when it has many child - processes (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow regression tests to be started by an administrative - user (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add native shared memory implementation (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Server Programming Interface (<acronym>SPI</>)</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add cursor-related functionality in SPI (Pavel Stehule) - </para> - - <para> - Allow access to the cursor-related planning options, and add - <command>FETCH</>/<command>MOVE</> routines. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow execution of cursor commands through - <function>SPI_execute</function> (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The macro <literal>SPI_ERROR_CURSOR</> still exists but will - never be returned. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - SPI plan pointers are now declared as <literal>SPIPlanPtr</> instead of - <literal>void *</> (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This does not break application code, but switching is - recommended to help catch simple programming mistakes. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Build Options</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <application>configure</> option <literal>--enable-profiling</> - to enable code profiling (works only with <application>gcc</>) - (Korry Douglas and Nikhil Sontakke) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <application>configure</> option <literal>--with-system-tzdata</> - to use the operating system's time zone database (Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <acronym>PGXS</> so extensions can be built against PostgreSQL - installations whose <application>pg_config</> program does not - appear first in the <varname>PATH</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support <command>gmake draft</command> when building the - <acronym>SGML</> documentation (Bruce) - </para> - - <para> - Unless <literal>draft</> is used, the documentation build will - now be repeated if necessary to ensure the index is up-to-date. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Source Code</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Rename macro <literal>DLLIMPORT</> to <literal>PGDLLIMPORT</> to - avoid conflicting with third party includes (like Tcl) that - define <literal>DLLIMPORT</> (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Create <quote>operator families</quote> to improve planning of - queries involving cross-data-type comparisons (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update GIN <function>extractQuery()</> API to allow signalling - that nothing can satisfy the query (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Move <literal>NAMEDATALEN</> definition from - <filename>postgres_ext.h</> to <filename>pg_config_manual.h</> - (Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Provide <function>strlcpy()</function> and - <function>strlcat()</function> on all platforms, and replace - error-prone uses of <function>strncpy()</function>, - <function>strncat()</function>, etc (Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Create hooks to let an external plugin monitor (or even replace) the - planner and create plans for hypothetical situations (Gurjeet - Singh, Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Create a function variable <literal>join_search_hook</> to let plugins - override the join search order portion of the planner (Julius - Stroffek) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>tas()</> support for Renesas' M32R processor - (Kazuhiro Inaoka) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <function>quote_identifier()</function> and - <application>pg_dump</application> no longer quote keywords that are - unreserved according to the grammar (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Change the on-disk representation of the <type>NUMERIC</type> - data type so that the <structfield>sign_dscale</> word comes - before the weight (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Use <acronym>SYSV</> semaphores rather than POSIX on Darwin - >= 6.0, i.e., OS X 10.2 and up (Chris Marcellino) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <link linkend="acronyms">acronym</link> and <link - linkend="creating-cluster-nfs">NFS</link> documentation - sections (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - "Postgres" is now documented as an accepted alias for - "PostgreSQL" (Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add documentation about preventing database server spoofing when - the server is down (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Contrib</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Move <filename>contrib</> <filename>README</> content into the - main <productname>PostgreSQL</> documentation (Albert Cervera i - Areny) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <filename>contrib/pageinspect</filename> module for low-level - page inspection (Simon, Heikki) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <filename>contrib/pg_standby</filename> module for controlling - warm standby operation (Simon) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <filename>contrib/uuid-ossp</filename> module for generating - <type>UUID</> values using the OSSP UUID library (Peter) - </para> - - <para> - Use <application>configure</> - <literal>--with-ossp-uuid</literal> to activate. This takes - advantage of the new <type>UUID</type> builtin type. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <filename>contrib/dict_int</filename>, - <filename>contrib/dict_xsyn</filename>, and - <filename>contrib/test_parser</filename> modules to provide - sample add-on text search dictionary templates and parsers - (Sergey Karpov) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <application>contrib/pgbench</> to set the fillfactor (Pavan - Deolasee) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add timestamps to <application>contrib/pgbench</> <literal>-l</> - (Greg Smith) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add usage count statistics to - <filename>contrib/pgbuffercache</filename> (Greg Smith) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add GIN support for <filename>contrib/hstore</> (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add GIN support for <filename>contrib/pg_trgm</> (Guillaume Smet, Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update OS/X startup scripts in - <filename>contrib/start-scripts</filename> (Mark Cotner, David - Fetter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Restrict <function>pgrowlocks()</function> and - <function>dblink_get_pkey()</function> to users who have - <literal>SELECT</literal> privilege on the target table (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Restrict <filename>contrib/pgstattuple</filename> functions to - superusers (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <filename>contrib/xml2</filename> is deprecated and planned for - removal in 8.4 (Peter) - </para> - - <para> - The new XML support in core PostgreSQL supersedes this module. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-2-13"> - <title>Release 8.2.13</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2009-03-16</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.2.12. - For information about new features in the 8.2 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-2">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.2.13</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.2.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.2.11, - see the release notes for 8.2.11. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent error recursion crashes when encoding conversion fails (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This change extends fixes made in the last two minor releases for - related failure scenarios. The previous fixes were narrowly tailored - for the original problem reports, but we have now recognized that - <emphasis>any</> error thrown by an encoding conversion function could - potentially lead to infinite recursion while trying to report the - error. The solution therefore is to disable translation and encoding - conversion and report the plain-ASCII form of any error message, - if we find we have gotten into a recursive error reporting situation. - (CVE-2009-0922) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Disallow <command>CREATE CONVERSION</> with the wrong encodings - for the specified conversion function (Heikki) - </para> - - <para> - This prevents one possible scenario for encoding conversion failure. - The previous change is a backstop to guard against other kinds of - failures in the same area. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix core dump when <function>to_char()</> is given format codes that - are inappropriate for the type of the data argument (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible failure in <filename>contrib/tsearch2</> when C locale is - used with a multi-byte encoding (Teodor) - </para> - - <para> - Crashes were possible on platforms where <type>wchar_t</> is narrower - than <type>int</>; Windows in particular. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix extreme inefficiency in <filename>contrib/tsearch2</> parser's - handling of an email-like string containing multiple <literal>@</> - characters (Heikki) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix decompilation of <literal>CASE WHEN</> with an implicit coercion - (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This mistake could lead to Assert failures in an Assert-enabled build, - or an <quote>unexpected CASE WHEN clause</> error message in other - cases, when trying to examine or dump a view. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible misassignment of the owner of a TOAST table's rowtype (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - If <command>CLUSTER</> or a rewriting variant of <command>ALTER TABLE</> - were executed by someone other than the table owner, the - <structname>pg_type</> entry for the table's TOAST table would end up - marked as owned by that someone. This caused no immediate problems, - since the permissions on the TOAST rowtype aren't examined by any - ordinary database operation. However, it could lead to unexpected - failures if one later tried to drop the role that issued the command - (in 8.1 or 8.2), or <quote>owner of data type appears to be invalid</> - warnings from <application>pg_dump</> after having done so (in 8.3). - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix PL/pgSQL to not treat <literal>INTO</> after <command>INSERT</> as - an INTO-variables clause anywhere in the string, not only at the start; - in particular, don't fail for <command>INSERT INTO</> within - <command>CREATE RULE</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Clean up PL/pgSQL error status variables fully at block exit - (Ashesh Vashi and Dave Page) - </para> - - <para> - This is not a problem for PL/pgSQL itself, but the omission could cause - the PL/pgSQL Debugger to crash while examining the state of a function. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Retry failed calls to <function>CallNamedPipe()</> on Windows - (Steve Marshall, Magnus) - </para> - - <para> - It appears that this function can sometimes fail transiently; - we previously treated any failure as a hard error, which could - confuse <command>LISTEN</>/<command>NOTIFY</> as well as other - operations. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>MUST</> (Mauritius Island Summer Time) to the default list - of known timezone abbreviations (Xavier Bugaud) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-2-12"> - <title>Release 8.2.12</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2009-02-02</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.2.11. - For information about new features in the 8.2 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-2">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.2.12</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.2.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.2.11, - see the release notes for 8.2.11. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve handling of URLs in <function>headline()</> function (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve handling of overlength headlines in <function>headline()</> - function (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent possible Assert failure or misconversion if an encoding - conversion is created with the wrong conversion function for the - specified pair of encodings (Tom, Heikki) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible Assert failure if a statement executed in PL/pgSQL is - rewritten into another kind of statement, for example if an - <command>INSERT</> is rewritten into an <command>UPDATE</> (Heikki) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Ensure that a snapshot is available to datatype input functions (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This primarily affects domains that are declared with <literal>CHECK</> - constraints involving user-defined stable or immutable functions. Such - functions typically fail if no snapshot has been set. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make it safer for SPI-using functions to be used within datatype I/O; - in particular, to be used in domain check constraints (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Avoid unnecessary locking of small tables in <command>VACUUM</> - (Heikki) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix a problem that made <literal>UPDATE RETURNING tableoid</> - return zero instead of the correct OID (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix planner misestimation of selectivity when transitive equality - is applied to an outer-join clause (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This could result in bad plans for queries like - <literal>... from a left join b on a.a1 = b.b1 where a.a1 = 42 ...</> - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve optimizer's handling of long <literal>IN</> lists (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This change avoids wasting large amounts of time on such lists - when constraint exclusion is enabled. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Ensure that the contents of a holdable cursor don't depend on the - contents of TOAST tables (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Previously, large field values in a cursor result might be represented - as TOAST pointers, which would fail if the referenced table got dropped - before the cursor is read, or if the large value is deleted and then - vacuumed away. This cannot happen with an ordinary cursor, - but it could with a cursor that is held past its creating transaction. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix memory leak when a set-returning function is terminated without - reading its whole result (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <filename>contrib/dblink</>'s - <function>dblink_get_result(text,bool)</> function (Joe) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible garbage output from <filename>contrib/sslinfo</> functions - (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>configure</> script to properly report failure when - unable to obtain linkage information for PL/Perl (Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make all documentation reference <literal>pgsql-bugs</> and/or - <literal>pgsql-hackers</> as appropriate, instead of the - now-decommissioned <literal>pgsql-ports</> and <literal>pgsql-patches</> - mailing lists (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2009a (for - Kathmandu and historical DST corrections in Switzerland, Cuba) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-2-11"> - <title>Release 8.2.11</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2008-11-03</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.2.10. - For information about new features in the 8.2 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-2">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.2.11</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.2.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.2.7, - see the release notes for 8.2.7. Also, if you were running a previous - 8.2.X release, it is recommended to <command>REINDEX</> all GiST - indexes after the upgrade. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix GiST index corruption due to marking the wrong index entry - <quote>dead</> after a deletion (Teodor) - </para> - - <para> - This would result in index searches failing to find rows they - should have found. Corrupted indexes can be fixed with - <command>REINDEX</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix backend crash when the client encoding cannot represent a localized - error message (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - We have addressed similar issues before, but it would still fail if - the <quote>character has no equivalent</> message itself couldn't - be converted. The fix is to disable localization and send the plain - ASCII error message when we detect such a situation. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible crash when deeply nested functions are invoked from - a trigger (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve optimization of <replaceable>expression</> <literal>IN</> - (<replaceable>expression-list</>) queries (Tom, per an idea from Robert - Haas) - </para> - - <para> - Cases in which there are query variables on the right-hand side had been - handled less efficiently in 8.2.x and 8.3.x than in prior versions. - The fix restores 8.1 behavior for such cases. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix mis-expansion of rule queries when a sub-<literal>SELECT</> appears - in a function call in <literal>FROM</>, a multi-row <literal>VALUES</> - list, or a <literal>RETURNING</> list (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The usual symptom of this problem is an <quote>unrecognized node type</> - error. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix memory leak during rescan of a hashed aggregation plan (Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Ensure an error is reported when a newly-defined PL/pgSQL trigger - function is invoked as a normal function (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent possible collision of <structfield>relfilenode</> numbers - when moving a table to another tablespace with <command>ALTER SET - TABLESPACE</> (Heikki) - </para> - - <para> - The command tried to re-use the existing filename, instead of - picking one that is known unused in the destination directory. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix incorrect tsearch2 headline generation when single query - item matches first word of text (Sushant Sinha) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix improper display of fractional seconds in interval values when - using a non-ISO datestyle in an <option>--enable-integer-datetimes</> - build (Ron Mayer) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Ensure <function>SPI_getvalue</> and <function>SPI_getbinval</> - behave correctly when the passed tuple and tuple descriptor have - different numbers of columns (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This situation is normal when a table has had columns added or removed, - but these two functions didn't handle it properly. - The only likely consequence is an incorrect error indication. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>ecpg</>'s parsing of <command>CREATE ROLE</> (Michael) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix recent breakage of <literal>pg_ctl restart</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Ensure <filename>pg_control</> is opened in binary mode - (Itagaki Takahiro) - </para> - - <para> - <application>pg_controldata</> and <application>pg_resetxlog</> - did this incorrectly, and so could fail on Windows. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2008i (for - DST law changes in Argentina, Brazil, Mauritius, Syria) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-2-10"> - <title>Release 8.2.10</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2008-09-22</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.2.9. - For information about new features in the 8.2 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-2">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.2.10</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.2.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.2.7, - see the release notes for 8.2.7. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix bug in btree WAL recovery code (Heikki) - </para> - - <para> - Recovery failed if the WAL ended partway through a page split operation. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix potential miscalculation of <structfield>datfrozenxid</> (Alvaro) - </para> - - <para> - This error may explain some recent reports of failure to remove old - <structname>pg_clog</> data. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Widen local lock counters from 32 to 64 bits (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This responds to reports that the counters could overflow in - sufficiently long transactions, leading to unexpected <quote>lock is - already held</> errors. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible duplicate output of tuples during a GiST index scan (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix missed permissions checks when a view contains a simple - <literal>UNION ALL</> construct (Heikki) - </para> - - <para> - Permissions for the referenced tables were checked properly, but not - permissions for the view itself. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add checks in executor startup to ensure that the tuples produced by an - <command>INSERT</> or <command>UPDATE</> will match the target table's - current rowtype (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - <command>ALTER COLUMN TYPE</>, followed by re-use of a previously - cached plan, could produce this type of situation. The check protects - against data corruption and/or crashes that could ensue. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible repeated drops during <command>DROP OWNED</> (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This would typically result in strange errors such as <quote>cache - lookup failed for relation NNN</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <literal>AT TIME ZONE</> to first try to interpret its timezone - argument as a timezone abbreviation, and only try it as a full timezone - name if that fails, rather than the other way around as formerly (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The timestamp input functions have always resolved ambiguous zone names - in this order. Making <literal>AT TIME ZONE</> do so as well improves - consistency, and fixes a compatibility bug introduced in 8.1: - in ambiguous cases we now behave the same as 8.0 and before did, - since in the older versions <literal>AT TIME ZONE</> accepted - <emphasis>only</> abbreviations. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix datetime input functions to correctly detect integer overflow when - running on a 64-bit platform (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent integer overflows during units conversion when displaying a - configuration parameter that has units (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve performance of writing very long log messages to syslog (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow spaces in the suffix part of an LDAP URL in - <filename>pg_hba.conf</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix bug in backwards scanning of a cursor on a <literal>SELECT DISTINCT - ON</> query (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix planner bug with nested sub-select expressions (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - If the outer sub-select has no direct dependency on the parent query, - but the inner one does, the outer value might not get recalculated - for new parent query rows. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix planner to estimate that <literal>GROUP BY</> expressions yielding - boolean results always result in two groups, regardless of the - expressions' contents (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This is very substantially more accurate than the regular <literal>GROUP - BY</> estimate for certain boolean tests like <replaceable>col</> - <literal>IS NULL</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix PL/PgSQL to not fail when a <literal>FOR</> loop's target variable - is a record containing composite-type fields (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix PL/Tcl to behave correctly with Tcl 8.5, and to be more careful - about the encoding of data sent to or from Tcl (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - On Windows, work around a Microsoft bug by preventing - <application>libpq</> from trying to send more than 64kB per system call - (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve <application>pg_dump</> and <application>pg_restore</>'s - error reporting after failure to send a SQL command (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>pg_ctl</> to properly preserve postmaster - command-line arguments across a <literal>restart</> (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2008f (for - DST law changes in Argentina, Bahamas, Brazil, Mauritius, Morocco, - Pakistan, Palestine, and Paraguay) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-2-9"> - <title>Release 8.2.9</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2008-06-12</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains one serious and one minor bug fix over 8.2.8. - For information about new features in the 8.2 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-2">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.2.9</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.2.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.2.7, - see the release notes for 8.2.7. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <function>pg_get_ruledef()</> parenthesize negative constants (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Before this fix, a negative constant in a view or rule might be dumped - as, say, <literal>-42::integer</>, which is subtly incorrect: it should - be <literal>(-42)::integer</> due to operator precedence rules. - Usually this would make little difference, but it could interact with - another recent patch to cause - <productname>PostgreSQL</> to reject what had been a valid - <command>SELECT DISTINCT</> view query. Since this could result in - <application>pg_dump</> output failing to reload, it is being treated - as a high-priority fix. The only released versions in which dump - output is actually incorrect are 8.3.1 and 8.2.7. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>ALTER AGGREGATE ... OWNER TO</> update - <structname>pg_shdepend</> (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This oversight could lead to problems if the aggregate was later - involved in a <command>DROP OWNED</> or <command>REASSIGN OWNED</> - operation. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-2-8"> - <title>Release 8.2.8</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>never released</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.2.7. - For information about new features in the 8.2 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-2">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.2.8</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.2.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.2.7, - see the release notes for 8.2.7. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <literal>ERRORDATA_STACK_SIZE exceeded</literal> crash that - occurred on Windows when using UTF-8 database encoding and a different - client encoding (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <command>ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN ... PRIMARY KEY</> so that the new - column is correctly checked to see if it's been initialized to all - non-nulls (Brendan Jurd) - </para> - - <para> - Previous versions neglected to check this requirement at all. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible <command>CREATE TABLE</> failure when inheriting the - <quote>same</> constraint from multiple parent relations that - inherited that constraint from a common ancestor (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <function>pg_get_ruledef()</> to show the alias, if any, attached - to the target table of an <command>UPDATE</> or <command>DELETE</> - (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix GIN bug that could result in a <literal>too many LWLocks - taken</literal> failure (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Avoid possible crash when decompressing corrupted data - (Zdenek Kotala) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Repair two places where SIGTERM exit of a backend could leave corrupted - state in shared memory (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Neither case is very important if SIGTERM is used to shut down the - whole database cluster together, but there was a problem if someone - tried to SIGTERM individual backends. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix conversions between ISO-8859-5 and other encodings to handle - Cyrillic <quote>Yo</> characters (<literal>e</> and <literal>E</> with - two dots) (Sergey Burladyan) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix several datatype input functions, notably <function>array_in()</>, - that were allowing unused bytes in their results to contain - uninitialized, unpredictable values (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This could lead to failures in which two apparently identical literal - values were not seen as equal, resulting in the parser complaining - about unmatched <literal>ORDER BY</> and <literal>DISTINCT</> - expressions. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix a corner case in regular-expression substring matching - (<literal>substring(<replaceable>string</> from - <replaceable>pattern</>)</literal>) (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The problem occurs when there is a match to the pattern overall but - the user has specified a parenthesized subexpression and that - subexpression hasn't got a match. An example is - <literal>substring('foo' from 'foo(bar)?')</>. - This should return NULL, since <literal>(bar)</> isn't matched, but - it was mistakenly returning the whole-pattern match instead (ie, - <literal>foo</>). - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2008c (for - DST law changes in Morocco, Iraq, Choibalsan, Pakistan, Syria, Cuba, and - Argentina/San_Luis) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix incorrect result from <application>ecpg</>'s - <function>PGTYPEStimestamp_sub()</> function (Michael) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix broken GiST comparison function for <filename>contrib/tsearch2</>'s - <type>tsquery</> type (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible crashes in <filename>contrib/cube</> functions (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix core dump in <filename>contrib/xml2</>'s - <function>xpath_table()</> function when the input query returns a - NULL value (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <filename>contrib/xml2</>'s makefile to not override - <literal>CFLAGS</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <literal>DatumGetBool</> macro to not fail with <application>gcc</> - 4.3 (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This problem affects <quote>old style</> (V0) C functions that - return boolean. The fix is already in 8.3, but the need to - back-patch it was not realized at the time. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-2-7"> - <title>Release 8.2.7</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2008-03-17</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.2.6. - For information about new features in the 8.2 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-2">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.2.7</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.2.X. - However, you might need to <command>REINDEX</> indexes on textual - columns after updating, if you are affected by the Windows locale - issue described below. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix character string comparison for Windows locales that consider - different character combinations as equal (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This fix applies only on Windows and only when using UTF-8 - database encoding. The same fix was made for all other cases - over two years ago, but Windows with UTF-8 uses a separate code - path that was not updated. If you are using a locale that - considers some non-identical strings as equal, you may need to - <command>REINDEX</> to fix existing indexes on textual columns. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Repair potential deadlock between concurrent <command>VACUUM FULL</> - operations on different system catalogs (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix longstanding <command>LISTEN</>/<command>NOTIFY</> - race condition (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - In rare cases a session that had just executed a - <command>LISTEN</> might not get a notification, even though - one would be expected because the concurrent transaction executing - <command>NOTIFY</> was observed to commit later. - </para> - - <para> - A side effect of the fix is that a transaction that has executed - a not-yet-committed <command>LISTEN</> command will not see any - row in <structname>pg_listener</> for the <command>LISTEN</>, - should it choose to look; formerly it would have. This behavior - was never documented one way or the other, but it is possible that - some applications depend on the old behavior. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Disallow <command>LISTEN</> and <command>UNLISTEN</> within a - prepared transaction (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This was formerly allowed but trying to do it had various unpleasant - consequences, notably that the originating backend could not exit - as long as an <command>UNLISTEN</> remained uncommitted. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Disallow dropping a temporary table within a - prepared transaction (Heikki) - </para> - - <para> - This was correctly disallowed by 8.1, but the check was inadvertently - broken in 8.2. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix rare crash when an error occurs during a query using a hash index - (Heikki) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix memory leaks in certain usages of set-returning functions (Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix input of datetime values for February 29 in years BC (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The former coding was mistaken about which years were leap years. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <quote>unrecognized node type</> error in some variants of - <command>ALTER OWNER</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Ensure <structname>pg_stat_activity</>.<structfield>waiting</> flag - is cleared when a lock wait is aborted (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix handling of process permissions on Windows Vista (Dave, Magnus) - </para> - - <para> - In particular, this fix allows starting the server as the Administrator - user. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2008a - (in particular, recent Chile changes); adjust timezone abbreviation - <literal>VET</> (Venezuela) to mean UTC-4:30, not UTC-4:00 (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>pg_ctl</> to correctly extract the postmaster's port - number from command-line options (Itagaki Takahiro, Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Previously, <literal>pg_ctl start -w</> could try to contact the - postmaster on the wrong port, leading to bogus reports of startup - failure. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Use <option>-fwrapv</> to defend against possible misoptimization - in recent <application>gcc</> versions (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This is known to be necessary when building <productname>PostgreSQL</> - with <application>gcc</> 4.3 or later. - </para> - </listitem> - - - <listitem> - <para> - Correctly enforce <varname>statement_timeout</> values longer - than <literal>INT_MAX</> microseconds (about 35 minutes) (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This bug affects only builds with <option>--enable-integer-datetimes</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <quote>unexpected PARAM_SUBLINK ID</> planner error when - constant-folding simplifies a sub-select (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix logical errors in constraint-exclusion handling of <literal>IS - NULL</> and <literal>NOT</> expressions (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The planner would sometimes exclude partitions that should not - have been excluded because of the possibility of NULL results. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix another cause of <quote>failed to build any N-way joins</> - planner errors (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This could happen in cases where a clauseless join needed to be - forced before a join clause could be exploited. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix incorrect constant propagation in outer-join planning (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The planner could sometimes incorrectly conclude that a variable - could be constrained to be equal to a constant, leading - to wrong query results. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix display of constant expressions in <literal>ORDER BY</> - and <literal>GROUP BY</> (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - An explictly casted constant would be shown incorrectly. This could - for example lead to corruption of a view definition during - dump and reload. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>libpq</> to handle NOTICE messages correctly - during COPY OUT (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This failure has only been observed to occur when a user-defined - datatype's output routine issues a NOTICE, but there is no - guarantee it couldn't happen due to other causes. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-2-6"> - <title>Release 8.2.6</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2008-01-07</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.2.5, - including fixes for significant security issues. - For information about new features in the 8.2 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-2">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.2.6</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.2.X. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent functions in indexes from executing with the privileges of - the user running <command>VACUUM</>, <command>ANALYZE</>, etc (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Functions used in index expressions and partial-index - predicates are evaluated whenever a new table entry is made. It has - long been understood that this poses a risk of trojan-horse code - execution if one modifies a table owned by an untrustworthy user. - (Note that triggers, defaults, check constraints, etc. pose the - same type of risk.) But functions in indexes pose extra danger - because they will be executed by routine maintenance operations - such as <command>VACUUM FULL</>, which are commonly performed - automatically under a superuser account. For example, a nefarious user - can execute code with superuser privileges by setting up a - trojan-horse index definition and waiting for the next routine vacuum. - The fix arranges for standard maintenance operations - (including <command>VACUUM</>, <command>ANALYZE</>, <command>REINDEX</>, - and <command>CLUSTER</>) to execute as the table owner rather than - the calling user, using the same privilege-switching mechanism already - used for <literal>SECURITY DEFINER</> functions. To prevent bypassing - this security measure, execution of <command>SET SESSION - AUTHORIZATION</> and <command>SET ROLE</> is now forbidden within a - <literal>SECURITY DEFINER</> context. (CVE-2007-6600) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Repair assorted bugs in the regular-expression package (Tom, Will Drewry) - </para> - - <para> - Suitably crafted regular-expression patterns could cause crashes, - infinite or near-infinite looping, and/or massive memory consumption, - all of which pose denial-of-service hazards for applications that - accept regex search patterns from untrustworthy sources. - (CVE-2007-4769, CVE-2007-4772, CVE-2007-6067) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Require non-superusers who use <filename>/contrib/dblink</> to use only - password authentication, as a security measure (Joe) - </para> - - <para> - The fix that appeared for this in 8.2.5 was incomplete, as it plugged - the hole for only some <filename>dblink</> functions. (CVE-2007-6601, - CVE-2007-3278) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix bugs in WAL replay for GIN indexes (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix GIN index build to work properly when - <varname>maintenance_work_mem</> is 4GB or more (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2007k - (in particular, recent Argentina changes) (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve planner's handling of LIKE/regex estimation in non-C locales - (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix planning-speed problem for deep outer-join nests, as well as - possible poor choice of join order (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix planner failure in some cases of <literal>WHERE false AND var IN - (SELECT ...)</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>CREATE TABLE ... SERIAL</> and - <command>ALTER SEQUENCE ... OWNED BY</> not change the - <function>currval()</> state of the sequence (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Preserve the tablespace and storage parameters of indexes that are - rebuilt by <command>ALTER TABLE ... ALTER COLUMN TYPE</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make archive recovery always start a new WAL timeline, rather than only - when a recovery stop time was used (Simon) - </para> - - <para> - This avoids a corner-case risk of trying to overwrite an existing - archived copy of the last WAL segment, and seems simpler and cleaner - than the original definition. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>VACUUM</> not use all of <varname>maintenance_work_mem</> - when the table is too small for it to be useful (Alvaro) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix potential crash in <function>translate()</> when using a multibyte - database encoding (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <function>corr()</> return the correct result for negative - correlation values (Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix overflow in <literal>extract(epoch from interval)</> for intervals - exceeding 68 years (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix PL/Perl to not fail when a UTF-8 regular expression is used - in a trusted function (Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix PL/Perl to cope when platform's Perl defines type <literal>bool</> - as <literal>int</> rather than <literal>char</> (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - While this could theoretically happen anywhere, no standard build of - Perl did things this way ... until <productname>Mac OS X</> 10.5. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix PL/Python to work correctly with Python 2.5 on 64-bit machines - (Marko Kreen) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix PL/Python to not crash on long exception messages (Alvaro) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>pg_dump</> to correctly handle inheritance child tables - that have default expressions different from their parent's (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>libpq</> crash when <varname>PGPASSFILE</> refers - to a file that is not a plain file (Martin Pitt) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <application>ecpg</> parser fixes (Michael) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <filename>contrib/pgcrypto</> defend against - <application>OpenSSL</> libraries that fail on keys longer than 128 - bits; which is the case at least on some Solaris versions (Marko Kreen) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <filename>contrib/tablefunc</>'s <function>crosstab()</> handle - NULL rowid as a category in its own right, rather than crashing (Joe) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <type>tsvector</> and <type>tsquery</> output routines to - escape backslashes correctly (Teodor, Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix crash of <function>to_tsvector()</> on huge input strings (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Require a specific version of <productname>Autoconf</> to be used - when re-generating the <command>configure</> script (Peter) - </para> - - <para> - This affects developers and packagers only. The change was made - to prevent accidental use of untested combinations of - <productname>Autoconf</> and <productname>PostgreSQL</> versions. - You can remove the version check if you really want to use a - different <productname>Autoconf</> version, but it's - your responsibility whether the result works or not. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update <function>gettimeofday</> configuration check so that - <productname>PostgreSQL</> can be built on newer versions of - <productname>MinGW</> (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-2-5"> - <title>Release 8.2.5</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2007-09-17</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.2.4. - For information about new features in the 8.2 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-2">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.2.5</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.2.X. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent index corruption when a transaction inserts rows and - then aborts close to the end of a concurrent <command>VACUUM</> - on the same table (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <literal>ALTER DOMAIN ADD CONSTRAINT</> for cases involving - domains over domains (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>CREATE DOMAIN ... DEFAULT NULL</> work properly (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix some planner problems with outer joins, notably poor - size estimation for <literal>t1 LEFT JOIN t2 WHERE t2.col IS NULL</> - (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow the <type>interval</> data type to accept input consisting only of - milliseconds or microseconds (Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow timezone name to appear before the year in <type>timestamp</> input (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fixes for <acronym>GIN</> indexes used by <filename>/contrib/tsearch2</> (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Speed up rtree index insertion (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix excessive logging of <acronym>SSL</> error messages (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix logging so that log messages are never interleaved when using - the syslogger process (Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix crash when <varname>log_min_error_statement</> logging runs out - of memory (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix incorrect handling of some foreign-key corner cases (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <function>stddev_pop(numeric)</> and <function>var_pop(numeric)</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent <command>REINDEX</> and <command>CLUSTER</> from failing - due to attempting to process temporary tables of other sessions (Alvaro) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update the time zone database rules, particularly New Zealand's upcoming changes (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Windows socket and semaphore improvements (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>pg_ctl -w</> work properly in Windows service mode (Dave Page) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix memory allocation bug when using <application>MIT Kerberos</> on Windows (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Suppress timezone name (<literal>%Z</>) in log timestamps on Windows - because of possible encoding mismatches (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Require non-superusers who use <filename>/contrib/dblink</> to use only - password authentication, as a security measure (Joe) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Restrict <filename>/contrib/pgstattuple</> functions to superusers, for security reasons (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Do not let <filename>/contrib/intarray</> try to make its GIN opclass - the default (this caused problems at dump/restore) (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-2-4"> - <title>Release 8.2.4</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2007-04-23</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.2.3, - including a security fix. - For information about new features in the 8.2 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-2">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.2.4</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.2.X. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support explicit placement of the temporary-table schema within - <varname>search_path</>, and disable searching it for functions - and operators (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This is needed to allow a security-definer function to set a - truly secure value of <varname>search_path</>. Without it, - an unprivileged SQL user can use temporary objects to execute code - with the privileges of the security-definer function (CVE-2007-2138). - See <command>CREATE FUNCTION</> for more information. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <varname>shared_preload_libraries</> for Windows - by forcing reload in each backend (Korry Douglas) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <function>to_char()</> so it properly upper/lower cases localized day or month - names (Pavel Stehule) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <filename>/contrib/tsearch2</> crash fixes (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Require <command>COMMIT PREPARED</> to be executed in the same - database as the transaction was prepared in (Heikki) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <command>pg_dump</> to do binary backups larger than two gigabytes - on Windows (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - New traditional (Taiwan) Chinese <acronym>FAQ</> (Zhou Daojing) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent the statistics collector from writing to disk too frequently (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix potential-data-corruption bug in how <command>VACUUM FULL</> handles - <command>UPDATE</> chains (Tom, Pavan Deolasee) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix bug in domains that use array types (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <command>pg_dump</> so it can dump a serial column's sequence - using <option>-t</> when not also dumping the owning table - (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Planner fixes, including improving outer join and bitmap scan - selection logic (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible wrong answers or crash when a PL/pgSQL function tries - to <literal>RETURN</> from within an <literal>EXCEPTION</> block - (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix PANIC during enlargement of a hash index (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix POSIX-style timezone specs to follow new USA DST rules (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-2-3"> - <title>Release 8.2.3</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2007-02-07</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains two fixes from 8.2.2. - For information about new features in the 8.2 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-2">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.2.3</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.2.X. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove overly-restrictive check for type length in constraints and - functional indexes(Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix optimization so MIN/MAX in subqueries can again use indexes (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-2-2"> - <title>Release 8.2.2</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2007-02-05</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.2.1, including - a security fix. - For information about new features in the 8.2 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-2">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.2.2</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.2.X. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove security vulnerabilities that allowed connected users - to read backend memory (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The vulnerabilities involve suppressing the normal check that a SQL - function returns the data type it's declared to, and changing the - data type of a table column (CVE-2007-0555, CVE-2007-0556). These - errors can easily be exploited to cause a backend crash, and in - principle might be used to read database content that the user - should not be able to access. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix not-so-rare-anymore bug wherein btree index page splits could fail - due to choosing an infeasible split point (Heikki Linnakangas) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix Borland C compile scripts (L Bayuk) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Properly handle <function>to_char('CC')</> for years ending in - <literal>00</> (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Year 2000 is in the twentieth century, not the twenty-first. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <filename>/contrib/tsearch2</> localization improvements (Tatsuo, Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix incorrect permission check in - <literal>information_schema.key_column_usage</> view (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The symptom is <quote>relation with OID nnnnn does not exist</> errors. - To get this fix without using <command>initdb</>, use <command>CREATE OR - REPLACE VIEW</> to install the corrected definition found in - <filename>share/information_schema.sql</>. Note you will need to do - this in each database. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve <command>VACUUM</> performance for databases with many tables (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix for rare Assert() crash triggered by <literal>UNION</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix potentially incorrect results from index searches using - <literal>ROW</> inequality conditions (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Tighten security of multi-byte character processing for UTF8 sequences - over three bytes long (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix bogus <quote>permission denied</> failures occurring on Windows - due to attempts to fsync already-deleted files (Magnus, Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix bug that could cause the statistics collector - to hang on Windows (Magnus) - </para> - - <para> - This would in turn lead to autovacuum not working. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible crashes when an already-in-use PL/pgSQL function is - updated (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve PL/pgSQL handling of domain types (Sergiy Vyshnevetskiy, Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible errors in processing PL/pgSQL exception blocks (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-2-1"> - <title>Release 8.2.1</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2007-01-08</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.2. - For information about new features in the 8.2 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-2">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.2.1</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.2. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix crash with <literal>SELECT</> ... <literal>LIMIT ALL</> (also - <literal>LIMIT NULL</>) (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <filename>Several /contrib/tsearch2</> fixes (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - On Windows, make log messages coming from the operating system use - <acronym>ASCII</> encoding (Hiroshi Saito) - </para> - - <para> - This fixes a conversion problem when there is a mismatch between - the encoding of the operating system and database server. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix Windows linking of <application>pg_dump</> using - <filename>win32.mak</> - (Hiroshi Saito) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix planner mistakes for outer join queries (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix several problems in queries involving sub-SELECTs (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix potential crash in SPI during subtransaction abort (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This affects all PL functions since they all use SPI. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve build speed of <acronym>PDF</> documentation (Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Re-add <acronym>JST</> (Japan) timezone abbreviation (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve optimization decisions related to index scans (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Have <application>psql</> print multi-byte combining characters as - before, rather than output as <literal>\u</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve index usage of regular expressions that use parentheses (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This improves <application>psql</> <literal>\d</> performance also. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <application>pg_dumpall</> assume that databases have public - <literal>CONNECT</> privilege, when dumping from a pre-8.2 server (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This preserves the previous behavior that anyone can connect to a - database if allowed by <filename>pg_hba.conf</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-2"> - <title>Release 8.2</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2006-12-05</simpara> - </note> - - <sect2> - <title>Overview</title> - - <para> - This release adds many functionality and performance improvements that - were requested by users, including: - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Query language enhancements including <command>INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE - RETURNING</command>, multirow <literal>VALUES</literal> lists, and - optional target-table alias in - <command>UPDATE</>/<command>DELETE</command> - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Index creation without blocking concurrent - <command>INSERT</>/<command>UPDATE</>/<command>DELETE</> - operations - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Many query optimization improvements, including support for - reordering outer joins - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improved sorting performance with lower memory usage - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - More efficient locking with better concurrency - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - More efficient vacuuming - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Easier administration of warm standby servers - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - New <literal>FILLFACTOR</literal> support for tables and indexes - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Monitoring, logging, and performance tuning additions - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - More control over creating and dropping objects - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Table inheritance relationships can be defined - for and removed from pre-existing tables - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <command>COPY TO</command> can copy the output of an arbitrary - <command>SELECT</command> statement - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Array improvements, including nulls in arrays - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Aggregate-function improvements, including multiple-input - aggregates and SQL:2003 statistical functions - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Many <filename>contrib/</filename> improvements - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.2</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore using <application>pg_dump</application> is - required for those wishing to migrate data from any previous - release. - </para> - - <para> - Observe the following incompatibilities: - </para> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Set <link - linkend="guc-escape-string-warning"><varname>escape_string_warning</></link> - to <literal>on</> by default (Bruce) - </para> - - <para> - This issues a warning if backslash escapes are used in - <link linkend="sql-syntax-strings">non-escape (non-<literal>E''</>) - strings</link>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Change the <link linkend="sql-syntax-row-constructors">row - constructor syntax</link> (<literal>ROW(...)</>) so that - list elements <literal>foo.*</> will be expanded to a list - of their member fields, rather than creating a nested - row type field as formerly (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The new behavior is substantially more useful since it - allows, for example, triggers to check for data changes - with <literal>IF row(new.*) IS DISTINCT FROM row(old.*)</>. - The old behavior is still available by omitting <literal>.*</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <link linkend="row-wise-comparison">row comparisons</link> - follow <acronym>SQL</> standard semantics and allow them - to be used in index scans (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Previously, row = and <> comparisons followed the - standard but < <= > >= did not. A row comparison - can now be used as an index constraint for a multicolumn - index matching the row value. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <link linkend="functions-comparison">row <literal>IS <optional>NOT</> NULL</literal></link> - tests follow <acronym>SQL</> standard semantics (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The former behavior conformed to the standard for simple cases - with <literal>IS NULL</>, but <literal>IS NOT NULL</> would return - true if any row field was non-null, whereas the standard says it - should return true only when all fields are non-null. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <link linkend="SQL-SET-CONSTRAINTS"><command>SET - CONSTRAINT</></link> affect only one constraint (Kris Jurka) - </para> - - <para> - In previous releases, <command>SET CONSTRAINT</> modified - all constraints with a matching name. In this release, - the schema search path is used to modify only the first - matching constraint. A schema specification is also - supported. This more nearly conforms to the SQL standard. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove <literal>RULE</> permission for tables, for security reasons - (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - As of this release, only a table's owner can create or modify - rules for the table. For backwards compatibility, - <command>GRANT</>/<command>REVOKE RULE</> is still accepted, - but it does nothing. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Array comparison improvements (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Now array dimensions are also compared. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Change <link linkend="functions-array">array concatenation</link> - to match documented behavior (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This changes the previous behavior where concatenation - would modify the array lower bound. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make command-line options of <application>postmaster</> - and <link linkend="app-postgres"><application>postgres</></link> - identical (Peter) - </para> - - <para> - This allows the postmaster to pass arguments to each backend - without using <literal>-o</>. Note that some options are now - only available as long-form options, because there were conflicting - single-letter options. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Deprecate use of <application>postmaster</> symbolic link (Peter) - </para> - - <para> - <application>postmaster</> and <application>postgres</> - commands now act identically, with the behavior determined - by command-line options. The <application>postmaster</> symbolic link is - kept for compatibility, but is not really needed. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Change <link - linkend="guc-log-duration"><varname>log_duration</></link> - to output even if the query is not output (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - In prior releases, <varname>log_duration</> only printed if - the query appeared earlier in the log. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <link - linkend="functions-formatting"><function>to_char(time)</></link> - and <link - linkend="functions-formatting"><function>to_char(interval)</></link> - treat <literal>HH</> and <literal>HH12</> as 12-hour - intervals - </para> - - <para> - Most applications should use <literal>HH24</> unless they - want a 12-hour display. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Zero unmasked bits in conversion from <link - linkend="datatype-inet"><type>INET</></link> to <link - linkend="datatype-inet"><type>CIDR</></link> (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This ensures that the converted value is actually valid for - <type>CIDR</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove <varname>australian_timezones</> configuration variable - (Joachim Wieland) - </para> - - <para> - This variable has been superseded by a more general facility - for configuring timezone abbreviations. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve cost estimation for nested-loop index scans (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This might eliminate the need to set unrealistically small - values of <link - linkend="guc-random-page-cost"><varname>random_page_cost</></link>. - If you have been using a very small <varname>random_page_cost</>, - please recheck your test cases. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Change behavior of <command>pg_dump</> <literal>-n</> and - <literal>-t</> options. (Greg Sabino Mullane) - </para> - <para> - See the <command>pg_dump</> manual page for details. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Change <link linkend="libpq"><application>libpq</></link> - <function>PQdsplen()</> to return a useful value (Martijn - van Oosterhout) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Declare <link linkend="libpq"><application>libpq</></link> - <function>PQgetssl()</> as returning <literal>void *</>, - rather than <literal>SSL *</> (Martijn van Oosterhout) - </para> - - <para> - This allows applications to use the function without including - the OpenSSL headers. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - C-language loadable modules must now include a - <link linkend="xfunc-c-dynload"><literal>PG_MODULE_MAGIC</></link> - macro call for version compatibility checking - (Martijn van Oosterhout) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - For security's sake, modules used by a PL/PerlU function are no - longer available to PL/Perl functions (Andrew) - </para> - <note> - <para> - This also implies that data can no longer be shared between a PL/Perl - function and a PL/PerlU function. - Some Perl installations have not been compiled with the correct flags - to allow multiple interpreters to exist within a single process. - In this situation PL/Perl and PL/PerlU cannot both be used in a - single backend. The solution is to get a Perl installation which - supports multiple interpreters. - </para> - </note> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - In <filename>contrib/xml2/</>, rename <function>xml_valid()</> to - <function>xml_is_well_formed()</> (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - <function>xml_valid()</> will remain for backward compatibility, - but its behavior will change to do schema checking in a future - release. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove <filename>contrib/ora2pg/</>, now at <ulink - url="http://www.samse.fr/GPL/ora2pg"></ulink> - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove contrib modules that have been migrated to PgFoundry: - <filename>adddepend</>, <filename>dbase</>, <filename>dbmirror</>, - <filename>fulltextindex</>, <filename>mac</>, <filename>userlock</> - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove abandoned contrib modules: - <filename>mSQL-interface</>, <filename>tips</> - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove <acronym>QNX</> and <acronym>BEOS</> ports (Bruce) - </para> - - <para> - These ports no longer had active maintainers. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <para> - Below you will find a detailed account of the - changes between <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> 8.2 and - the previous major release. - </para> - - <sect3> - <title>Performance Improvements</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow the planner to reorder <link linkend="queries-join">outer - joins</link> in some circumstances (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - In previous releases, outer joins would always be evaluated in - the order written in the query. This change allows the - query optimizer to consider reordering outer joins, in cases where - it can determine that the join order can be changed without - altering the meaning of the query. This can make a - considerable performance difference for queries involving - multiple outer joins or mixed inner and outer joins. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve efficiency of <link - linkend="functions-comparisons"><literal>IN</> - (list-of-expressions)</link> clauses (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve sorting speed and reduce memory usage (Simon, Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve subtransaction performance (Alvaro, Itagaki Takahiro, - Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>FILLFACTOR</> to <link - linkend="SQL-CREATETABLE">table</link> and <link - linkend="SQL-CREATEINDEX">index</link> creation (ITAGAKI - Takahiro) - </para> - - <para> - This leaves extra free space in each table or index page, - allowing improved performance as the database grows. This - is particularly valuable to maintain clustering. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Increase default values for <link - linkend="guc-shared-buffers"><varname>shared_buffers</></link> - and <varname>max_fsm_pages</> - (Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve locking performance by breaking the lock manager tables into - sections - (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This allows locking to be more fine-grained, reducing - contention. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Reduce locking requirements of sequential scans (Qingqing - Zhou) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Reduce locking required for database creation and destruction - (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve the optimizer's selectivity estimates for <link - linkend="functions-like"><literal>LIKE</></link>, <link - linkend="functions-like"><literal>ILIKE</></link>, and - <link linkend="functions-posix-regexp">regular expression</link> - operations (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve planning of joins to <link linkend="ddl-inherit">inherited - tables</link> and <link linkend="queries-union"><literal>UNION - ALL</></link> views (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <link linkend="guc-constraint-exclusion">constraint - exclusion</link> to be applied to <link - linkend="ddl-inherit">inherited</link> <command>UPDATE</> and - <command>DELETE</> queries (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - <command>SELECT</> already honored constraint exclusion. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve planning of constant <literal>WHERE</> clauses, such as - a condition that depends only on variables inherited from an - outer query level (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Protocol-level unnamed prepared statements are re-planned - for each set of <literal>BIND</> values (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This improves performance because the exact parameter values - can be used in the plan. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Speed up vacuuming of B-Tree indexes (Heikki Linnakangas, - Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Avoid extra scan of tables without indexes during <link - linkend="SQL-VACUUM"><command>VACUUM</></link> (Greg Stark) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve multicolumn <link linkend="GiST"><acronym>GiST</></link> - indexing (Oleg, Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove dead index entries before B-Tree page split (Junji - Teramoto) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Server Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow a forced switch to a new transaction log file (Simon, Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This is valuable for keeping warm standby slave servers - in sync with the master. Transaction log file switching now also happens - automatically during <link - linkend="functions-admin"><function>pg_stop_backup()</></link>. - This ensures that all - transaction log files needed for recovery can be archived immediately. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <acronym>WAL</> informational functions (Simon) - </para> - - <para> - Add functions for interrogating the current transaction log insertion - point and determining <acronym>WAL</> filenames from the - hex <acronym>WAL</> locations displayed by <link - linkend="functions-admin"><function>pg_stop_backup()</></link> - and related functions. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve recovery from a crash during <acronym>WAL</> replay (Simon) - </para> - - <para> - The server now does periodic checkpoints during <acronym>WAL</> - recovery, so if there is a crash, future <acronym>WAL</> - recovery is shortened. This also eliminates the need for - warm standby servers to replay the entire log since the - base backup if they crash. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve reliability of long-term <acronym>WAL</> replay - (Heikki, Simon, Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Formerly, trying to roll forward through more than 2 billion - transactions would not work due to XID wraparound. This meant - warm standby servers had to be reloaded - from fresh base backups periodically. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <link - linkend="guc-archive-timeout"><varname>archive_timeout</></link> - to force transaction log file switches at a given interval (Simon) - </para> - - <para> - This enforces a maximum replication delay for warm standby servers. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add native <link linkend="auth-ldap"><acronym>LDAP</></link> - authentication (Magnus Hagander) - </para> - - <para> - This is particularly useful for platforms that do not - support <acronym>PAM</>, such as Windows. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <link linkend="sql-grant-description-objects"><literal>GRANT - CONNECT ON DATABASE</></link> (Gevik Babakhani) - </para> - - <para> - This gives SQL-level control over database access. It works as - an additional filter on top of the existing - <link linkend="auth-pg-hba-conf"><filename>pg_hba.conf</></link> - controls. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add support for <link linkend="ssl-tcp"><acronym>SSL</> - Certificate Revocation List</link> (<acronym>CRL</>) files - (Libor Hohoš) - </para> - - <para> - The server and <application>libpq</> both recognize <acronym>CRL</> - files now. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <link linkend="GiST"><acronym>GiST</></link> indexes are - now clusterable (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove routine autovacuum server log entries (Bruce) - </para> - - <para> - <link - linkend="monitoring-stats-views-table"><literal>pg_stat_activity</></link> - now shows autovacuum activity. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Track maximum XID age within individual tables, instead of whole databases (Alvaro) - </para> - - <para> - This reduces the overhead involved in preventing transaction - ID wraparound, by avoiding unnecessary VACUUMs. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add last vacuum and analyze timestamp columns to the stats - collector (Larry Rosenman) - </para> - - <para> - These values now appear in the <link - linkend="monitoring-stats-views-table"><literal>pg_stat_*_tables</></link> - system views. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve performance of statistics monitoring, especially - <varname>stats_command_string</> - (Tom, Bruce) - </para> - - <para> - This release enables <varname>stats_command_string</> by - default, now that its overhead is minimal. This means - <link - linkend="monitoring-stats-views-table"><literal>pg_stat_activity</></link> - will now show all active queries by default. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add a <literal>waiting</> column to <link - linkend="monitoring-stats-views-table"><literal>pg_stat_activity</></link> - (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This allows <structname>pg_stat_activity</> to show all the - information included in the <application>ps</> display. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add configuration parameter <link - linkend="guc-update-process-title"><varname>update_process_title</></link> - to control whether the <application>ps</> display is updated - for every command (Bruce) - </para> - - <para> - On platforms where it is expensive to update the <application>ps</> - display, it might be worthwhile to turn this off and rely solely on - <structname>pg_stat_activity</> for status information. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow units to be specified in configuration settings - (Peter) - </para> - - <para> - For example, you can now set <link - linkend="guc-shared-buffers"><varname>shared_buffers</></link> - to <literal>32MB</> rather than mentally converting sizes. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add support for <link linkend="config-setting">include - directives</link> in <filename>postgresql.conf</> (Joachim - Wieland) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve logging of protocol-level prepare/bind/execute - messages (Bruce, Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Such logging now shows statement names, bind parameter - values, and the text of the query being executed. Also, - the query text is properly included in logged error messages - when enabled by <varname>log_min_error_statement</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent <link - linkend="guc-max-stack-depth"><varname>max_stack_depth</></link> - from being set to unsafe values - </para> - - <para> - On platforms where we can determine the actual kernel stack depth - limit (which is most), make sure that the initial default value of - <varname>max_stack_depth</> is safe, and reject attempts to set it - to unsafely large values. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Enable highlighting of error location in query in more - cases (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The server is now able to report a specific error location for - some semantic errors (such as unrecognized column name), rather - than just for basic syntax errors as before. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <quote>failed to re-find parent key</> errors in - <command>VACUUM</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Clean out <filename>pg_internal.init</> cache files during server - restart (Simon) - </para> - - <para> - This avoids a hazard that the cache files might contain stale - data after PITR recovery. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix race condition for truncation of a large relation across a - gigabyte boundary by <command>VACUUM</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix bug causing needless deadlock errors on row-level locks (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix bugs affecting multi-gigabyte hash indexes (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Each backend process is now its own process group leader (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This allows query cancel to abort subprocesses invoked from a - backend or archive/recovery process. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Query Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <link linkend="SQL-INSERT"><command>INSERT</></link>/<link - linkend="SQL-UPDATE"><command>UPDATE</></link>/<link - linkend="SQL-DELETE"><command>DELETE</></link> - <literal>RETURNING</> (Jonah Harris, Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This allows these commands to return values, such as the - computed serial key for a new row. In the <command>UPDATE</> - case, values from the updated version of the row are returned. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add support for multiple-row <link - linkend="queries-values"><literal>VALUES</></link> clauses, - per SQL standard (Joe, Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This allows <command>INSERT</> to insert multiple rows of - constants, or queries to generate result sets using constants. - For example, <literal>INSERT ... VALUES (...), (...), - ....</>, and <literal>SELECT * FROM (VALUES (...), (...), - ....) AS alias(f1, ...)</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <link linkend="SQL-UPDATE"><command>UPDATE</></link> - and <link linkend="SQL-DELETE"><command>DELETE</></link> - to use an alias for the target table (Atsushi Ogawa) - </para> - - <para> - The SQL standard does not permit an alias in these commands, but - many database systems allow one anyway for notational convenience. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <link linkend="SQL-UPDATE"><command>UPDATE</></link> - to set multiple columns with a list of values (Susanne - Ebrecht) - </para> - - <para> - This is basically a short-hand for assigning the columns - and values in pairs. The syntax is <literal>UPDATE tab - SET (<replaceable>column</>, ...) = (<replaceable>val</>, ...)</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make row comparisons work per standard (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The forms <, <=, >, >= now compare rows lexicographically, - that is, compare the first elements, if equal compare the second - elements, and so on. Formerly they expanded to an AND condition - across all the elements, which was neither standard nor very useful. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <link linkend="SQL-TRUNCATE"><literal>CASCADE</></link> - option to <command>TRUNCATE</> (Joachim Wieland) - </para> - - <para> - This causes <command>TRUNCATE</> to automatically include all tables - that reference the specified table(s) via foreign keys. While - convenient, this is a dangerous tool — use with caution! - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support <literal>FOR UPDATE</> and <literal>FOR SHARE</> - in the same <link linkend="SQL-INSERT"><literal>SELECT</></link> - command (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <link linkend="functions-comparisons"><literal>IS NOT - DISTINCT FROM</></link> (Pavel Stehule) - </para> - - <para> - This operator is similar to equality (<literal>=</>), but - evaluates to true when both left and right operands are - <literal>NULL</>, and to false when just one is, rather than - yielding <literal>NULL</> in these cases. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve the length output used by <link - linkend="queries-union"><literal>UNION</></link>/<literal>INTERSECT</>/<literal>EXCEPT</> - (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - When all corresponding columns are of the same defined length, that - length is used for the result, rather than a generic length. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <link linkend="functions-like"><literal>ILIKE</></link> - to work for multi-byte encodings (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Internally, <literal>ILIKE</> now calls <function>lower()</> - and then uses <literal>LIKE</>. Locale-specific regular - expression patterns still do not work in these encodings. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Enable <link - linkend="guc-standard-conforming-strings"><varname>standard_conforming_strings</></link> - to be turned <literal>on</> (Kevin Grittner) - </para> - - <para> - This allows backslash escaping in strings to be disabled, - making <productname>PostgreSQL</> more - standards-compliant. The default is <literal>off</> for backwards - compatibility, but future releases will default this to <literal>on</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Do not flatten subqueries that contain <literal>volatile</> - functions in their target lists (Jaime Casanova) - </para> - - <para> - This prevents surprising behavior due to multiple evaluation - of a <literal>volatile</> function (such as <function>random()</> - or <function>nextval()</>). It might cause performance - degradation in the presence of functions that are unnecessarily - marked as <literal>volatile</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add system views <link - linkend="view-pg-prepared-statements"><literal>pg_prepared_statements</></link> - and <link - linkend="view-pg-cursors"><literal>pg_cursors</></link> - to show prepared statements and open cursors (Joachim Wieland, Neil) - </para> - - <para> - These are very useful in pooled connection setups. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support portal parameters in <link - linkend="SQL-EXPLAIN"><command>EXPLAIN</></link> and <link - linkend="SQL-EXECUTE"><command>EXECUTE</></link> (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This allows, for example, <acronym>JDBC</> <literal>?</> parameters to - work in these commands. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - If <acronym>SQL</>-level <link - linkend="SQL-PREPARE"><command>PREPARE</></link> parameters - are unspecified, infer their types from the content of the - query (Neil) - </para> - - <para> - Protocol-level <command>PREPARE</> already did this. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <literal>LIMIT</> and <literal>OFFSET</> to exceed - two billion (Dhanaraj M) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Object Manipulation Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>TABLESPACE</> clause to <link - linkend="SQL-CREATETABLEAS"><command>CREATE TABLE AS</></link> - (Neil) - </para> - - <para> - This allows a tablespace to be specified for the new table. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>ON COMMIT</> clause to <link - linkend="SQL-CREATETABLEAS"><command>CREATE TABLE AS</></link> - (Neil) - </para> - - <para> - This allows temporary tables to be truncated or dropped on - transaction commit. The default behavior is for the table - to remain until the session ends. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>INCLUDING CONSTRAINTS</> to <link - linkend="SQL-CREATETABLE"><command>CREATE TABLE LIKE</></link> - (Greg Stark) - </para> - - <para> - This allows easy copying of <literal>CHECK</> constraints to a new - table. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow the creation of placeholder (shell) <link - linkend="SQL-CREATETYPE">types</link> (Martijn van Oosterhout) - </para> - - <para> - A shell type declaration creates a type name, without specifying - any of the details of the type. Making a shell type is useful - because it allows cleaner declaration of the type's input/output - functions, which must exist before the type can be defined <quote>for - real</>. The syntax is <command>CREATE TYPE <replaceable - class="parameter">typename</replaceable></>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <link linkend="SQL-CREATEAGGREGATE">Aggregate functions</link> - now support multiple input parameters (Sergey Koposov, Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add new aggregate creation <link - linkend="SQL-CREATEAGGREGATE">syntax</link> (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The new syntax is <command>CREATE AGGREGATE - <replaceable>aggname</> (<replaceable>input_type</>) - (<replaceable>parameter_list</>)</command>. This more - naturally supports the new multi-parameter aggregate - functionality. The previous syntax is still supported. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <link - linkend="SQL-ALTERROLE"><command>ALTER ROLE PASSWORD NULL</></link> - to remove a previously set role password (Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <command>DROP</> object <literal>IF EXISTS</> for many - object types (Andrew) - </para> - - <para> - This allows <command>DROP</> operations on non-existent - objects without generating an error. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <link linkend="SQL-DROP-OWNED"><literal>DROP OWNED</></link> - to drop all objects owned by a role (Alvaro) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <link linkend="SQL-REASSIGN-OWNED"><literal>REASSIGN - OWNED</></link> to reassign ownership of all objects owned - by a role (Alvaro) - </para> - - <para> - This, and <literal>DROP OWNED</> above, facilitate dropping - roles. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <link linkend="SQL-GRANT"><command>GRANT ON SEQUENCE</></link> - syntax (Bruce) - </para> - - <para> - This was added for setting sequence-specific permissions. - <literal>GRANT ON TABLE</> for sequences is still supported - for backward compatibility. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <link linkend="SQL-GRANT"><literal>USAGE</></link> - permission for sequences that allows only <function>currval()</> - and <function>nextval()</>, not <function>setval()</> - (Bruce) - </para> - - <para> - <literal>USAGE</> permission allows more fine-grained - control over sequence access. Granting <literal>USAGE</> - allows users to increment - a sequence, but prevents them from setting the sequence to - an arbitrary value using <function>setval()</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <link linkend="SQL-ALTERTABLE"><literal>ALTER TABLE - [ NO ] INHERIT</></link> (Greg Stark) - </para> - - <para> - This allows inheritance to be adjusted dynamically, rather than - just at table creation and destruction. This is very valuable - when using inheritance to implement table partitioning. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <link linkend="SQL-COMMENT">comments</link> on global - objects to be stored globally (Kris Jurka) - </para> - - <para> - Previously, comments attached to databases were stored in individual - databases, making them ineffective, and there was no provision - at all for comments on roles or tablespaces. This change adds a new - shared catalog <link - linkend="catalog-pg-shdescription"><structname>pg_shdescription</structname></link> - and stores comments on databases, roles, and tablespaces therein. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Utility Command Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add option to allow indexes to be created without blocking - concurrent writes to the table (Greg Stark, Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The new syntax is <link linkend="SQL-CREATEINDEX"><command>CREATE - INDEX CONCURRENTLY</></link>. The default behavior is - still to block table modification while a index is being - created. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Provide <link linkend="functions-advisory-locks">advisory - locking</link> functionality (Abhijit Menon-Sen, Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This is a new locking API designed to replace what used to be - in /contrib/userlock. The userlock code is now on pgfoundry. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <link linkend="SQL-COPY"><command>COPY</></link> to - dump a <command>SELECT</> query (Zoltan Boszormenyi, Karel - Zak) - </para> - - <para> - This allows <command>COPY</> to dump arbitrary <acronym>SQL</> - queries. The syntax is <literal>COPY (SELECT ...) TO</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make the <link linkend="SQL-COPY"><command>COPY</></link> - command return a command tag that includes the number of - rows copied (Volkan YAZICI) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <link linkend="SQL-VACUUM"><command>VACUUM</></link> - to expire rows without being affected by other concurrent - <command>VACUUM</> operations (Hannu Krossing, Alvaro, Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <link linkend="APP-INITDB"><application>initdb</></link> - detect the operating system locale and set the default - <varname>DateStyle</> accordingly (Peter) - </para> - - <para> - This makes it more likely that the installed - <filename>postgresql.conf</> <varname>DateStyle</> value will - be as desired. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Reduce number of progress messages displayed by <application>initdb</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Date/Time Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow full timezone names in <link - linkend="datatype-datetime"><type>timestamp</></link> input values - (Joachim Wieland) - </para> - - <para> - For example, <literal>'2006-05-24 21:11 - America/New_York'::timestamptz</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support configurable timezone abbreviations (Joachim Wieland) - </para> - - <para> - A desired set of timezone abbreviations can be chosen via the - configuration parameter <link - linkend="guc-timezone-abbreviations"><varname>timezone_abbreviations</></link>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <link - linkend="view-pg-timezone-abbrevs"><varname>pg_timezone_abbrevs</></link> - and <link - linkend="view-pg-timezone-names"><varname>pg_timezone_names</></link> - views to show supported timezones (Magnus Hagander) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <link - linkend="functions-datetime-table"><function>clock_timestamp()</></link>, - <link - linkend="functions-datetime-table"><function>statement_timestamp()</></link>, - and <link - linkend="functions-datetime-table"><function>transaction_timestamp()</></link> - (Bruce) - </para> - - <para> - <function>clock_timestamp()</> is the current wall-clock time, - <function>statement_timestamp()</> is the time the current - statement arrived at the server, and - <function>transaction_timestamp()</> is an alias for - <function>now()</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <link - linkend="functions-formatting"><function>to_char()</></link> - to print localized month and day names (Euler Taveira de - Oliveira) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <link - linkend="functions-formatting"><function>to_char(time)</></link> - and <link - linkend="functions-formatting"><function>to_char(interval)</></link> - to output <acronym>AM</>/<acronym>PM</> specifications - (Bruce) - </para> - - <para> - Intervals and times are treated as 24-hour periods, e.g. - <literal>25 hours</> is considered <acronym>AM</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add new function <link - linkend="functions-datetime-table"><function>justify_interval()</></link> - to adjust interval units (Mark Dilger) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow timezone offsets up to 14:59 away from GMT - </para> - - <para> - Kiribati uses GMT+14, so we'd better accept that. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Interval computation improvements (Michael Glaesemann, Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Other Data Type and Function Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow arrays to contain <literal>NULL</> elements (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow assignment to array elements not contiguous with the existing - entries (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The intervening array positions will be filled with nulls. - This is per SQL standard. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - New built-in <link linkend="functions-array">operators</link> - for array-subset comparisons (<literal>@></>, - <literal><@</>, <literal>&&</>) (Teodor, Tom) - </para> - - <para> - These operators can be indexed for many data types using - <acronym>GiST</> or <acronym>GIN</> indexes. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add convenient arithmetic <link - linkend="cidr-inet-operators-table">operations</link> on - <type>INET</>/<type>CIDR</> values (Stephen R. van den - Berg) - </para> - - <para> - The new operators are <literal>&</> (and), <literal>|</> - (or), <literal>~</> (not), <type>inet</> <literal>+</> <type>int8</>, - <type>inet</> <literal>-</> <type>int8</>, and - <type>inet</> <literal>-</> <type>inet</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add new <link - linkend="functions-aggregate-statistics-table">aggregate functions</link> - from SQL:2003 (Neil) - </para> - - <para> - The new functions are <function>var_pop()</>, - <function>var_samp()</>, <function>stddev_pop()</>, and - <function>stddev_samp()</>. <function>var_samp()</> and - <function>stddev_samp()</> are merely renamings of the - existing aggregates <function>variance()</> and - <function>stddev()</>. The latter names remain available - for backward compatibility. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add SQL:2003 statistical <link - linkend="functions-aggregate-statistics-table">aggregates</link> - (Sergey Koposov) - </para> - - <para> - New functions: <function>regr_intercept()</>, - <function>regr_slope()</>, <function>regr_r2()</>, - <function>corr()</>, <function>covar_samp()</>, - <function>covar_pop()</>, <function>regr_avgx()</>, - <function>regr_avgy()</>, <function>regr_sxy()</>, - <function>regr_sxx()</>, <function>regr_syy()</>, - <function>regr_count()</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <link linkend="SQL-CREATEDOMAIN">domains</link> to be - based on other domains (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Properly enforce domain <link - linkend="ddl-constraints"><literal>CHECK</></link> constraints - everywhere (Neil, Tom) - </para> - - <para> - For example, the result of a user-defined function that is - declared to return a domain type is now checked against the - domain's constraints. This closes a significant hole in the domain - implementation. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix problems with dumping renamed <link - linkend="datatype-serial"><type>SERIAL</></link> columns - (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The fix is to dump a <type>SERIAL</> column by explicitly - specifying its <literal>DEFAULT</> and sequence elements, - and reconstructing the <type>SERIAL</> column on reload - using a new <link linkend="SQL-ALTERSEQUENCE"><command>ALTER - SEQUENCE OWNED BY</></link> command. This also allows - dropping a <type>SERIAL</> column specification. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add a server-side sleep function <link - linkend="functions-datetime-delay"><function>pg_sleep()</></link> - (Joachim Wieland) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add all comparison operators for the <link - linkend="datatype-oid"><type>tid</></link> (tuple id) data - type (Mark Kirkwood, Greg Stark, Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>PL/PgSQL Server-Side Language Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>TG_table_name</> and <literal>TG_table_schema</> to - trigger parameters (Andrew) - </para> - - <para> - <literal>TG_relname</> is now deprecated. Comparable - changes have been made in the trigger parameters for the other - PLs as well. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <literal>FOR</> statements to return values to scalars - as well as records and row types (Pavel Stehule) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add a <literal>BY</> clause to the <literal>FOR</> loop, - to control the iteration increment (Jaime Casanova) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>STRICT</> to <link - linkend="plpgsql-statements-sql-onerow"><command>SELECT - INTO</></link> (Matt Miller) - </para> - - <para> - <literal>STRICT</> mode throws an exception if more or less - than one row is returned by the <command>SELECT</>, for - <productname>Oracle PL/SQL</> compatibility. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>PL/Perl Server-Side Language Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>table_name</> and <literal>table_schema</> to - trigger parameters (Adam Sjøgren) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add prepared queries (Dmitry Karasik) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <literal>$_TD</> trigger data a global variable (Andrew) - </para> - - <para> - Previously, it was lexical, which caused unexpected sharing - violations. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Run PL/Perl and PL/PerlU in separate interpreters, for security - reasons (Andrew) - </para> - <para> - In consequence, they can no longer share data nor loaded modules. - Also, if Perl has not been compiled with the requisite flags to - allow multiple interpreters, only one of these languages can be used - in any given backend process. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>PL/Python Server-Side Language Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Named parameters are passed as ordinary variables, as well as in the - <literal>args[]</> array (Sven Suursoho) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>table_name</> and <literal>table_schema</> to - trigger parameters (Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow returning of composite types and result sets (Sven Suursoho) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Return result-set as <literal>list</>, <literal>iterator</>, - or <literal>generator </>(Sven Suursoho) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow functions to return <literal>void</> (Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Python 2.5 is now supported (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title><link linkend="APP-PSQL"><application>psql</></link> Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add new command <literal>\password</> for changing role - password with client-side password encryption (Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <literal>\c</> to connect to a new host and port - number (David, Volkan YAZICI) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add tablespace display to <literal>\l+</> (Philip Yarra) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve <literal>\df</> slash command to include the argument - names and modes (<literal>OUT</> or <literal>INOUT</>) of - the function (David Fetter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support binary <command>COPY</> (Andreas Pflug) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add option to run the entire session in a single transaction - (Simon) - </para> - - <para> - Use option <literal>-1</> or <literal>--single-transaction</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support for automatically retrieving <command>SELECT</> - results in batches using a cursor (Chris Mair) - </para> - - <para> - This is enabled using <command>\set FETCH_COUNT - <replaceable>n</></command>. This - feature allows large result sets to be retrieved in - <application>psql</> without attempting to buffer the entire - result set in memory. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make multi-line values align in the proper column - (Martijn van Oosterhout) - </para> - - <para> - Field values containing newlines are now displayed in a more - readable fashion. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Save multi-line statements as a single entry, rather than - one line at a time (Sergey E. Koposov) - </para> - - <para> - This makes up-arrow recall of queries easier. (This is - not available on Windows, because that platform uses the native - command-line editing present in the operating system.) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make the line counter 64-bit so it can handle files with more - than two billion lines (David Fetter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Report both the returned data and the command status tag - for <command>INSERT</>/<command>UPDATE</>/<command>DELETE - RETURNING</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title><link linkend="APP-PGDUMP"><application>pg_dump</></link> Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow complex selection of objects to be included or excluded - by <application>pg_dump</> (Greg Sabino Mullane) - </para> - - <para> - <application>pg_dump</> now supports multiple <literal>-n</> - (schema) and <literal>-t</> (table) options, and adds - <literal>-N</> and <literal>-T</> options to exclude objects. - Also, the arguments of these switches can now be wild-card expressions - rather than single object names, for example - <literal>-t 'foo*'</>, and a schema can be part of - a <literal>-t</> or <literal>-T</> switch, for example - <literal>-t schema1.table1</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <link linkend="APP-PGRESTORE"><application>pg_restore</></link> - <literal>--no-data-for-failed-tables</> option to suppress - loading data if table creation failed (i.e., the table already - exists) (Martin Pitt) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <link linkend="APP-PGRESTORE"><application>pg_restore</></link> - option to run the entire session in a single transaction - (Simon) - </para> - - <para> - Use option <literal>-1</> or <literal>--single-transaction</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title><link linkend="libpq"><application>libpq</></link> Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <link - linkend="libpq-misc"><function>PQencryptPassword()</></link> - to encrypt passwords (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This allows passwords to be sent pre-encrypted for commands - like <link linkend="SQL-ALTERROLE"><command>ALTER ROLE ... - PASSWORD</></link>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add function <link - linkend="libpq-threading"><function>PQisthreadsafe()</></link> - (Bruce) - </para> - - <para> - This allows applications to query the thread-safety status - of the library. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <link - linkend="libpq-exec-main"><function>PQdescribePrepared()</></link>, - <link - linkend="libpq-exec-main"><function>PQdescribePortal()</></link>, - and related functions to return information about previously - prepared statements and open cursors (Volkan YAZICI) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <link linkend="libpq-ldap"><acronym>LDAP</></link> lookups - from <link - linkend="libpq-pgservice"><filename>pg_service.conf</></link> - (Laurenz Albe) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow a hostname in <link - linkend="libpq-pgpass"><filename>~/.pgpass</></link> - to match the default socket directory (Bruce) - </para> - - <para> - A blank hostname continues to match any Unix-socket connection, - but this addition allows entries that are specific to one of - several postmasters on the machine. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title><link linkend="ecpg"><application>ecpg</></link> Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <link linkend="SQL-SHOW"><command>SHOW</></link> to - put its result into a variable (Joachim Wieland) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <link linkend="SQL-COPY"><command>COPY TO STDOUT</></link> - (Joachim Wieland) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add regression tests (Joachim Wieland, Michael) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Major source code cleanups (Joachim Wieland, Michael) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title><application>Windows</> Port</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <acronym>MSVC</> to compile the <productname>PostgreSQL</> - server (Magnus, Hiroshi Saito) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <acronym>MSVC</> support for utility commands and <link - linkend="APP-PGDUMP"><application>pg_dump</></link> (Hiroshi - Saito) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add support for Windows code pages <literal>1253</>, - <literal>1254</>, <literal>1255</>, and <literal>1257</> - (Kris Jurka) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Drop privileges on startup, so that the server can be started from - an administrative account (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Stability fixes (Qingqing Zhou, Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add native semaphore implementation (Qingqing Zhou) - </para> - - <para> - The previous code mimicked SysV semaphores. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Source Code Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <link linkend="GIN"><acronym>GIN</></link> (Generalized - Inverted iNdex) index access method (Teodor, Oleg) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove R-tree indexing (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Rtree has been re-implemented using <link - linkend="GiST"><acronym>GiST</></link>. Among other - differences, this means that rtree indexes now have support - for crash recovery via write-ahead logging (WAL). - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Reduce libraries needlessly linked into the backend (Martijn - van Oosterhout, Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add a configure flag to allow libedit to be preferred over - <acronym>GNU</> readline (Bruce) - </para> - - <para> - Use configure <link - linkend="configure"><literal>--with-libedit-preferred</></link>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow installation into directories containing spaces - (Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve ability to relocate installation directories (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add support for <productname>Solaris x86_64</> using the - <productname>Solaris</> compiler (Pierre Girard, Theo - Schlossnagle, Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <application>DTrace</> support (Robert Lor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>PG_VERSION_NUM</> for use by third-party - applications wanting to test the backend version in C using > - and < comparisons (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>XLOG_BLCKSZ</> as independent from <literal>BLCKSZ</> - (Mark Wong) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>LWLOCK_STATS</> define to report locking - activity (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Emit warnings for unknown <application>configure</> options - (Martijn van Oosterhout) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add server support for <quote>plugin</> libraries - that can be used for add-on tasks such as debugging and performance - measurement (Korry Douglas) - </para> - - <para> - This consists of two features: a table of <quote>rendezvous - variables</> that allows separately-loaded shared libraries to - communicate, and a new configuration parameter <link - linkend="guc-local-preload-libraries"><varname>local_preload_libraries</></link> - that allows libraries to be loaded into specific sessions without - explicit cooperation from the client application. This allows - external add-ons to implement features such as a PL/PgSQL debugger. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Rename existing configuration parameter - <varname>preload_libraries</> to <link - linkend="guc-shared-preload-libraries"><varname>shared_preload_libraries</></link> - (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This was done for clarity in comparison to - <varname>local_preload_libraries</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add new configuration parameter <link - linkend="guc-server-version-num"><varname>server_version_num</></link> - (Greg Sabino Mullane) - </para> - - <para> - This is like <varname>server_version</varname>, but is an - integer, e.g. <literal>80200</>. This allows applications to - make version checks more easily. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add a configuration parameter <link - linkend="guc-seq-page-cost"><varname>seq_page_cost</></link> - (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Re-implement the <link linkend="regress">regression test</link> script as a C program - (Magnus, Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow loadable modules to allocate shared memory and - lightweight locks (Marc Munro) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add automatic initialization and finalization of dynamically - loaded libraries (Ralf Engelschall, Tom) - </para> - - <para> - New <link linkend="xfunc-c-dynload">functions</link> - <function>_PG_init()</> and <function>_PG_fini()</> are - called if the library defines such symbols. Hence we no - longer need to specify an initialization function in - <varname>shared_preload_libraries</>; we can assume that - the library used the <function>_PG_init()</> convention - instead. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <link - linkend="xfunc-c-dynload"><literal>PG_MODULE_MAGIC</></link> - header block to all shared object files (Martijn van - Oosterhout) - </para> - - <para> - The magic block prevents version mismatches between loadable object - files and servers. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add shared library support for AIX (Laurenz Albe) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - New <link linkend="datatype-xml"><acronym>XML</></link> - documentation section (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Contrib Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Major tsearch2 improvements (Oleg, Teodor) - </para> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - multibyte encoding support, including <acronym>UTF8</> - </para> - </listitem> - <listitem> - <para> - query rewriting support - </para> - </listitem> - <listitem> - <para> - improved ranking functions - </para> - </listitem> - <listitem> - <para> - thesaurus dictionary support - </para> - </listitem> - <listitem> - <para> - Ispell dictionaries now recognize <application>MySpell</> - format, used by <application>OpenOffice</> - </para> - </listitem> - <listitem> - <para> - <acronym>GIN</> support - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add adminpack module containing <application>Pgadmin</> administration - functions (Dave) - </para> - - <para> - These functions provide additional file system access - routines not present in the default <productname>PostgreSQL</> - server. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add sslinfo module (Victor Wagner) - </para> - - <para> - Reports information about the current connection's <acronym>SSL</> - certificate. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add pgrowlocks module (Tatsuo) - </para> - - <para> - This shows row locking information for a specified table. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add hstore module (Oleg, Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add isn module, replacing isbn_issn (Jeremy Kronuz) - </para> - - <para> - This new implementation supports <acronym>EAN13</>, <acronym>UPC</>, - <acronym>ISBN</> (books), <acronym>ISMN</> (music), and - <acronym>ISSN</> (serials). - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add index information functions to pgstattuple (ITAGAKI Takahiro, - Satoshi Nagayasu) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add pg_freespacemap module to display free space map information - (Mark Kirkwood) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - pgcrypto now has all planned functionality (Marko Kreen) - </para> - <itemizedlist> - <listitem> - <para> - Include iMath library in pgcrypto to have the public-key encryption - functions always available. - </para> - </listitem> - <listitem> - <para> - Add SHA224 algorithm that was missing in OpenBSD code. - </para> - </listitem> - <listitem> - <para> - Activate builtin code for SHA224/256/384/512 hashes on older - OpenSSL to have those algorithms always available. - </para> - </listitem> - <listitem> - <para> - New function gen_random_bytes() that returns cryptographically strong - randomness. Useful for generating encryption keys. - </para> - </listitem> - <listitem> - <para> - Remove digest_exists(), hmac_exists() and cipher_exists() functions. - </para> - </listitem> - </itemizedlist> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improvements to cube module (Joshua Reich) - </para> - - <para> - New functions are <function>cube(float[])</>, - <function>cube(float[], float[])</>, and - <function>cube_subset(cube, int4[])</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add async query capability to dblink (Kai Londenberg, - Joe Conway) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - New operators for array-subset comparisons (<literal>@></>, - <literal><@</>, <literal>&&</>) (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Various contrib packages already had these operators for their - datatypes, but the naming wasn't consistent. We have now added - consistently named array-subset comparison operators to the core code - and all the contrib packages that have such functionality. - (The old names remain available, but are deprecated.) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add uninstall scripts for all contrib packages that have install - scripts (David, Josh Drake) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect3> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-1-17"> - <title>Release 8.1.17</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2009-03-16</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.16. - For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-1">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.1.17</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.15, - see the release notes for 8.1.15. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent error recursion crashes when encoding conversion fails (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This change extends fixes made in the last two minor releases for - related failure scenarios. The previous fixes were narrowly tailored - for the original problem reports, but we have now recognized that - <emphasis>any</> error thrown by an encoding conversion function could - potentially lead to infinite recursion while trying to report the - error. The solution therefore is to disable translation and encoding - conversion and report the plain-ASCII form of any error message, - if we find we have gotten into a recursive error reporting situation. - (CVE-2009-0922) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Disallow <command>CREATE CONVERSION</> with the wrong encodings - for the specified conversion function (Heikki) - </para> - - <para> - This prevents one possible scenario for encoding conversion failure. - The previous change is a backstop to guard against other kinds of - failures in the same area. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix core dump when <function>to_char()</> is given format codes that - are inappropriate for the type of the data argument (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix decompilation of <literal>CASE WHEN</> with an implicit coercion - (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This mistake could lead to Assert failures in an Assert-enabled build, - or an <quote>unexpected CASE WHEN clause</> error message in other - cases, when trying to examine or dump a view. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible misassignment of the owner of a TOAST table's rowtype (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - If <command>CLUSTER</> or a rewriting variant of <command>ALTER TABLE</> - were executed by someone other than the table owner, the - <structname>pg_type</> entry for the table's TOAST table would end up - marked as owned by that someone. This caused no immediate problems, - since the permissions on the TOAST rowtype aren't examined by any - ordinary database operation. However, it could lead to unexpected - failures if one later tried to drop the role that issued the command - (in 8.1 or 8.2), or <quote>owner of data type appears to be invalid</> - warnings from <application>pg_dump</> after having done so (in 8.3). - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Clean up PL/pgSQL error status variables fully at block exit - (Ashesh Vashi and Dave Page) - </para> - - <para> - This is not a problem for PL/pgSQL itself, but the omission could cause - the PL/pgSQL Debugger to crash while examining the state of a function. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>MUST</> (Mauritius Island Summer Time) to the default list - of known timezone abbreviations (Xavier Bugaud) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-1-16"> - <title>Release 8.1.16</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2009-02-02</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.15. - For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-1">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.1.16</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.15, - see the release notes for 8.1.15. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix crash in autovacuum (Alvaro) - </para> - - <para> - The crash occurs only after vacuuming a whole database for - anti-transaction-wraparound purposes, which means that it occurs - infrequently and is hard to track down. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve handling of URLs in <function>headline()</> function (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve handling of overlength headlines in <function>headline()</> - function (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent possible Assert failure or misconversion if an encoding - conversion is created with the wrong conversion function for the - specified pair of encodings (Tom, Heikki) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Avoid unnecessary locking of small tables in <command>VACUUM</> - (Heikki) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Ensure that the contents of a holdable cursor don't depend on the - contents of TOAST tables (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Previously, large field values in a cursor result might be represented - as TOAST pointers, which would fail if the referenced table got dropped - before the cursor is read, or if the large value is deleted and then - vacuumed away. This cannot happen with an ordinary cursor, - but it could with a cursor that is held past its creating transaction. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix uninitialized variables in <filename>contrib/tsearch2</>'s - <function>get_covers()</> function (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>configure</> script to properly report failure when - unable to obtain linkage information for PL/Perl (Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make all documentation reference <literal>pgsql-bugs</> and/or - <literal>pgsql-hackers</> as appropriate, instead of the - now-decommissioned <literal>pgsql-ports</> and <literal>pgsql-patches</> - mailing lists (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2009a (for - Kathmandu and historical DST corrections in Switzerland, Cuba) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-1-15"> - <title>Release 8.1.15</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2008-11-03</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.14. - For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-1">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.1.15</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.2, - see the release notes for 8.1.2. Also, if you were running a previous - 8.1.X release, it is recommended to <command>REINDEX</> all GiST - indexes after the upgrade. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix GiST index corruption due to marking the wrong index entry - <quote>dead</> after a deletion (Teodor) - </para> - - <para> - This would result in index searches failing to find rows they - should have found. Corrupted indexes can be fixed with - <command>REINDEX</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix backend crash when the client encoding cannot represent a localized - error message (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - We have addressed similar issues before, but it would still fail if - the <quote>character has no equivalent</> message itself couldn't - be converted. The fix is to disable localization and send the plain - ASCII error message when we detect such a situation. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible crash when deeply nested functions are invoked from - a trigger (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix mis-expansion of rule queries when a sub-<literal>SELECT</> appears - in a function call in <literal>FROM</>, a multi-row <literal>VALUES</> - list, or a <literal>RETURNING</> list (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The usual symptom of this problem is an <quote>unrecognized node type</> - error. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Ensure an error is reported when a newly-defined PL/pgSQL trigger - function is invoked as a normal function (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent possible collision of <structfield>relfilenode</> numbers - when moving a table to another tablespace with <command>ALTER SET - TABLESPACE</> (Heikki) - </para> - - <para> - The command tried to re-use the existing filename, instead of - picking one that is known unused in the destination directory. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix incorrect tsearch2 headline generation when single query - item matches first word of text (Sushant Sinha) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix improper display of fractional seconds in interval values when - using a non-ISO datestyle in an <option>--enable-integer-datetimes</> - build (Ron Mayer) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Ensure <function>SPI_getvalue</> and <function>SPI_getbinval</> - behave correctly when the passed tuple and tuple descriptor have - different numbers of columns (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This situation is normal when a table has had columns added or removed, - but these two functions didn't handle it properly. - The only likely consequence is an incorrect error indication. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>ecpg</>'s parsing of <command>CREATE ROLE</> (Michael) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix recent breakage of <literal>pg_ctl restart</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2008i (for - DST law changes in Argentina, Brazil, Mauritius, Syria) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-1-14"> - <title>Release 8.1.14</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2008-09-22</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.13. - For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-1">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.1.14</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.2, - see the release notes for 8.1.2. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Widen local lock counters from 32 to 64 bits (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This responds to reports that the counters could overflow in - sufficiently long transactions, leading to unexpected <quote>lock is - already held</> errors. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible duplicate output of tuples during a GiST index scan (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add checks in executor startup to ensure that the tuples produced by an - <command>INSERT</> or <command>UPDATE</> will match the target table's - current rowtype (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - <command>ALTER COLUMN TYPE</>, followed by re-use of a previously - cached plan, could produce this type of situation. The check protects - against data corruption and/or crashes that could ensue. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <literal>AT TIME ZONE</> to first try to interpret its timezone - argument as a timezone abbreviation, and only try it as a full timezone - name if that fails, rather than the other way around as formerly (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The timestamp input functions have always resolved ambiguous zone names - in this order. Making <literal>AT TIME ZONE</> do so as well improves - consistency, and fixes a compatibility bug introduced in 8.1: - in ambiguous cases we now behave the same as 8.0 and before did, - since in the older versions <literal>AT TIME ZONE</> accepted - <emphasis>only</> abbreviations. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix datetime input functions to correctly detect integer overflow when - running on a 64-bit platform (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve performance of writing very long log messages to syslog (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix bug in backwards scanning of a cursor on a <literal>SELECT DISTINCT - ON</> query (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix planner bug with nested sub-select expressions (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - If the outer sub-select has no direct dependency on the parent query, - but the inner one does, the outer value might not get recalculated - for new parent query rows. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix planner to estimate that <literal>GROUP BY</> expressions yielding - boolean results always result in two groups, regardless of the - expressions' contents (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This is very substantially more accurate than the regular <literal>GROUP - BY</> estimate for certain boolean tests like <replaceable>col</> - <literal>IS NULL</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix PL/PgSQL to not fail when a <literal>FOR</> loop's target variable - is a record containing composite-type fields (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix PL/Tcl to behave correctly with Tcl 8.5, and to be more careful - about the encoding of data sent to or from Tcl (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix PL/Python to work with Python 2.5 - </para> - - <para> - This is a back-port of fixes made during the 8.2 development cycle. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve <application>pg_dump</> and <application>pg_restore</>'s - error reporting after failure to send a SQL command (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>pg_ctl</> to properly preserve postmaster - command-line arguments across a <literal>restart</> (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2008f (for - DST law changes in Argentina, Bahamas, Brazil, Mauritius, Morocco, - Pakistan, Palestine, and Paraguay) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-1-13"> - <title>Release 8.1.13</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2008-06-12</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains one serious and one minor bug fix over 8.1.12. - For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-1">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.1.13</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.2, - see the release notes for 8.1.2. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <function>pg_get_ruledef()</> parenthesize negative constants (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Before this fix, a negative constant in a view or rule might be dumped - as, say, <literal>-42::integer</>, which is subtly incorrect: it should - be <literal>(-42)::integer</> due to operator precedence rules. - Usually this would make little difference, but it could interact with - another recent patch to cause - <productname>PostgreSQL</> to reject what had been a valid - <command>SELECT DISTINCT</> view query. Since this could result in - <application>pg_dump</> output failing to reload, it is being treated - as a high-priority fix. The only released versions in which dump - output is actually incorrect are 8.3.1 and 8.2.7. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>ALTER AGGREGATE ... OWNER TO</> update - <structname>pg_shdepend</> (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This oversight could lead to problems if the aggregate was later - involved in a <command>DROP OWNED</> or <command>REASSIGN OWNED</> - operation. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-1-12"> - <title>Release 8.1.12</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>never released</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.11. - For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-1">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.1.12</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.2, - see the release notes for 8.1.2. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <command>ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN ... PRIMARY KEY</> so that the new - column is correctly checked to see if it's been initialized to all - non-nulls (Brendan Jurd) - </para> - - <para> - Previous versions neglected to check this requirement at all. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible <command>CREATE TABLE</> failure when inheriting the - <quote>same</> constraint from multiple parent relations that - inherited that constraint from a common ancestor (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix conversions between ISO-8859-5 and other encodings to handle - Cyrillic <quote>Yo</> characters (<literal>e</> and <literal>E</> with - two dots) (Sergey Burladyan) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix a few datatype input functions - that were allowing unused bytes in their results to contain - uninitialized, unpredictable values (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This could lead to failures in which two apparently identical literal - values were not seen as equal, resulting in the parser complaining - about unmatched <literal>ORDER BY</> and <literal>DISTINCT</> - expressions. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix a corner case in regular-expression substring matching - (<literal>substring(<replaceable>string</> from - <replaceable>pattern</>)</literal>) (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The problem occurs when there is a match to the pattern overall but - the user has specified a parenthesized subexpression and that - subexpression hasn't got a match. An example is - <literal>substring('foo' from 'foo(bar)?')</>. - This should return NULL, since <literal>(bar)</> isn't matched, but - it was mistakenly returning the whole-pattern match instead (ie, - <literal>foo</>). - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2008c (for - DST law changes in Morocco, Iraq, Choibalsan, Pakistan, Syria, Cuba, - Argentina/San_Luis, and Chile) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix incorrect result from <application>ecpg</>'s - <function>PGTYPEStimestamp_sub()</> function (Michael) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix core dump in <filename>contrib/xml2</>'s - <function>xpath_table()</> function when the input query returns a - NULL value (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <filename>contrib/xml2</>'s makefile to not override - <literal>CFLAGS</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <literal>DatumGetBool</> macro to not fail with <application>gcc</> - 4.3 (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This problem affects <quote>old style</> (V0) C functions that - return boolean. The fix is already in 8.3, but the need to - back-patch it was not realized at the time. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix longstanding <command>LISTEN</>/<command>NOTIFY</> - race condition (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - In rare cases a session that had just executed a - <command>LISTEN</> might not get a notification, even though - one would be expected because the concurrent transaction executing - <command>NOTIFY</> was observed to commit later. - </para> - - <para> - A side effect of the fix is that a transaction that has executed - a not-yet-committed <command>LISTEN</> command will not see any - row in <structname>pg_listener</> for the <command>LISTEN</>, - should it choose to look; formerly it would have. This behavior - was never documented one way or the other, but it is possible that - some applications depend on the old behavior. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Disallow <command>LISTEN</> and <command>UNLISTEN</> within a - prepared transaction (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This was formerly allowed but trying to do it had various unpleasant - consequences, notably that the originating backend could not exit - as long as an <command>UNLISTEN</> remained uncommitted. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix rare crash when an error occurs during a query using a hash index - (Heikki) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix input of datetime values for February 29 in years BC (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The former coding was mistaken about which years were leap years. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <quote>unrecognized node type</> error in some variants of - <command>ALTER OWNER</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>pg_ctl</> to correctly extract the postmaster's port - number from command-line options (Itagaki Takahiro, Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Previously, <literal>pg_ctl start -w</> could try to contact the - postmaster on the wrong port, leading to bogus reports of startup - failure. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Use <option>-fwrapv</> to defend against possible misoptimization - in recent <application>gcc</> versions (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This is known to be necessary when building <productname>PostgreSQL</> - with <application>gcc</> 4.3 or later. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix display of constant expressions in <literal>ORDER BY</> - and <literal>GROUP BY</> (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - An explictly casted constant would be shown incorrectly. This could - for example lead to corruption of a view definition during - dump and reload. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>libpq</> to handle NOTICE messages correctly - during COPY OUT (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This failure has only been observed to occur when a user-defined - datatype's output routine issues a NOTICE, but there is no - guarantee it couldn't happen due to other causes. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-1-11"> - <title>Release 8.1.11</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2008-01-07</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.10, - including fixes for significant security issues. - For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-1">. - </para> - - <para> - This is the last 8.1.X release for which the <productname>PostgreSQL</> - community will produce binary packages for <productname>Windows</>. - Windows users are encouraged to move to 8.2.X or later, - since there are Windows-specific fixes in 8.2.X that - are impractical to back-port. 8.1.X will continue to - be supported on other platforms. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.1.11</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.2, - see the release notes for 8.1.2. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent functions in indexes from executing with the privileges of - the user running <command>VACUUM</>, <command>ANALYZE</>, etc (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Functions used in index expressions and partial-index - predicates are evaluated whenever a new table entry is made. It has - long been understood that this poses a risk of trojan-horse code - execution if one modifies a table owned by an untrustworthy user. - (Note that triggers, defaults, check constraints, etc. pose the - same type of risk.) But functions in indexes pose extra danger - because they will be executed by routine maintenance operations - such as <command>VACUUM FULL</>, which are commonly performed - automatically under a superuser account. For example, a nefarious user - can execute code with superuser privileges by setting up a - trojan-horse index definition and waiting for the next routine vacuum. - The fix arranges for standard maintenance operations - (including <command>VACUUM</>, <command>ANALYZE</>, <command>REINDEX</>, - and <command>CLUSTER</>) to execute as the table owner rather than - the calling user, using the same privilege-switching mechanism already - used for <literal>SECURITY DEFINER</> functions. To prevent bypassing - this security measure, execution of <command>SET SESSION - AUTHORIZATION</> and <command>SET ROLE</> is now forbidden within a - <literal>SECURITY DEFINER</> context. (CVE-2007-6600) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Repair assorted bugs in the regular-expression package (Tom, Will Drewry) - </para> - - <para> - Suitably crafted regular-expression patterns could cause crashes, - infinite or near-infinite looping, and/or massive memory consumption, - all of which pose denial-of-service hazards for applications that - accept regex search patterns from untrustworthy sources. - (CVE-2007-4769, CVE-2007-4772, CVE-2007-6067) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Require non-superusers who use <filename>/contrib/dblink</> to use only - password authentication, as a security measure (Joe) - </para> - - <para> - The fix that appeared for this in 8.1.10 was incomplete, as it plugged - the hole for only some <filename>dblink</> functions. (CVE-2007-6601, - CVE-2007-3278) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2007k - (in particular, recent Argentina changes) (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve planner's handling of LIKE/regex estimation in non-C locales - (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix planner failure in some cases of <literal>WHERE false AND var IN - (SELECT ...)</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Preserve the tablespace of indexes that are - rebuilt by <command>ALTER TABLE ... ALTER COLUMN TYPE</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make archive recovery always start a new WAL timeline, rather than only - when a recovery stop time was used (Simon) - </para> - - <para> - This avoids a corner-case risk of trying to overwrite an existing - archived copy of the last WAL segment, and seems simpler and cleaner - than the original definition. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>VACUUM</> not use all of <varname>maintenance_work_mem</> - when the table is too small for it to be useful (Alvaro) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix potential crash in <function>translate()</> when using a multibyte - database encoding (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix overflow in <literal>extract(epoch from interval)</> for intervals - exceeding 68 years (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix PL/Perl to not fail when a UTF-8 regular expression is used - in a trusted function (Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix PL/Perl to cope when platform's Perl defines type <literal>bool</> - as <literal>int</> rather than <literal>char</> (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - While this could theoretically happen anywhere, no standard build of - Perl did things this way ... until <productname>Mac OS X</> 10.5. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix PL/Python to not crash on long exception messages (Alvaro) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>pg_dump</> to correctly handle inheritance child tables - that have default expressions different from their parent's (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>libpq</> crash when <varname>PGPASSFILE</> refers - to a file that is not a plain file (Martin Pitt) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <application>ecpg</> parser fixes (Michael) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <filename>contrib/pgcrypto</> defend against - <application>OpenSSL</> libraries that fail on keys longer than 128 - bits; which is the case at least on some Solaris versions (Marko Kreen) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <filename>contrib/tablefunc</>'s <function>crosstab()</> handle - NULL rowid as a category in its own right, rather than crashing (Joe) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <type>tsvector</> and <type>tsquery</> output routines to - escape backslashes correctly (Teodor, Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix crash of <function>to_tsvector()</> on huge input strings (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Require a specific version of <productname>Autoconf</> to be used - when re-generating the <command>configure</> script (Peter) - </para> - - <para> - This affects developers and packagers only. The change was made - to prevent accidental use of untested combinations of - <productname>Autoconf</> and <productname>PostgreSQL</> versions. - You can remove the version check if you really want to use a - different <productname>Autoconf</> version, but it's - your responsibility whether the result works or not. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-1-10"> - <title>Release 8.1.10</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2007-09-17</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.9. - For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-1">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.1.10</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.2, - see the release notes for 8.1.2. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent index corruption when a transaction inserts rows and - then aborts close to the end of a concurrent <command>VACUUM</> - on the same table (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>CREATE DOMAIN ... DEFAULT NULL</> work properly (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow the <type>interval</> data type to accept input consisting only of - milliseconds or microseconds (Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Speed up rtree index insertion (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix excessive logging of <acronym>SSL</> error messages (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix logging so that log messages are never interleaved when using - the syslogger process (Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix crash when <varname>log_min_error_statement</> logging runs out - of memory (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix incorrect handling of some foreign-key corner cases (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent <command>REINDEX</> and <command>CLUSTER</> from failing - due to attempting to process temporary tables of other sessions (Alvaro) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update the time zone database rules, particularly New Zealand's upcoming changes (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Windows socket improvements (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Suppress timezone name (<literal>%Z</>) in log timestamps on Windows - because of possible encoding mismatches (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Require non-superusers who use <filename>/contrib/dblink</> to use only - password authentication, as a security measure (Joe) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-1-9"> - <title>Release 8.1.9</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2007-04-23</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.8, - including a security fix. - For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-1">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.1.9</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.2, - see the release notes for 8.1.2. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support explicit placement of the temporary-table schema within - <varname>search_path</>, and disable searching it for functions - and operators (Tom) - </para> - <para> - This is needed to allow a security-definer function to set a - truly secure value of <varname>search_path</>. Without it, - an unprivileged SQL user can use temporary objects to execute code - with the privileges of the security-definer function (CVE-2007-2138). - See <command>CREATE FUNCTION</> for more information. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <filename>/contrib/tsearch2</> crash fixes (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Require <command>COMMIT PREPARED</> to be executed in the same - database as the transaction was prepared in (Heikki) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix potential-data-corruption bug in how <command>VACUUM FULL</> handles - <command>UPDATE</> chains (Tom, Pavan Deolasee) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Planner fixes, including improving outer join and bitmap scan - selection logic (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix PANIC during enlargement of a hash index (bug introduced in 8.1.6) - (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix POSIX-style timezone specs to follow new USA DST rules (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-1-8"> - <title>Release 8.1.8</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2007-02-07</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains one fix from 8.1.7. - For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-1">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.1.8</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.2, - see the release notes for 8.1.2. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove overly-restrictive check for type length in constraints and - functional indexes(Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-1-7"> - <title>Release 8.1.7</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2007-02-05</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.6, including - a security fix. - For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-1">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.1.7</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.2, - see the release notes for 8.1.2. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove security vulnerabilities that allowed connected users - to read backend memory (Tom) - </para> - <para> - The vulnerabilities involve suppressing the normal check that a SQL - function returns the data type it's declared to, and changing the - data type of a table column (CVE-2007-0555, CVE-2007-0556). These - errors can easily be exploited to cause a backend crash, and in - principle might be used to read database content that the user - should not be able to access. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix rare bug wherein btree index page splits could fail - due to choosing an infeasible split point (Heikki Linnakangas) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve <command>VACUUM</> performance for databases with many tables (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix autovacuum to avoid leaving non-permanent transaction IDs in - non-connectable databases (Alvaro) - </para> - - <para> - This bug affects the 8.1 branch only. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix for rare Assert() crash triggered by <literal>UNION</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Tighten security of multi-byte character processing for UTF8 sequences - over three bytes long (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix bogus <quote>permission denied</> failures occurring on Windows - due to attempts to fsync already-deleted files (Magnus, Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible crashes when an already-in-use PL/pgSQL function is - updated (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-1-6"> - <title>Release 8.1.6</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2007-01-08</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.5. - For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-1">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.1.6</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.2, - see the release notes for 8.1.2. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve handling of <function>getaddrinfo()</> on AIX (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This fixes a problem with starting the statistics collector, - among other things. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>pg_restore</> to handle a tar-format backup - that contains large objects (blobs) with comments (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <quote>failed to re-find parent key</> errors in - <command>VACUUM</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Clean out <filename>pg_internal.init</> cache files during server - restart (Simon) - </para> - - <para> - This avoids a hazard that the cache files might contain stale - data after PITR recovery. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix race condition for truncation of a large relation across a - gigabyte boundary by <command>VACUUM</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix bug causing needless deadlock errors on row-level locks (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix bugs affecting multi-gigabyte hash indexes (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible deadlock in Windows signal handling (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix error when constructing an <literal>ARRAY[]</> made up of multiple - empty elements (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix ecpg memory leak during connection (Michael) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix for Darwin (OS X) compilation (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <function>to_number()</> and <function>to_char(numeric)</> - are now <literal>STABLE</>, not <literal>IMMUTABLE</>, for - new <application>initdb</> installs (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This is because <varname>lc_numeric</> can potentially - change the output of these functions. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve index usage of regular expressions that use parentheses (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This improves <application>psql</> <literal>\d</> performance also. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update timezone database - </para> - - <para> - This affects Australian and Canadian daylight-savings rules in - particular. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-1-5"> - <title>Release 8.1.5</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2006-10-16</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.4. - For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-1">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.1.5</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.2, - see the release notes for 8.1.2. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Disallow aggregate functions in <command>UPDATE</> -commands, except within sub-SELECTs (Tom)</para> -<para>The behavior of such an aggregate was unpredictable, and in 8.1.X -could cause a crash, so it has been disabled. The SQL standard does not allow -this either.</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix core dump when an untyped literal is taken as -ANYARRAY</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix core dump in duration logging for extended query protocol -when a <command>COMMIT</> or <command>ROLLBACK</> is -executed</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix mishandling of AFTER triggers when query contains a SQL -function returning multiple rows (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <command>ALTER TABLE ... TYPE</> to recheck -<literal>NOT NULL</> for <literal>USING</> clause (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <function>string_to_array()</> to handle overlapping - matches for the separator string</para> -<para>For example, <literal>string_to_array('123xx456xxx789', 'xx')</>. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <function>to_timestamp()</> for -<literal>AM</>/<literal>PM</> formats (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix autovacuum's calculation that decides whether - <command>ANALYZE</> is needed (Alvaro)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix corner cases in pattern matching for - <application>psql</>'s <literal>\d</> commands</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix index-corrupting bugs in /contrib/ltree - (Teodor)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Numerous robustness fixes in <application>ecpg</> (Joachim -Wieland)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix backslash escaping in /contrib/dbmirror</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Minor fixes in /contrib/dblink and /contrib/tsearch2</para> -</listitem> -<listitem><para>Efficiency improvements in hash tables and bitmap index scans -(Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix instability of statistics collection on Windows (Tom, Andrew)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <varname>statement_timeout</> to use the proper -units on Win32 (Bruce)</para> -<para>In previous Win32 8.1.X versions, the delay was off by a factor of -100.</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fixes for <acronym>MSVC</> and <productname>Borland C++</> -compilers (Hiroshi Saito)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fixes for <systemitem class="osname">AIX</> and -<productname>Intel</> compilers (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix rare bug in continuous archiving (Tom)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-1-4"> - <title>Release 8.1.4</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2006-05-23</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.3, - including patches for extremely serious security issues. - For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-1">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.1.4</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.2, - see the release notes for 8.1.2. - </para> - - <para> - Full security against the SQL-injection attacks described in - CVE-2006-2313 and CVE-2006-2314 might require changes in application - code. If you have applications that embed untrustworthy strings - into SQL commands, you should examine them as soon as possible to - ensure that they are using recommended escaping techniques. In - most cases, applications should be using subroutines provided by - libraries or drivers (such as <application>libpq</>'s - <function>PQescapeStringConn()</>) to perform string escaping, - rather than relying on <foreignphrase>ad hoc</> code to do it. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Change the server to reject invalidly-encoded multibyte -characters in all cases (Tatsuo, Tom)</para> -<para>While <productname>PostgreSQL</> has been moving in this direction for -some time, the checks are now applied uniformly to all encodings and all -textual input, and are now always errors not merely warnings. This change -defends against SQL-injection attacks of the type described in CVE-2006-2313. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Reject unsafe uses of <literal>\'</> in string literals</para> -<para>As a server-side defense against SQL-injection attacks of the type -described in CVE-2006-2314, the server now only accepts <literal>''</> and not -<literal>\'</> as a representation of ASCII single quote in SQL string -literals. By default, <literal>\'</> is rejected only when -<varname>client_encoding</> is set to a client-only encoding (SJIS, BIG5, GBK, -GB18030, or UHC), which is the scenario in which SQL injection is possible. -A new configuration parameter <varname>backslash_quote</> is available to -adjust this behavior when needed. Note that full security against -CVE-2006-2314 might require client-side changes; the purpose of -<varname>backslash_quote</> is in part to make it obvious that insecure -clients are insecure. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Modify <application>libpq</>'s string-escaping routines to be -aware of encoding considerations and -<varname>standard_conforming_strings</></para> -<para>This fixes <application>libpq</>-using applications for the security -issues described in CVE-2006-2313 and CVE-2006-2314, and also future-proofs -them against the planned changeover to SQL-standard string literal syntax. -Applications that use multiple <productname>PostgreSQL</> connections -concurrently should migrate to <function>PQescapeStringConn()</> and -<function>PQescapeByteaConn()</> to ensure that escaping is done correctly -for the settings in use in each database connection. Applications that -do string escaping <quote>by hand</> should be modified to rely on library -routines instead. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix weak key selection in pgcrypto (Marko Kreen)</para> -<para>Errors in fortuna PRNG reseeding logic could cause a predictable -session key to be selected by <function>pgp_sym_encrypt()</> in some cases. -This only affects non-OpenSSL-using builds. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix some incorrect encoding conversion functions</para> -<para><function>win1251_to_iso</>, <function>win866_to_iso</>, -<function>euc_tw_to_big5</>, <function>euc_tw_to_mic</>, -<function>mic_to_euc_tw</> were all broken to varying -extents. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Clean up stray remaining uses of <literal>\'</> in strings -(Bruce, Jan)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Make autovacuum visible in <structname>pg_stat_activity</> -(Alvaro)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Disable <literal>full_page_writes</> (Tom)</para> -<para>In certain cases, having <literal>full_page_writes</> off would cause -crash recovery to fail. A proper fix will appear in 8.2; for now it's just -disabled. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Various planner fixes, particularly for bitmap index scans and -MIN/MAX optimization (Tom)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix incorrect optimization in merge join (Tom)</para> -<para>Outer joins could sometimes emit multiple copies of unmatched rows. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix crash from using and modifying a plpgsql function in the -same transaction</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix WAL replay for case where a B-Tree index has been -truncated</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix <literal>SIMILAR TO</> for patterns involving -<literal>|</> (Tom)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix <command>SELECT INTO</> and <command>CREATE TABLE AS</> to -create tables in the default tablespace, not the base directory (Kris -Jurka)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix server to use custom DH SSL parameters correctly (Michael -Fuhr)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Improve qsort performance (Dann Corbit)</para> -<para>Currently this code is only used on Solaris. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix for OS/X Bonjour on x86 systems (Ashley Clark)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix various minor memory leaks</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix problem with password prompting on some Win32 systems -(Robert Kinberg)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Improve <application>pg_dump</>'s handling of default values -for domains</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix <application>pg_dumpall</> to handle identically-named -users and groups reasonably (only possible when dumping from a pre-8.1 server) -(Tom)</para> -<para>The user and group will be merged into a single role with -<literal>LOGIN</> permission. Formerly the merged role wouldn't have -<literal>LOGIN</> permission, making it unusable as a user. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix <application>pg_restore</> <literal>-n</> to work as -documented (Tom)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-1-3"> - <title>Release 8.1.3</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2006-02-14</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.2, - including one very serious security issue. - For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-1">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.1.3</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.1.2, - see the release notes for 8.1.2. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> - -<listitem><para>Fix bug that allowed any logged-in user to <command>SET -ROLE</> to any other database user id (CVE-2006-0553)</para> -<para>Due to inadequate validity checking, a user could exploit the special -case that <command>SET ROLE</> normally uses to restore the previous role -setting after an error. This allowed ordinary users to acquire superuser -status, for example. -The escalation-of-privilege risk exists only in 8.1.0-8.1.2. -However, in all releases back to 7.3 there is a related bug in <command>SET -SESSION AUTHORIZATION</> that allows unprivileged users to crash the server, -if it has been compiled with Asserts enabled (which is not the default). -Thanks to Akio Ishida for reporting this problem. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix bug with row visibility logic in self-inserted -rows (Tom)</para> -<para>Under rare circumstances a row inserted by the current command -could be seen as already valid, when it should not be. Repairs bug -created in 8.0.4, 7.4.9, and 7.3.11 releases. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix race condition that could lead to <quote>file already -exists</> errors during pg_clog and pg_subtrans file creation -(Tom)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix cases that could lead to crashes if a cache-invalidation -message arrives at just the wrong time (Tom)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Properly check <literal>DOMAIN</> constraints for -<literal>UNKNOWN</> parameters in prepared statements -(Neil)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Ensure <command>ALTER COLUMN TYPE</> will process -<literal>FOREIGN KEY</>, <literal>UNIQUE</>, and <literal>PRIMARY KEY</> -constraints in the proper order (Nakano Yoshihisa)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fixes to allow restoring dumps that have cross-schema -references to custom operators or operator classes (Tom)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Allow <application>pg_restore</> to continue properly after a -<command>COPY</> failure; formerly it tried to treat the remaining -<command>COPY</> data as SQL commands (Stephen Frost)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix <application>pg_ctl</> <literal>unregister</> crash -when the data directory is not specified (Magnus)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix <application>libpq</> <function>PQprint</> HTML tags -(Christoph Zwerschke)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix <application>ecpg</> crash on AMD64 and PPC -(Neil)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Allow <literal>SETOF</> and <literal>%TYPE</> to be used -together in function result type declarations</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Recover properly if error occurs during argument passing -in <application>PL/python</> (Neil)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix memory leak in <function>plperl_return_next</> -(Neil)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix <application>PL/perl</>'s handling of locales on -Win32 to match the backend (Andrew)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Various optimizer fixes (Tom)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix crash when <literal>log_min_messages</> is set to -<literal>DEBUG3</> or above in <filename>postgresql.conf</> on Win32 -(Bruce)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix <application>pgxs</> <literal>-L</> library path -specification for Win32, Cygwin, OS X, AIX (Bruce)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Check that SID is enabled while checking for Win32 admin -privileges (Magnus)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Properly reject out-of-range date inputs (Kris -Jurka)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Portability fix for testing presence of <function>finite</> -and <function>isinf</> during configure (Tom)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Improve speed of <command>COPY IN</> via libpq, by -avoiding a kernel call per data line (Alon Goldshuv)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Improve speed of <filename>/contrib/tsearch2</> index -creation (Tom)</para></listitem> - -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-1-2"> - <title>Release 8.1.2</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2006-01-09</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.1. - For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-1">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.1.2</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. - However, you might need to <command>REINDEX</> indexes on textual - columns after updating, if you are affected by the locale or - <application>plperl</> issues described below. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> - -<listitem><para>Fix Windows code so that postmaster will continue rather -than exit if there is no more room in ShmemBackendArray (Magnus)</para> -<para>The previous behavior could lead to a denial-of-service situation if too -many connection requests arrive close together. This applies -<emphasis>only</> to the Windows port.</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix bug introduced in 8.0 that could allow ReadBuffer -to return an already-used page as new, potentially causing loss of -recently-committed data (Tom)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix for protocol-level Describe messages issued -outside a transaction or in a failed transaction (Tom)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix character string comparison for locales that consider -different character combinations as equal, such as Hungarian (Tom)</para> -<para>This might require <command>REINDEX</> to fix existing indexes on -textual columns.</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Set locale environment variables during postmaster startup -to ensure that <application>plperl</> won't change the locale later</para> -<para>This fixes a problem that occurred if the <application>postmaster</> was -started with environment variables specifying a different locale than what -<application>initdb</> had been told. Under these conditions, any use of -<application>plperl</> was likely to lead to corrupt indexes. You might need -<command>REINDEX</> to fix existing indexes on -textual columns if this has happened to you.</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Allow more flexible relocation of installation -directories (Tom)</para> -<para>Previous releases supported relocation only if all installation -directory paths were the same except for the last component.</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Prevent crashes caused by the use of -<literal>ISO-8859-5</> and <literal>ISO-8859-9</> encodings -(Tatsuo)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix longstanding bug in strpos() and regular expression -handling in certain rarely used Asian multi-byte character sets (Tatsuo) -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix bug where COPY CSV mode considered any -<literal>\.</> to terminate the copy data</para> <para>The new code -requires <literal>\.</> to appear alone on a line, as per -documentation.</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Make COPY CSV mode quote a literal data value of -<literal>\.</> to ensure it cannot be interpreted as the -end-of-data marker (Bruce)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Various fixes for functions returning <literal>RECORD</>s -(Tom) </para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix processing of <filename>postgresql.conf</> so a -final line with no newline is processed properly (Tom) -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix bug in <filename>/contrib/pgcrypto</> gen_salt, -which caused it not to use all available salt space for MD5 and -XDES algorithms (Marko Kreen, Solar Designer)</para> -<para>Salts for Blowfish and standard DES are unaffected.</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix autovacuum crash when processing expression indexes -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix <filename>/contrib/dblink</> to throw an error, -rather than crashing, when the number of columns specified is different from -what's actually returned by the query (Joe)</para></listitem> - -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-1-1"> - <title>Release 8.1.1</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2005-12-12</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.1.0. - For information about new features in the 8.1 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-1">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.1.1</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.1.X. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Fix incorrect optimizations of outer-join conditions -(Tom)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix problems with wrong reported column names in cases -involving sub-selects flattened by the optimizer (Tom)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix update failures in scenarios involving CHECK constraints, -toasted columns, <emphasis>and</> indexes (Tom)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix bgwriter problems after recovering from errors -(Tom)</para> -<para> -The background writer was found to leak buffer pins after write errors. -While not fatal in itself, this might lead to mysterious blockages of -later VACUUM commands. -</para> -</listitem> - -<listitem><para>Prevent failure if client sends Bind protocol message -when current transaction is already aborted</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para><filename>/contrib/tsearch2</> and <filename>/contrib/ltree</> -fixes (Teodor)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix problems with translated error messages in -languages that require word reordering, such as Turkish; also problems with -unexpected truncation of output strings and wrong display of the smallest -possible bigint value (Andrew, Tom)</para> -<para> -These problems only appeared on platforms that were using our -<filename>port/snprintf.c</> code, which includes BSD variants if -<literal>--enable-nls</> was given, and perhaps others. In addition, -a different form of the translated-error-message problem could appear -on Windows depending on which version of <filename>libintl</> was used. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Re-allow <literal>AM</>/<literal>PM</>, <literal>HH</>, -<literal>HH12</>, and <literal>D</> format specifiers for -<function>to_char(time)</> and <function>to_char(interval)</>. -(<function>to_char(interval)</> should probably use -<literal>HH24</>.) (Bruce)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>AIX, HPUX, and MSVC compile fixes (Tom, Hiroshi -Saito)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Optimizer improvements (Tom)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Retry file reads and writes after Windows -NO_SYSTEM_RESOURCES error (Qingqing Zhou)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Prevent <application>autovacuum</> from crashing during -ANALYZE of expression index (Alvaro)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix problems with ON COMMIT DELETE ROWS temp -tables</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix problems when a trigger alters the output of a SELECT -DISTINCT query</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Add 8.1.0 release note item on how to migrate invalid -<literal>UTF-8</> byte sequences (Paul Lindner)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-1"> - <title>Release 8.1</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2005-11-08</simpara> - </note> - - <sect2> - <title>Overview</title> - - <para> - Major changes in this release: - </para> - - <variablelist> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Improve concurrent access to the shared buffer cache (Tom) - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - Access to the shared buffer cache was identified as a - significant scalability problem, particularly on multi-CPU - systems. In this release, the way that locking is done in the - buffer manager has been overhauled to reduce lock contention - and improve scalability. The buffer manager has also been - changed to use a <quote>clock sweep</quote> replacement - policy. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Allow index scans to use an intermediate in-memory bitmap (Tom) - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - In previous releases, only a single index could be used to do - lookups on a table. With this feature, if a query has - <command>WHERE tab.col1 = 4 and tab.col2 = 9</>, and there is - no multicolumn index on <literal>col1</> and <literal>col2</>, - but there is an index on <literal>col1</> and another on - <literal>col2</>, it is possible to search both indexes and - combine the results in memory, then do heap fetches for only - the rows matching both the <literal>col1</> and - <literal>col2</> restrictions. This is very useful in - environments that have a lot of unstructured queries where it - is impossible to create indexes that match all possible access - conditions. Bitmap scans are useful even with a single index, - as they reduce the amount of random access needed; a bitmap - index scan is efficient for retrieving fairly large fractions - of the complete table, whereas plain index scans are not. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Add two-phase commit (Heikki Linnakangas, Alvaro, Tom) - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - Two-phase commit allows transactions to be "prepared" on several - computers, and once all computers have successfully prepared - their transactions (none failed), all transactions can be - committed. Even if a machine crashes after a prepare, the - prepared transaction can be committed after the machine is - restarted. New syntax includes <command>PREPARE TRANSACTION</> and - <command>COMMIT/ROLLBACK PREPARED</>. A new system view - <literal>pg_prepared_xacts</> has also been added. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Create a new role system that replaces users and groups - (Stephen Frost) - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - Roles are a combination of users and groups. Like users, they - can have login capability, and like groups, a role can have - other roles as members. Roles basically remove the distinction - between users and groups. For example, a role can: - </para> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Have login capability (optionally) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Own objects - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Hold access permissions for database objects - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Inherit permissions from other roles it is a member of - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - <para> - Once a user logs into a role, she obtains capabilities of - the login role plus any inherited roles, and can use - <command>SET ROLE</> to switch to other roles she is a member of. - This feature is a generalization of the SQL standard's concept of - roles. - This change also replaces <structname>pg_shadow</> and - <structname>pg_group</> by new role-capable catalogs - <structname>pg_authid</> and <structname>pg_auth_members</>. The old - tables are redefined as read-only views on the new role tables. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Automatically use indexes for <function>MIN()</> and - <function>MAX()</> (Tom) - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - In previous releases, the only way to use an index for - <function>MIN()</> or <function>MAX()</> was to rewrite the - query as <command>SELECT col FROM tab ORDER BY col LIMIT 1</>. - Index usage now happens automatically. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Move <filename>/contrib/pg_autovacuum</> into the main server - (Alvaro) - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - Integrating autovacuum into the server allows it to be - automatically started and stopped in sync with the database - server, and allows autovacuum to be configured from - <filename>postgresql.conf</>. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Add shared row level locks using <command>SELECT ... FOR SHARE</> - (Alvaro) - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - While <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>'s MVCC locking - allows <command>SELECT</> to never be blocked by writers and - therefore does not need shared row locks for typical operations, - shared locks are useful for applications that require shared row - locking. In particular this reduces the locking requirements - imposed by referential integrity checks. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Add dependencies on shared objects, specifically roles - (Alvaro) - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - This extension of the dependency mechanism prevents roles from - being dropped while there are still database objects they own. - Formerly it was possible to accidentally <quote>orphan</> objects by - deleting their owner. While this could be recovered from, it - was messy and unpleasant. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Improve performance for partitioned tables (Simon) - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - The new <varname>constraint_exclusion</varname> configuration - parameter avoids lookups on child tables where constraints indicate - that no matching rows exist in the child table. - </para> - <para> - This allows for a basic type of table partitioning. If child tables - store separate key ranges and this is enforced using appropriate - <command>CHECK</> constraints, the optimizer will skip child - table accesses when the constraint guarantees no matching rows - exist in the child table. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - </variablelist> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.1</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore using <application>pg_dump</application> is required - for those wishing to migrate data from any previous release. - </para> - - <para> - The 8.0 release announced that the <function>to_char()</> function - for intervals would be removed in 8.1. However, since no better API - has been suggested, <function>to_char(interval)</> has been enhanced in - 8.1 and will remain in the server. - </para> - - <para> - Observe the following incompatibilities: - </para> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - <varname>add_missing_from</> is now false by default (Neil) - </para> - <para> - By default, we now generate an error if a table is used in a query - without a <literal>FROM</> reference. The old behavior is still - available, but the parameter must be set to 'true' to obtain it. - </para> - - <para> - It might be necessary to set <varname>add_missing_from</> to true - in order to load an existing dump file, if the dump contains any - views or rules created using the implicit-<literal>FROM</> syntax. - This should be a one-time annoyance, because - <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> 8.1 will convert - such views and rules to standard explicit-<literal>FROM</> syntax. - Subsequent dumps will therefore not have the problem. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Cause input of a zero-length string (<literal>''</literal>) for - <type>float4</type>/<type>float8</type>/<type>oid</type> - to throw an error, rather than treating it as a zero (Neil) - </para> - <para> - This change is consistent with the current handling of - zero-length strings for integers. The schedule for this change - was announced in 8.0. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <varname>default_with_oids</> is now false by default (Neil) - </para> - <para> - With this option set to false, user-created tables no longer - have an OID column unless <command>WITH OIDS</> is specified in - <command>CREATE TABLE</>. Though OIDs have existed in all - releases of <productname>PostgreSQL</>, their use is limited - because they are only four bytes long and the counter is shared - across all installed databases. The preferred way of uniquely - identifying rows is via sequences and the <type>SERIAL</> type, - which have been supported since <productname>PostgreSQL</> 6.4. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>E''</> syntax so eventually ordinary strings can - treat backslashes literally (Bruce) - </para> - <para> - Currently <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> processes a - backslash in a string literal as introducing a special escape sequence, - e.g. <literal>\n</> or <literal>\010</>. - While this allows easy entry of special values, it is - nonstandard and makes porting of applications from other - databases more difficult. For this reason, the - <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> project is planning to - remove the special meaning of backslashes in strings. For - backward compatibility and for users who want special backslash - processing, a new string syntax has been created. This new string - syntax is formed by writing an <literal>E</> immediately preceding the - single quote that starts the string, e.g. <literal>E'hi\n'</>. While - this release does not change the handling of backslashes in strings, it - does add new configuration parameters to help users migrate applications - for future releases: - </para> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - <varname>standard_conforming_strings</> — does this release - treat backslashes literally in ordinary strings? - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <varname>escape_string_warning</> — warn about backslashes in - ordinary (non-E) strings - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - <para> - The <varname>standard_conforming_strings</> value is read-only. - Applications can retrieve the value to know how backslashes are - processed. (Presence of the parameter can also be taken as an - indication that <literal>E''</> string syntax is supported.) - In a future release, <varname>standard_conforming_strings</> - will be true, meaning backslashes will be treated literally in - non-E strings. To prepare for this change, use <literal>E''</> - strings in places that need special backslash processing, and - turn on <varname>escape_string_warning</> to find additional - strings that need to be converted to use <literal>E''</>. - Also, use two single-quotes (<literal>''</>) to embed a literal - single-quote in a string, rather than the - <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>-supported syntax of - backslash single-quote (<literal>\'</>). The former is - standards-conforming and does not require the use of the - <literal>E''</> string syntax. You can also use the - <literal>$$</> string syntax, which does not treat backslashes - specially. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>REINDEX DATABASE</> reindex all indexes in the - database (Tom) - </para> - <para> - Formerly, <command>REINDEX DATABASE</> reindexed only - system tables. This new behavior seems more intuitive. A new - command <command>REINDEX SYSTEM</> provides the old functionality - of reindexing just the system tables. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Read-only large object descriptors now obey MVCC snapshot semantics - </para> - <para> - When a large object is opened with <literal>INV_READ</> (and not - <literal>INV_WRITE</>), the data read from the descriptor will now - reflect a <quote>snapshot</> of the large object's state at the - time of the transaction snapshot in use by the query that called - <function>lo_open()</>. To obtain the old behavior of always - returning the latest committed data, include <literal>INV_WRITE</> - in the mode flags for <function>lo_open()</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add proper dependencies for arguments of sequence functions (Tom) - </para> - <para> - In previous releases, sequence names passed to <function>nextval()</>, - <function>currval()</>, and <function>setval()</> were stored as - simple text strings, meaning that renaming or dropping a - sequence used in a <literal>DEFAULT</> clause made the clause - invalid. This release stores all newly-created sequence function - arguments as internal OIDs, allowing them to track sequence - renaming, and adding dependency information that prevents - improper sequence removal. It also makes such <literal>DEFAULT</> - clauses immune to schema renaming and search path changes. - </para> - <para> - Some applications might rely on the old behavior of - run-time lookup for sequence names. This can still be done by - explicitly casting the argument to <type>text</>, for example - <literal>nextval('myseq'::text)</>. - </para> - <para> - Pre-8.1 database dumps loaded into 8.1 will use the old text-based - representation and therefore will not have the features of - OID-stored arguments. However, it is possible to update a - database containing text-based <literal>DEFAULT</> clauses. - First, save this query into a file, such as <filename>fixseq.sql</>: -<programlisting> -SELECT 'ALTER TABLE ' || - pg_catalog.quote_ident(n.nspname) || '.' || - pg_catalog.quote_ident(c.relname) || - ' ALTER COLUMN ' || pg_catalog.quote_ident(a.attname) || - ' SET DEFAULT ' || - regexp_replace(d.adsrc, - $$val\(\(('[^']*')::text\)::regclass$$, - $$val(\1$$, - 'g') || - ';' -FROM pg_namespace n, pg_class c, pg_attribute a, pg_attrdef d -WHERE n.oid = c.relnamespace AND - c.oid = a.attrelid AND - a.attrelid = d.adrelid AND - a.attnum = d.adnum AND - d.adsrc ~ $$val\(\('[^']*'::text\)::regclass$$; -</programlisting> - Next, run the query against a database to find what - adjustments are required, like this for database <literal>db1</>: -<programlisting> -psql -t -f fixseq.sql db1 -</programlisting> - This will show the <command>ALTER TABLE</> commands needed to - convert the database to the newer OID-based representation. - If the commands look reasonable, run this to update the database: -<programlisting> -psql -t -f fixseq.sql db1 | psql -e db1 -</programlisting> - This process must be repeated in each database to be updated. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - In <application>psql</application>, treat unquoted - <literal>\{digit}+</> sequences as octal (Bruce) - </para> - <para> - In previous releases, <literal>\{digit}+</> sequences were - treated as decimal, and only <literal>\0{digit}+</> were treated - as octal. This change was made for consistency. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove grammar productions for prefix and postfix <literal>%</> - and <literal>^</> operators - (Tom) - </para> - <para> - These have never been documented and complicated the use of the - modulus operator (<literal>%</>) with negative numbers. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <literal>&<</> and <literal>&></> for polygons - consistent with the box "over" operators (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <command>CREATE LANGUAGE</> can ignore the provided arguments - in favor of information from <structname>pg_pltemplate</> - (Tom) - </para> - <para> - A new system catalog <structname>pg_pltemplate</> has been defined - to carry information about the preferred definitions of procedural - languages (such as whether they have validator functions). When - an entry exists in this catalog for the language being created, - <command>CREATE LANGUAGE</> will ignore all its parameters except the - language name and instead use the catalog information. This measure - was taken because of increasing problems with obsolete language - definitions being loaded by old dump files. As of 8.1, - <application>pg_dump</> will dump procedural language definitions as - just <command>CREATE LANGUAGE <replaceable>name</></command>, relying - on a template entry to exist at load time. We expect this will be a - more future-proof representation. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <function>pg_cancel_backend(int)</function> return a - <type>boolean</type> rather than an <type>integer</type> (Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Some users are having problems loading UTF-8 data into 8.1.X. - This is because previous versions allowed invalid UTF-8 byte - sequences to be entered into the database, and this release - properly accepts only valid UTF-8 sequences. One way to correct a - dumpfile is to run the command <command>iconv -c -f UTF-8 -t - UTF-8 -o cleanfile.sql dumpfile.sql</>. The <literal>-c</> option - removes invalid character sequences. A diff of the two files will - show the sequences that are invalid. <command>iconv</> reads the - entire input file into memory so it might be necessary to use - <application>split</> to break up the dump into multiple smaller - files for processing. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Additional Changes</title> - - <para> - Below you will find a detailed account of the additional changes - between <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> 8.1 and the - previous major release. - </para> - - <sect3> - <title>Performance Improvements</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve GiST and R-tree index performance (Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve the optimizer, including auto-resizing of hash joins - (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Overhaul internal API in several areas - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Change WAL record CRCs from 64-bit to 32-bit (Tom) - </para> - <para> - We determined that the extra cost of computing 64-bit CRCs was - significant, and the gain in reliability too marginal to justify it. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent writing large empty gaps in WAL pages (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve spinlock behavior on SMP machines, particularly Opterons (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow nonconsecutive index columns to be used in a multicolumn - index (Tom) - </para> - <para> - For example, this allows an index on columns a,b,c to be used in - a query with <command>WHERE a = 4 and c = 10</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Skip WAL logging for <command>CREATE TABLE AS</> / - <command>SELECT INTO</> (Simon) - </para> - <para> - Since a crash during <command>CREATE TABLE AS</> would cause the - table to be dropped during recovery, there is no reason to WAL - log as the table is loaded. (Logging still happens if WAL - archiving is enabled, however.) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow concurrent GiST index access (Teodor, Oleg) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add configuration parameter <varname>full_page_writes</> to - control writing full pages to WAL (Bruce) - </para> - <para> - To prevent partial disk writes from corrupting the database, - <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> writes a complete copy of - each database disk page to WAL the first time it is modified - after a checkpoint. This option turns off that functionality for more - speed. This is safe to use with battery-backed disk caches where - partial page writes cannot happen. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Use <literal>O_DIRECT</> if available when using - <literal>O_SYNC</> for <varname>wal_sync_method</varname> - (Itagaki Takahiro) - </para> - <para> - <literal>O_DIRECT</> causes disk writes to bypass the kernel - cache, and for WAL writes, this improves performance. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve <command>COPY FROM</> performance (Alon Goldshuv) - </para> - <para> - This was accomplished by reading <command>COPY</> input in - larger chunks, rather than character by character. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve the performance of <function>COUNT()</function>, - <function>SUM</function>, <function>AVG()</function>, - <function>STDDEV()</function>, and - <function>VARIANCE()</function> (Neil, Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Server Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent problems due to transaction ID (XID) wraparound (Tom) - </para> - <para> - The server will now warn when the transaction counter approaches - the wraparound point. If the counter becomes too close to wraparound, - the server will stop accepting queries. This ensures that data is - not lost before needed vacuuming is performed. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix problems with object IDs (OIDs) conflicting with existing system - objects after the OID counter has wrapped around (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add warning about the need to increase - <varname>max_fsm_relations</> and <varname>max_fsm_pages</> - during <command>VACUUM</> (Ron Mayer) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <varname>temp_buffers</> configuration parameter to allow - users to determine the size of the local buffer area for - temporary table access (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add session start time and client IP address to - <literal>pg_stat_activity</> (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Adjust <literal>pg_stat</> views for bitmap scans (Tom) - </para> - <para> - The meanings of some of the fields have changed slightly. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Enhance <literal>pg_locks</> view (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Log queries for client-side <command>PREPARE</> and - <command>EXECUTE</> (Simon) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow Kerberos name and user name case sensitivity to be - specified in <filename>postgresql.conf</> (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add configuration parameter <varname>krb_server_hostname</> so - that the server host name can be specified as part of service - principal (Todd Kover) - </para> - <para> - If not set, any service principal matching an entry in the - keytab can be used. This is new Kerberos matching behavior in - this release. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <varname>log_line_prefix</> options for millisecond - timestamps (<literal>%m</>) and remote host (<literal>%h</>) (Ed - L.) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add WAL logging for GiST indexes (Teodor, Oleg) - </para> - <para> - GiST indexes are now safe for crash and point-in-time recovery. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove old <filename>*.backup</> files when we do - <function>pg_stop_backup()</> (Bruce) - </para> - <para> - This prevents a large number of <filename>*.backup</> files from - existing in <filename>pg_xlog/</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add configuration parameters to control TCP/IP keep-alive - times for idle, interval, and count (Oliver Jowett) - </para> - - <para> - These values can be changed to allow more rapid detection of - lost client connections. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add per-user and per-database connection limits (Petr Jelinek) - </para> - <para> - Using <command>ALTER USER</> and <command>ALTER DATABASE</>, - limits can now be enforced on the maximum number of sessions that - can concurrently connect as a specific user or to a specific database. - Setting the limit to zero disables user or database connections. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow more than two gigabytes of shared memory and per-backend - work memory on 64-bit machines (Koichi Suzuki) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - New system catalog <structname>pg_pltemplate</> allows overriding - obsolete procedural-language definitions in dump files (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - - <sect3> - <title>Query Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add temporary views (Koju Iijima, Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <command>HAVING</> without any aggregate functions or - <command>GROUP BY</> so that the query returns a single group (Tom) - </para> - <para> - Previously, such a case would treat the <command>HAVING</> - clause the same as a <command>WHERE</> clause. This was not per spec. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <command>USING</> clause to allow additional tables to be - specified to <command>DELETE</> (Euler Taveira de Oliveira, Neil) - </para> - <para> - In prior releases, there was no clear method for specifying - additional tables to be used for joins in a <command>DELETE</> - statement. <command>UPDATE</> already has a <literal>FROM</> - clause for this purpose. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add support for <literal>\x</> hex escapes in backend and ecpg - strings (Bruce) - </para> - <para> - This is just like the standard C <literal>\x</> escape syntax. - Octal escapes were already supported. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <command>BETWEEN SYMMETRIC</> query syntax (Pavel Stehule) - </para> - <para> - This feature allows <command>BETWEEN</> comparisons without - requiring the first value to be less than the second. For - example, <command>2 BETWEEN [ASYMMETRIC] 3 AND 1</> returns - false, while <command>2 BETWEEN SYMMETRIC 3 AND 1</> returns - true. <command>BETWEEN ASYMMETRIC</> was already supported. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <command>NOWAIT</> option to <command>SELECT ... FOR - UPDATE/SHARE</> (Hans-Juergen Schoenig) - </para> - <para> - While the <varname>statement_timeout</> configuration - parameter allows a query taking more than a certain amount of - time to be cancelled, the <command>NOWAIT</> option allows a - query to be canceled as soon as a <command>SELECT ... FOR - UPDATE/SHARE</> command cannot immediately acquire a row lock. - </para> - </listitem> - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - - <sect3> - <title>Object Manipulation Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Track dependencies of shared objects (Alvaro) - </para> - <para> - <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> allows global tables - (users, databases, tablespaces) to reference information in - multiple databases. This addition adds dependency information - for global tables, so, for example, user ownership can be - tracked across databases, so a user who owns something in any - database can no longer be removed. Dependency tracking already - existed for database-local objects. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow limited <command>ALTER OWNER</> commands to be performed - by the object owner (Stephen Frost) - </para> - <para> - Prior releases allowed only superusers to change object owners. - Now, ownership can be transferred if the user executing the command - owns the object and would be able to create it as the new owner - (that is, the user is a member of the new owning role and that role - has the CREATE permission that would be needed to create the object - afresh). - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <command>ALTER</> object <command>SET SCHEMA</> capability - for some object types (tables, functions, types) (Bernd Helmle) - </para> - <para> - This allows objects to be moved to different schemas. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <command>ALTER TABLE ENABLE/DISABLE TRIGGER</command> to - disable triggers (Satoshi Nagayasu) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - - <sect3> - <title>Utility Command Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <command>TRUNCATE</> to truncate multiple tables in a - single command (Alvaro) - </para> - <para> - Because of referential integrity checks, it is not allowed to - truncate a table that is part of a referential integrity - constraint. Using this new functionality, <command>TRUNCATE</> - can be used to truncate such tables, if both tables involved in - a referential integrity constraint are truncated in a single - <command>TRUNCATE</> command. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Properly process carriage returns and line feeds in - <command>COPY CSV</> mode (Andrew) - </para> - <para> - In release 8.0, carriage returns and line feeds in <command>CSV - COPY TO</> were processed in an inconsistent manner. (This was - documented on the TODO list.) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <command>COPY WITH CSV HEADER</> to allow a header line as - the first line in <command>COPY</> (Andrew) - </para> - <para> - This allows handling of the common <command>CSV</> usage of - placing the column names on the first line of the data file. For - <command>COPY TO</>, the first line contains the column names, - and for <command>COPY FROM</>, the first line is ignored. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - On Windows, display better sub-second precision in - <command>EXPLAIN ANALYZE</> (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add trigger duration display to <command>EXPLAIN ANALYZE</> - (Tom) - </para> - <para> - Prior releases included trigger execution time as part of the - total execution time, but did not show it separately. It is now - possible to see how much time is spent in each trigger. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add support for <literal>\x</> hex escapes in <command>COPY</> - (Sergey Ten) - </para> - <para> - Previous releases only supported octal escapes. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>SHOW ALL</> include variable descriptions - (Matthias Schmidt) - </para> - <para> - <command>SHOW</> varname still only displays the variable's - value and does not include the description. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <application>initdb</application> create a new standard - database called <literal>postgres</>, and convert utilities to - use <literal>postgres</> rather than <literal>template1</> for - standard lookups (Dave) - </para> - <para> - In prior releases, <literal>template1</> was used both as a - default connection for utilities like - <application>createuser</application>, and as a template for - new databases. This caused <command>CREATE DATABASE</> to - sometimes fail, because a new database cannot be created if - anyone else is in the template database. With this change, the - default connection database is now <literal>postgres</>, - meaning it is much less likely someone will be using - <literal>template1</> during <command>CREATE DATABASE</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Create new <application>reindexdb</application> command-line - utility by moving <filename>/contrib/reindexdb</> into the - server (Euler Taveira de Oliveira) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - - <sect3> - <title>Data Type and Function Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>MAX()</> and <function>MIN()</> aggregates for - array types (Koju Iijima) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <function>to_date()</> and <function>to_timestamp()</> to - behave reasonably when <literal>CC</> and <literal>YY</> fields - are both used (Karel Zak) - </para> - <para> - If the format specification contains <literal>CC</> and a year - specification is <literal>YYY</> or longer, ignore the - <literal>CC</>. If the year specification is <literal>YY</> or - shorter, interpret <literal>CC</> as the previous century. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>md5(bytea)</> (Abhijit Menon-Sen) - </para> - <para> - <function>md5(text)</> already existed. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add support for <command>numeric ^ numeric</> based on - <function>power(numeric, numeric)</> - </para> - <para> - The function already existed, but there was no operator assigned - to it. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <type>NUMERIC</> modulus by properly truncating the quotient - during computation (Bruce) - </para> - <para> - In previous releases, modulus for large values sometimes - returned negative results due to rounding of the quotient. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add a function <function>lastval()</> (Dennis Björklund) - </para> - <para> - <function>lastval()</> is a simplified version of - <function>currval()</>. It automatically determines the proper - sequence name based on the most recent <function>nextval()</> or - <function>setval()</> call performed by the current session. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>to_timestamp(DOUBLE PRECISION) (Michael Glaesemann)</> - </para> - <para> - Converts Unix seconds since 1970 to a <type>TIMESTAMP WITH - TIMEZONE</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>pg_postmaster_start_time()</> function (Euler - Taveira de Oliveira, Matthias Schmidt) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow the full use of time zone names in <command>AT TIME - ZONE</>, not just the short list previously available (Magnus) - </para> - <para> - Previously, only a predefined list of time zone names were - supported by <command>AT TIME ZONE</>. Now any supported time - zone name can be used, e.g.: - <programlisting> - SELECT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP AT TIME ZONE 'Europe/London'; - </programlisting> - In the above query, the time zone used is adjusted based on the - daylight saving time rules that were in effect on the supplied - date. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>GREATEST()</> and <function>LEAST()</> variadic - functions (Pavel Stehule) - </para> - <para> - These functions take a variable number of arguments and return - the greatest or least value among the arguments. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>pg_column_size()</> (Mark Kirkwood) - </para> - <para> - This returns storage size of a column, which might be compressed. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>regexp_replace()</> (Atsushi Ogawa) - </para> - <para> - This allows regular expression replacement, like sed. An optional - flag argument allows selection of global (replace all) and - case-insensitive modes. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix interval division and multiplication (Bruce) - </para> - <para> - Previous versions sometimes returned unjustified results, like - <command>'4 months'::interval / 5</> returning <command>'1 mon - -6 days'</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix roundoff behavior in timestamp, time, and interval output (Tom) - </para> - <para> - This fixes some cases in which the seconds field would be shown as - <literal>60</> instead of incrementing the higher-order fields. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add a separate day field to type <type>interval</> so a one day - interval can be distinguished from a 24 hour interval (Michael - Glaesemann) - </para> - <para> - Days that contain a daylight saving time adjustment are not 24 - hours long, but typically 23 or 25 hours. This change creates a - conceptual distinction between intervals of <quote>so many days</> - and intervals of <quote>so many hours</>. Adding - <literal>1 day</> to a timestamp now gives the same local time on - the next day even if a daylight saving time adjustment occurs - between, whereas adding <literal>24 hours</> will give a different - local time when this happens. For example, under US DST rules: - <programlisting> - '2005-04-03 00:00:00-05' + '1 day' = '2005-04-04 00:00:00-04' - '2005-04-03 00:00:00-05' + '24 hours' = '2005-04-04 01:00:00-04' - </programlisting> - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>justify_days()</> and <function>justify_hours()</> - (Michael Glaesemann) - </para> - <para> - These functions, respectively, adjust days to an appropriate - number of full months and days, and adjust hours to an - appropriate number of full days and hours. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Move <filename>/contrib/dbsize</> into the backend, and rename - some of the functions (Dave Page, Andreas Pflug) - </para> - <para> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - <function>pg_tablespace_size()</> - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <function>pg_database_size()</> - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <function>pg_relation_size()</> - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <function>pg_total_relation_size()</> - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <function>pg_size_pretty()</> - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </para> - <para> - <function>pg_total_relation_size()</> includes indexes and TOAST - tables. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add functions for read-only file access to the cluster directory - (Dave Page, Andreas Pflug) - </para> - <para> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - <function>pg_stat_file()</> - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <function>pg_read_file()</> - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <function>pg_ls_dir()</> - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>pg_reload_conf()</> to force reloading of the - configuration files (Dave Page, Andreas Pflug) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>pg_rotate_logfile()</> to force rotation of the - server log file (Dave Page, Andreas Pflug) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Change <literal>pg_stat_*</> views to include TOAST tables (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - - <sect3> - <title>Encoding and Locale Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Rename some encodings to be more consistent and to follow - international standards (Bruce) - </para> - <para> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - <literal>UNICODE</> is now <literal>UTF8</> - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <literal>ALT</> is now <literal>WIN866</> - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <literal>WIN</> is now <literal>WIN1251</> - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <literal>TCVN</> is now <literal>WIN1258</> - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </para> - - <para> - The original names still work. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add support for <literal>WIN1252</> encoding (Roland Volkmann) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add support for four-byte <literal>UTF8</> characters (John - Hansen) - </para> - <para> - Previously only one, two, and three-byte <literal>UTF8</> characters - were supported. This is particularly important for support for - some Chinese character sets. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow direct conversion between <literal>EUC_JP</> and - <literal>SJIS</> to improve performance (Atsushi Ogawa) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow the UTF8 encoding to work on Windows (Magnus) - </para> - <para> - This is done by mapping UTF8 to the Windows-native UTF16 - implementation. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - - <sect3> - <title>General Server-Side Language Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <command>ALTER LANGUAGE RENAME</> (Sergey Yatskevich) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow function characteristics, like strictness and volatility, - to be modified via <command>ALTER FUNCTION</> (Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Increase the maximum number of function arguments to 100 (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow SQL and PL/PgSQL functions to use <command>OUT</> and - <command>INOUT</> parameters (Tom) - </para> - <para> - <command>OUT</> is an alternate way for a function to return - values. Instead of using <command>RETURN</>, values can be - returned by assigning to parameters declared as <command>OUT</> or - <command>INOUT</>. This is notationally simpler in some cases, - particularly so when multiple values need to be returned. - While returning multiple values from a function - was possible in previous releases, this greatly simplifies the - process. (The feature will be extended to other server-side - languages in future releases.) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Move language handler functions into the <literal>pg_catalog</> schema - </para> - <para> - This makes it easier to drop the public schema if desired. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>SPI_getnspname()</function> to SPI (Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>PL/PgSQL Server-Side Language Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Overhaul the memory management of PL/PgSQL functions (Neil) - </para> - <para> - The parsetree of each function is now stored in a separate - memory context. This allows this memory to be easily reclaimed - when it is no longer needed. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Check function syntax at <command>CREATE FUNCTION</> time, - rather than at runtime (Neil) - </para> - <para> - Previously, most syntax errors were reported only when the - function was executed. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <command>OPEN</> to open non-<command>SELECT</> queries - like <command>EXPLAIN</> and <command>SHOW</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - No longer require functions to issue a <command>RETURN</> - statement (Tom) - </para> - <para> - This is a byproduct of the newly added <command>OUT</> and - <command>INOUT</> functionality. <command>RETURN</> can - be omitted when it is not needed to provide the function's - return value. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add support for an optional <command>INTO</> clause to - PL/PgSQL's <command>EXECUTE</> statement (Pavel Stehule, Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>CREATE TABLE AS</> set <command>ROW_COUNT</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Define <literal>SQLSTATE</> and <literal>SQLERRM</> to return - the <literal>SQLSTATE</> and error message of the current - exception (Pavel Stehule, Neil) - </para> - <para> - These variables are only defined inside exception blocks. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow the parameters to the <command>RAISE</> statement to be - expressions (Pavel Stehule, Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add a loop <command>CONTINUE</> statement (Pavel Stehule, Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow block and loop labels (Pavel Stehule) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - - <sect3> - <title>PL/Perl Server-Side Language Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow large result sets to be returned efficiently (Abhijit - Menon-Sen) - </para> - <para> - This allows functions to use <function>return_next()</> to avoid - building the entire result set in memory. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow one-row-at-a-time retrieval of query results (Abhijit Menon-Sen) - </para> - <para> - This allows functions to use <function>spi_query()</> and - <function>spi_fetchrow()</> to avoid accumulating the entire - result set in memory. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Force PL/Perl to handle strings as <literal>UTF8</> if the - server encoding is <literal>UTF8</> (David Kamholz) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add a validator function for PL/Perl (Andrew) - </para> - <para> - This allows syntax errors to be reported at definition time, - rather than execution time. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow PL/Perl to return a Perl array when the function returns - an array type (Andrew) - </para> - <para> - This basically maps <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> arrays - to Perl arrays. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow Perl nonfatal warnings to generate <command>NOTICE</> - messages (Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow Perl's <literal>strict</> mode to be enabled (Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - - <sect3> - <title><application>psql</> Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <command>\set ON_ERROR_ROLLBACK</> to allow statements in - a transaction to error without affecting the rest of the - transaction (Greg Sabino Mullane) - </para> - <para> - This is basically implemented by wrapping every statement in a - sub-transaction. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add support for <literal>\x</> hex strings in - <application>psql</> variables (Bruce) - </para> - <para> - Octal escapes were already supported. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add support for <command>troff -ms</> output format (Roger - Leigh) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow the history file location to be controlled by - <envar>HISTFILE</> (Andreas Seltenreich) - </para> - <para> - This allows configuration of per-database history storage. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent <command>\x</> (expanded mode) from affecting - the output of <command>\d tablename</> (Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <option>-L</> option to <application>psql</application> to - log sessions (Lorne Sunley) - </para> - <para> - This option was added because some operating systems do not have - simple command-line activity logging functionality. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>\d</> show the tablespaces of indexes (Qingqing - Zhou) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <application>psql</application> help (<command>\h</>) to - make a best guess on the proper help information (Greg Sabino - Mullane) - </para> - <para> - This allows the user to just add <command>\h</> to the front of - the syntax error query and get help on the supported syntax. - Previously any additional query text beyond the command name - had to be removed to use <command>\h</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <command>\pset numericlocale</> to allow numbers to be - output in a locale-aware format (Eugen Nedelcu) - </para> - <para> - For example, using <literal>C</> locale <literal>100000</> would - be output as <literal>100,000.0</> while a European locale might - output this value as <literal>100.000,0</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make startup banner show both server version number and - <application>psql</>'s version number, when they are different (Bruce) - </para> - <para> - Also, a warning will be shown if the server and <application>psql</> - are from different major releases. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - - <sect3> - <title><application>pg_dump</> Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <option>-n</> / <option>--schema</> switch to - <application>pg_restore</> (Richard van den Berg) - </para> - <para> - This allows just the objects in a specified schema to be restored. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <application>pg_dump</> to dump large objects even in - text mode (Tom) - </para> - <para> - With this change, large objects are now always dumped; the former - <option>-b</> switch is a no-op. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <application>pg_dump</> to dump a consistent snapshot of - large objects (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Dump comments for large objects (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <option>--encoding</> to <application>pg_dump</> - (Magnus Hagander) - </para> - <para> - This allows a database to be dumped in an encoding that is - different from the server's encoding. This is valuable when - transferring the dump to a machine with a different encoding. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Rely on <structname>pg_pltemplate</> for procedural languages (Tom) - </para> - <para> - If the call handler for a procedural language is in the - <literal>pg_catalog</> schema, <application>pg_dump</> does not - dump the handler. Instead, it dumps the language using just - <command>CREATE LANGUAGE <replaceable>name</></command>, - relying on the <structname>pg_pltemplate</> catalog to provide - the language's creation parameters at load time. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - - <sect3> - <title><application>libpq</application> Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add a <envar>PGPASSFILE</> environment variable to specify the - password file's filename (Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>lo_create()</>, that is similar to - <function>lo_creat()</> but allows the OID of the large object - to be specified (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <application>libpq</application> consistently return an error - to the client application on <function>malloc()</function> - failure (Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - - <sect3> - <title>Source Code Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>pgxs</> to support building against a relocated - installation - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add spinlock support for the Itanium processor using Intel - compiler (Vikram Kalsi) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add Kerberos 5 support for Windows (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add Chinese FAQ (laser@pgsqldb.com) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Rename Rendezvous to Bonjour to match OS/X feature renaming - (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add support for <literal>fsync_writethrough</literal> on - Darwin (Chris Campbell) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Streamline the passing of information within the server, the - optimizer, and the lock system (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <application>pg_config</> to be compiled using MSVC (Andrew) - </para> - <para> - This is required to build DBD::Pg using <application>MSVC</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove support for Kerberos V4 (Magnus) - </para> - <para> - Kerberos 4 had security vulnerabilities and is no longer - maintained. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Code cleanups (Coverity static analysis performed by - EnterpriseDB) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Modify <filename>postgresql.conf</> to use documentation defaults - <literal>on</>/<literal>off</> rather than - <literal>true</>/<literal>false</> (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Enhance <application>pg_config</> to be able to report more - build-time values (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <application>libpq</application> to be built thread-safe - on Windows (Dave Page) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow IPv6 connections to be used on Windows (Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add Server Administration documentation about I/O subsystem - reliability (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Move private declarations from <filename>gist.h</filename> to - <filename>gist_private.h</filename> (Neil) - </para> - - <para> - In previous releases, <filename>gist.h</> contained both the - public GiST API (intended for use by authors of GiST index - implementations) as well as some private declarations used by - the implementation of GiST itself. The latter have been moved - to a separate file, <filename>gist_private.h</>. Most GiST - index implementations should be unaffected. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Overhaul GiST memory management (Neil) - </para> - - <para> - GiST methods are now always invoked in a short-lived memory - context. Therefore, memory allocated via <function>palloc()</> - will be reclaimed automatically, so GiST index implementations - do not need to manually release allocated memory via - <function>pfree()</>. - </para> - </listitem> - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - - <sect3> - <title>Contrib Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <filename>/contrib/pg_buffercache</> contrib module (Mark - Kirkwood) - </para> - <para> - This displays the contents of the buffer cache, for debugging and - performance tuning purposes. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove <filename>/contrib/array</> because it is obsolete (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Clean up the <filename>/contrib/lo</> module (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Move <filename>/contrib/findoidjoins</> to - <filename>/src/tools</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove the <literal><<</>, <literal>>></>, - <literal>&<</>, and <literal>&></> operators from - <filename>/contrib/cube</> - </para> - <para> - These operators were not useful. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve <filename>/contrib/btree_gist</> (Janko Richter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve <filename>/contrib/pgbench</> (Tomoaki Sato, Tatsuo) - </para> - <para> - There is now a facility for testing with SQL command scripts given - by the user, instead of only a hard-wired command sequence. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve <filename>/contrib/pgcrypto</> (Marko Kreen) - </para> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Implementation of OpenPGP symmetric-key and public-key encryption - </para> - <para> - Both RSA and Elgamal public-key algorithms are supported. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Stand alone build: include SHA256/384/512 hashes, Fortuna PRNG - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - OpenSSL build: support 3DES, use internal AES with OpenSSL < 0.9.7 - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Take build parameters (OpenSSL, zlib) from <filename>configure</> result - </para> - <para> - There is no need to edit the <filename>Makefile</> anymore. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove support for <filename>libmhash</> and <filename>libmcrypt</> - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-0-21"> - <title>Release 8.0.21</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2009-03-16</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.20. - For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-0">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.0.21</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, - see the release notes for 8.0.6. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent error recursion crashes when encoding conversion fails (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This change extends fixes made in the last two minor releases for - related failure scenarios. The previous fixes were narrowly tailored - for the original problem reports, but we have now recognized that - <emphasis>any</> error thrown by an encoding conversion function could - potentially lead to infinite recursion while trying to report the - error. The solution therefore is to disable translation and encoding - conversion and report the plain-ASCII form of any error message, - if we find we have gotten into a recursive error reporting situation. - (CVE-2009-0922) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Disallow <command>CREATE CONVERSION</> with the wrong encodings - for the specified conversion function (Heikki) - </para> - - <para> - This prevents one possible scenario for encoding conversion failure. - The previous change is a backstop to guard against other kinds of - failures in the same area. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix core dump when <function>to_char()</> is given format codes that - are inappropriate for the type of the data argument (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>MUST</> (Mauritius Island Summer Time) to the default list - of known timezone abbreviations (Xavier Bugaud) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-0-20"> - <title>Release 8.0.20</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2009-02-02</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.19. - For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-0">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.0.20</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, - see the release notes for 8.0.6. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve handling of URLs in <function>headline()</> function (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve handling of overlength headlines in <function>headline()</> - function (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent possible Assert failure or misconversion if an encoding - conversion is created with the wrong conversion function for the - specified pair of encodings (Tom, Heikki) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Avoid unnecessary locking of small tables in <command>VACUUM</> - (Heikki) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix uninitialized variables in <filename>contrib/tsearch2</>'s - <function>get_covers()</> function (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make all documentation reference <literal>pgsql-bugs</> and/or - <literal>pgsql-hackers</> as appropriate, instead of the - now-decommissioned <literal>pgsql-ports</> and <literal>pgsql-patches</> - mailing lists (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2009a (for - Kathmandu and historical DST corrections in Switzerland, Cuba) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-0-19"> - <title>Release 8.0.19</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2008-11-03</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.18. - For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-0">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.0.19</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, - see the release notes for 8.0.6. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix backend crash when the client encoding cannot represent a localized - error message (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - We have addressed similar issues before, but it would still fail if - the <quote>character has no equivalent</> message itself couldn't - be converted. The fix is to disable localization and send the plain - ASCII error message when we detect such a situation. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible crash when deeply nested functions are invoked from - a trigger (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Ensure an error is reported when a newly-defined PL/pgSQL trigger - function is invoked as a normal function (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix incorrect tsearch2 headline generation when single query - item matches first word of text (Sushant Sinha) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix improper display of fractional seconds in interval values when - using a non-ISO datestyle in an <option>--enable-integer-datetimes</> - build (Ron Mayer) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Ensure <function>SPI_getvalue</> and <function>SPI_getbinval</> - behave correctly when the passed tuple and tuple descriptor have - different numbers of columns (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This situation is normal when a table has had columns added or removed, - but these two functions didn't handle it properly. - The only likely consequence is an incorrect error indication. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>ecpg</>'s parsing of <command>CREATE USER</> (Michael) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix recent breakage of <literal>pg_ctl restart</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2008i (for - DST law changes in Argentina, Brazil, Mauritius, Syria) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-0-18"> - <title>Release 8.0.18</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2008-09-22</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.17. - For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-0">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.0.18</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, - see the release notes for 8.0.6. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Widen local lock counters from 32 to 64 bits (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This responds to reports that the counters could overflow in - sufficiently long transactions, leading to unexpected <quote>lock is - already held</> errors. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add checks in executor startup to ensure that the tuples produced by an - <command>INSERT</> or <command>UPDATE</> will match the target table's - current rowtype (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - <command>ALTER COLUMN TYPE</>, followed by re-use of a previously - cached plan, could produce this type of situation. The check protects - against data corruption and/or crashes that could ensue. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix datetime input functions to correctly detect integer overflow when - running on a 64-bit platform (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve performance of writing very long log messages to syslog (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix bug in backwards scanning of a cursor on a <literal>SELECT DISTINCT - ON</> query (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix planner to estimate that <literal>GROUP BY</> expressions yielding - boolean results always result in two groups, regardless of the - expressions' contents (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This is very substantially more accurate than the regular <literal>GROUP - BY</> estimate for certain boolean tests like <replaceable>col</> - <literal>IS NULL</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix PL/Tcl to behave correctly with Tcl 8.5, and to be more careful - about the encoding of data sent to or from Tcl (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix PL/Python to work with Python 2.5 - </para> - - <para> - This is a back-port of fixes made during the 8.2 development cycle. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve <application>pg_dump</> and <application>pg_restore</>'s - error reporting after failure to send a SQL command (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>pg_ctl</> to properly preserve postmaster - command-line arguments across a <literal>restart</> (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2008f (for - DST law changes in Argentina, Bahamas, Brazil, Mauritius, Morocco, - Pakistan, Palestine, and Paraguay) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-0-17"> - <title>Release 8.0.17</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2008-06-12</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains one serious bug fix over 8.0.16. - For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-0">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.0.17</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, - see the release notes for 8.0.6. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <function>pg_get_ruledef()</> parenthesize negative constants (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Before this fix, a negative constant in a view or rule might be dumped - as, say, <literal>-42::integer</>, which is subtly incorrect: it should - be <literal>(-42)::integer</> due to operator precedence rules. - Usually this would make little difference, but it could interact with - another recent patch to cause - <productname>PostgreSQL</> to reject what had been a valid - <command>SELECT DISTINCT</> view query. Since this could result in - <application>pg_dump</> output failing to reload, it is being treated - as a high-priority fix. The only released versions in which dump - output is actually incorrect are 8.3.1 and 8.2.7. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-0-16"> - <title>Release 8.0.16</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>never released</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.15. - For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-0">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.0.16</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, - see the release notes for 8.0.6. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <command>ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN ... PRIMARY KEY</> so that the new - column is correctly checked to see if it's been initialized to all - non-nulls (Brendan Jurd) - </para> - - <para> - Previous versions neglected to check this requirement at all. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible <command>CREATE TABLE</> failure when inheriting the - <quote>same</> constraint from multiple parent relations that - inherited that constraint from a common ancestor (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix conversions between ISO-8859-5 and other encodings to handle - Cyrillic <quote>Yo</> characters (<literal>e</> and <literal>E</> with - two dots) (Sergey Burladyan) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix a few datatype input functions - that were allowing unused bytes in their results to contain - uninitialized, unpredictable values (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This could lead to failures in which two apparently identical literal - values were not seen as equal, resulting in the parser complaining - about unmatched <literal>ORDER BY</> and <literal>DISTINCT</> - expressions. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix a corner case in regular-expression substring matching - (<literal>substring(<replaceable>string</> from - <replaceable>pattern</>)</literal>) (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The problem occurs when there is a match to the pattern overall but - the user has specified a parenthesized subexpression and that - subexpression hasn't got a match. An example is - <literal>substring('foo' from 'foo(bar)?')</>. - This should return NULL, since <literal>(bar)</> isn't matched, but - it was mistakenly returning the whole-pattern match instead (ie, - <literal>foo</>). - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2008c (for - DST law changes in Morocco, Iraq, Choibalsan, Pakistan, Syria, Cuba, - Argentina/San_Luis, and Chile) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix incorrect result from <application>ecpg</>'s - <function>PGTYPEStimestamp_sub()</> function (Michael) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix core dump in <filename>contrib/xml2</>'s - <function>xpath_table()</> function when the input query returns a - NULL value (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <filename>contrib/xml2</>'s makefile to not override - <literal>CFLAGS</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <literal>DatumGetBool</> macro to not fail with <application>gcc</> - 4.3 (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This problem affects <quote>old style</> (V0) C functions that - return boolean. The fix is already in 8.3, but the need to - back-patch it was not realized at the time. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix longstanding <command>LISTEN</>/<command>NOTIFY</> - race condition (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - In rare cases a session that had just executed a - <command>LISTEN</> might not get a notification, even though - one would be expected because the concurrent transaction executing - <command>NOTIFY</> was observed to commit later. - </para> - - <para> - A side effect of the fix is that a transaction that has executed - a not-yet-committed <command>LISTEN</> command will not see any - row in <structname>pg_listener</> for the <command>LISTEN</>, - should it choose to look; formerly it would have. This behavior - was never documented one way or the other, but it is possible that - some applications depend on the old behavior. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix rare crash when an error occurs during a query using a hash index - (Heikki) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix input of datetime values for February 29 in years BC (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The former coding was mistaken about which years were leap years. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <quote>unrecognized node type</> error in some variants of - <command>ALTER OWNER</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>pg_ctl</> to correctly extract the postmaster's port - number from command-line options (Itagaki Takahiro, Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Previously, <literal>pg_ctl start -w</> could try to contact the - postmaster on the wrong port, leading to bogus reports of startup - failure. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Use <option>-fwrapv</> to defend against possible misoptimization - in recent <application>gcc</> versions (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This is known to be necessary when building <productname>PostgreSQL</> - with <application>gcc</> 4.3 or later. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix display of constant expressions in <literal>ORDER BY</> - and <literal>GROUP BY</> (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - An explictly casted constant would be shown incorrectly. This could - for example lead to corruption of a view definition during - dump and reload. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>libpq</> to handle NOTICE messages correctly - during COPY OUT (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This failure has only been observed to occur when a user-defined - datatype's output routine issues a NOTICE, but there is no - guarantee it couldn't happen due to other causes. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-0-15"> - <title>Release 8.0.15</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2008-01-07</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.14, - including fixes for significant security issues. - For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-0">. - </para> - - <para> - This is the last 8.0.X release for which the <productname>PostgreSQL</> - community will produce binary packages for <productname>Windows</>. - Windows users are encouraged to move to 8.2.X or later, - since there are Windows-specific fixes in 8.2.X that - are impractical to back-port. 8.0.X will continue to - be supported on other platforms. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.0.15</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, see the release - notes for 8.0.6. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent functions in indexes from executing with the privileges of - the user running <command>VACUUM</>, <command>ANALYZE</>, etc (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Functions used in index expressions and partial-index - predicates are evaluated whenever a new table entry is made. It has - long been understood that this poses a risk of trojan-horse code - execution if one modifies a table owned by an untrustworthy user. - (Note that triggers, defaults, check constraints, etc. pose the - same type of risk.) But functions in indexes pose extra danger - because they will be executed by routine maintenance operations - such as <command>VACUUM FULL</>, which are commonly performed - automatically under a superuser account. For example, a nefarious user - can execute code with superuser privileges by setting up a - trojan-horse index definition and waiting for the next routine vacuum. - The fix arranges for standard maintenance operations - (including <command>VACUUM</>, <command>ANALYZE</>, <command>REINDEX</>, - and <command>CLUSTER</>) to execute as the table owner rather than - the calling user, using the same privilege-switching mechanism already - used for <literal>SECURITY DEFINER</> functions. To prevent bypassing - this security measure, execution of <command>SET SESSION - AUTHORIZATION</> and <command>SET ROLE</> is now forbidden within a - <literal>SECURITY DEFINER</> context. (CVE-2007-6600) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Repair assorted bugs in the regular-expression package (Tom, Will Drewry) - </para> - - <para> - Suitably crafted regular-expression patterns could cause crashes, - infinite or near-infinite looping, and/or massive memory consumption, - all of which pose denial-of-service hazards for applications that - accept regex search patterns from untrustworthy sources. - (CVE-2007-4769, CVE-2007-4772, CVE-2007-6067) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Require non-superusers who use <filename>/contrib/dblink</> to use only - password authentication, as a security measure (Joe) - </para> - - <para> - The fix that appeared for this in 8.0.14 was incomplete, as it plugged - the hole for only some <filename>dblink</> functions. (CVE-2007-6601, - CVE-2007-3278) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2007k - (in particular, recent Argentina changes) (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix planner failure in some cases of <literal>WHERE false AND var IN - (SELECT ...)</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Preserve the tablespace of indexes that are - rebuilt by <command>ALTER TABLE ... ALTER COLUMN TYPE</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make archive recovery always start a new WAL timeline, rather than only - when a recovery stop time was used (Simon) - </para> - - <para> - This avoids a corner-case risk of trying to overwrite an existing - archived copy of the last WAL segment, and seems simpler and cleaner - than the original definition. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>VACUUM</> not use all of <varname>maintenance_work_mem</> - when the table is too small for it to be useful (Alvaro) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix potential crash in <function>translate()</> when using a multibyte - database encoding (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix PL/Perl to cope when platform's Perl defines type <literal>bool</> - as <literal>int</> rather than <literal>char</> (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - While this could theoretically happen anywhere, no standard build of - Perl did things this way ... until <productname>Mac OS X</> 10.5. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix PL/Python to not crash on long exception messages (Alvaro) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>pg_dump</> to correctly handle inheritance child tables - that have default expressions different from their parent's (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <application>ecpg</> parser fixes (Michael) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <filename>contrib/tablefunc</>'s <function>crosstab()</> handle - NULL rowid as a category in its own right, rather than crashing (Joe) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <type>tsvector</> and <type>tsquery</> output routines to - escape backslashes correctly (Teodor, Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix crash of <function>to_tsvector()</> on huge input strings (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Require a specific version of <productname>Autoconf</> to be used - when re-generating the <command>configure</> script (Peter) - </para> - - <para> - This affects developers and packagers only. The change was made - to prevent accidental use of untested combinations of - <productname>Autoconf</> and <productname>PostgreSQL</> versions. - You can remove the version check if you really want to use a - different <productname>Autoconf</> version, but it's - your responsibility whether the result works or not. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-0-14"> - <title>Release 8.0.14</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2007-09-17</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.13. - For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-0">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.0.14</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, see the release - notes for 8.0.6. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent index corruption when a transaction inserts rows and - then aborts close to the end of a concurrent <command>VACUUM</> - on the same table (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>CREATE DOMAIN ... DEFAULT NULL</> work properly (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix excessive logging of <acronym>SSL</> error messages (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix logging so that log messages are never interleaved when using - the syslogger process (Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix crash when <varname>log_min_error_statement</> logging runs out - of memory (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix incorrect handling of some foreign-key corner cases (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent <command>CLUSTER</> from failing - due to attempting to process temporary tables of other sessions (Alvaro) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update the time zone database rules, particularly New Zealand's upcoming changes (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Windows socket improvements (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Suppress timezone name (<literal>%Z</>) in log timestamps on Windows - because of possible encoding mismatches (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Require non-superusers who use <filename>/contrib/dblink</> to use only - password authentication, as a security measure (Joe) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-0-13"> - <title>Release 8.0.13</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2007-04-23</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.12, - including a security fix. - For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-0">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.0.13</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, see the release - notes for 8.0.6. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support explicit placement of the temporary-table schema within - <varname>search_path</>, and disable searching it for functions - and operators (Tom) - </para> - <para> - This is needed to allow a security-definer function to set a - truly secure value of <varname>search_path</>. Without it, - an unprivileged SQL user can use temporary objects to execute code - with the privileges of the security-definer function (CVE-2007-2138). - See <command>CREATE FUNCTION</> for more information. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <filename>/contrib/tsearch2</> crash fixes (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix potential-data-corruption bug in how <command>VACUUM FULL</> handles - <command>UPDATE</> chains (Tom, Pavan Deolasee) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix PANIC during enlargement of a hash index (bug introduced in 8.0.10) - (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix POSIX-style timezone specs to follow new USA DST rules (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-0-12"> - <title>Release 8.0.12</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2007-02-07</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains one fix from 8.0.11. - For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-0">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.0.12</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, see the release - notes for 8.0.6. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove overly-restrictive check for type length in constraints and - functional indexes(Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-0-11"> - <title>Release 8.0.11</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2007-02-05</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.10, including - a security fix. - For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-0">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.0.11</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, see the release - notes for 8.0.6. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove security vulnerabilities that allowed connected users - to read backend memory (Tom) - </para> - <para> - The vulnerabilities involve suppressing the normal check that a SQL - function returns the data type it's declared to, and changing the - data type of a table column (CVE-2007-0555, CVE-2007-0556). These - errors can easily be exploited to cause a backend crash, and in - principle might be used to read database content that the user - should not be able to access. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix rare bug wherein btree index page splits could fail - due to choosing an infeasible split point (Heikki Linnakangas) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix for rare Assert() crash triggered by <literal>UNION</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Tighten security of multi-byte character processing for UTF8 sequences - over three bytes long (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-0-10"> - <title>Release 8.0.10</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2007-01-08</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.9. - For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-0">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.0.10</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, see the release - notes for 8.0.6. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve handling of <function>getaddrinfo()</> on AIX (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This fixes a problem with starting the statistics collector, - among other things. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <quote>failed to re-find parent key</> errors in - <command>VACUUM</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix race condition for truncation of a large relation across a - gigabyte boundary by <command>VACUUM</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix bugs affecting multi-gigabyte hash indexes (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix possible deadlock in Windows signal handling (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix error when constructing an <literal>ARRAY[]</> made up of multiple - empty elements (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix ecpg memory leak during connection (Michael) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <function>to_number()</> and <function>to_char(numeric)</> - are now <literal>STABLE</>, not <literal>IMMUTABLE</>, for - new <application>initdb</> installs (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This is because <varname>lc_numeric</> can potentially - change the output of these functions. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve index usage of regular expressions that use parentheses (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This improves <application>psql</> <literal>\d</> performance also. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update timezone database - </para> - - <para> - This affects Australian and Canadian daylight-savings rules in - particular. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-0-9"> - <title>Release 8.0.9</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2006-10-16</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.8. - For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-0">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.0.9</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, see the release - notes for 8.0.6. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Fix crash when referencing <literal>NEW</> row -values in rule WHERE expressions (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix core dump when an untyped literal is taken as -ANYARRAY</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix mishandling of AFTER triggers when query contains a SQL -function returning multiple rows (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <command>ALTER TABLE ... TYPE</> to recheck -<literal>NOT NULL</> for <literal>USING</> clause (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <function>string_to_array()</> to handle overlapping - matches for the separator string</para> -<para>For example, <literal>string_to_array('123xx456xxx789', 'xx')</>. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix corner cases in pattern matching for - <application>psql</>'s <literal>\d</> commands</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix index-corrupting bugs in /contrib/ltree - (Teodor)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Numerous robustness fixes in <application>ecpg</> (Joachim -Wieland)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix backslash escaping in /contrib/dbmirror</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix instability of statistics collection on Win32 (Tom, Andrew)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fixes for <systemitem class="osname">AIX</> and -<productname>Intel</> compilers (Tom)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-0-8"> - <title>Release 8.0.8</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2006-05-23</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.7, - including patches for extremely serious security issues. - For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-0">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.0.8</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, see the release - notes for 8.0.6. - </para> - - <para> - Full security against the SQL-injection attacks described in - CVE-2006-2313 and CVE-2006-2314 might require changes in application - code. If you have applications that embed untrustworthy strings - into SQL commands, you should examine them as soon as possible to - ensure that they are using recommended escaping techniques. In - most cases, applications should be using subroutines provided by - libraries or drivers (such as <application>libpq</>'s - <function>PQescapeStringConn()</>) to perform string escaping, - rather than relying on <foreignphrase>ad hoc</> code to do it. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Change the server to reject invalidly-encoded multibyte -characters in all cases (Tatsuo, Tom)</para> -<para>While <productname>PostgreSQL</> has been moving in this direction for -some time, the checks are now applied uniformly to all encodings and all -textual input, and are now always errors not merely warnings. This change -defends against SQL-injection attacks of the type described in CVE-2006-2313. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Reject unsafe uses of <literal>\'</> in string literals</para> -<para>As a server-side defense against SQL-injection attacks of the type -described in CVE-2006-2314, the server now only accepts <literal>''</> and not -<literal>\'</> as a representation of ASCII single quote in SQL string -literals. By default, <literal>\'</> is rejected only when -<varname>client_encoding</> is set to a client-only encoding (SJIS, BIG5, GBK, -GB18030, or UHC), which is the scenario in which SQL injection is possible. -A new configuration parameter <varname>backslash_quote</> is available to -adjust this behavior when needed. Note that full security against -CVE-2006-2314 might require client-side changes; the purpose of -<varname>backslash_quote</> is in part to make it obvious that insecure -clients are insecure. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Modify <application>libpq</>'s string-escaping routines to be -aware of encoding considerations and -<varname>standard_conforming_strings</></para> -<para>This fixes <application>libpq</>-using applications for the security -issues described in CVE-2006-2313 and CVE-2006-2314, and also future-proofs -them against the planned changeover to SQL-standard string literal syntax. -Applications that use multiple <productname>PostgreSQL</> connections -concurrently should migrate to <function>PQescapeStringConn()</> and -<function>PQescapeByteaConn()</> to ensure that escaping is done correctly -for the settings in use in each database connection. Applications that -do string escaping <quote>by hand</> should be modified to rely on library -routines instead. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix some incorrect encoding conversion functions</para> -<para><function>win1251_to_iso</>, <function>alt_to_iso</>, -<function>euc_tw_to_big5</>, <function>euc_tw_to_mic</>, -<function>mic_to_euc_tw</> were all broken to varying -extents. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Clean up stray remaining uses of <literal>\'</> in strings -(Bruce, Jan)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix bug that sometimes caused OR'd index scans to -miss rows they should have returned</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix WAL replay for case where a btree index has been -truncated</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix <literal>SIMILAR TO</> for patterns involving -<literal>|</> (Tom)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix <command>SELECT INTO</> and <command>CREATE TABLE AS</> to -create tables in the default tablespace, not the base directory (Kris -Jurka)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix server to use custom DH SSL parameters correctly (Michael -Fuhr)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix for Bonjour on Intel Macs (Ashley Clark)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix various minor memory leaks</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix problem with password prompting on some Win32 systems -(Robert Kinberg)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-0-7"> - <title>Release 8.0.7</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2006-02-14</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.6. - For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-0">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.0.7</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.6, see the release - notes for 8.0.6. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> - -<listitem><para>Fix potential crash in <command>SET -SESSION AUTHORIZATION</> (CVE-2006-0553)</para> -<para>An unprivileged user could crash the server process, resulting in -momentary denial of service to other users, if the server has been compiled -with Asserts enabled (which is not the default). -Thanks to Akio Ishida for reporting this problem. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix bug with row visibility logic in self-inserted -rows (Tom)</para> -<para>Under rare circumstances a row inserted by the current command -could be seen as already valid, when it should not be. Repairs bug -created in 8.0.4, 7.4.9, and 7.3.11 releases. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix race condition that could lead to <quote>file already -exists</> errors during pg_clog and pg_subtrans file creation -(Tom)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix cases that could lead to crashes if a cache-invalidation -message arrives at just the wrong time (Tom)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Properly check <literal>DOMAIN</> constraints for -<literal>UNKNOWN</> parameters in prepared statements -(Neil)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Ensure <command>ALTER COLUMN TYPE</> will process -<literal>FOREIGN KEY</>, <literal>UNIQUE</>, and <literal>PRIMARY KEY</> -constraints in the proper order (Nakano Yoshihisa)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fixes to allow restoring dumps that have cross-schema -references to custom operators or operator classes (Tom)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Allow <application>pg_restore</> to continue properly after a -<command>COPY</> failure; formerly it tried to treat the remaining -<command>COPY</> data as SQL commands (Stephen Frost)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix <application>pg_ctl</> <literal>unregister</> crash -when the data directory is not specified (Magnus)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix <application>ecpg</> crash on AMD64 and PPC -(Neil)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Recover properly if error occurs during argument passing -in <application>PL/python</> (Neil)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix <application>PL/perl</>'s handling of locales on -Win32 to match the backend (Andrew)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix crash when <literal>log_min_messages</> is set to -<literal>DEBUG3</> or above in <filename>postgresql.conf</> on Win32 -(Bruce)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix <application>pgxs</> <literal>-L</> library path -specification for Win32, Cygwin, OS X, AIX (Bruce)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Check that SID is enabled while checking for Win32 admin -privileges (Magnus)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Properly reject out-of-range date inputs (Kris -Jurka)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Portability fix for testing presence of <function>finite</> -and <function>isinf</> during configure (Tom)</para></listitem> - -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-0-6"> - <title>Release 8.0.6</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2006-01-09</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.5. - For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-0">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.0.6</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.3, see the release - notes for 8.0.3. - Also, you might need to <command>REINDEX</> indexes on textual - columns after updating, if you are affected by the locale or - <application>plperl</> issues described below. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> - -<listitem><para>Fix Windows code so that postmaster will continue rather -than exit if there is no more room in ShmemBackendArray (Magnus)</para> -<para>The previous behavior could lead to a denial-of-service situation if too -many connection requests arrive close together. This applies -<emphasis>only</> to the Windows port.</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix bug introduced in 8.0 that could allow ReadBuffer -to return an already-used page as new, potentially causing loss of -recently-committed data (Tom)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix for protocol-level Describe messages issued -outside a transaction or in a failed transaction (Tom)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix character string comparison for locales that consider -different character combinations as equal, such as Hungarian (Tom)</para> -<para>This might require <command>REINDEX</> to fix existing indexes on -textual columns.</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Set locale environment variables during postmaster startup -to ensure that <application>plperl</> won't change the locale later</para> -<para>This fixes a problem that occurred if the <application>postmaster</> was -started with environment variables specifying a different locale than what -<application>initdb</> had been told. Under these conditions, any use of -<application>plperl</> was likely to lead to corrupt indexes. You might need -<command>REINDEX</> to fix existing indexes on -textual columns if this has happened to you.</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Allow more flexible relocation of installation -directories (Tom)</para> -<para>Previous releases supported relocation only if all installation -directory paths were the same except for the last component.</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix longstanding bug in strpos() and regular expression -handling in certain rarely used Asian multi-byte character sets (Tatsuo) -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Various fixes for functions returning <literal>RECORD</>s -(Tom) </para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix bug in <filename>/contrib/pgcrypto</> gen_salt, -which caused it not to use all available salt space for MD5 and -XDES algorithms (Marko Kreen, Solar Designer)</para> -<para>Salts for Blowfish and standard DES are unaffected.</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix <filename>/contrib/dblink</> to throw an error, -rather than crashing, when the number of columns specified is different from -what's actually returned by the query (Joe)</para></listitem> - -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-0-5"> - <title>Release 8.0.5</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2005-12-12</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.4. - For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-0">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.0.5</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.3, see the release - notes for 8.0.3. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> - -<listitem><para>Fix race condition in transaction log management</para> -<para>There was a narrow window in which an I/O operation could be initiated -for the wrong page, leading to an Assert failure or data -corruption.</para> -</listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix bgwriter problems after recovering from errors -(Tom)</para> -<para> -The background writer was found to leak buffer pins after write errors. -While not fatal in itself, this might lead to mysterious blockages of -later VACUUM commands. -</para> -</listitem> - -<listitem><para>Prevent failure if client sends Bind protocol message -when current transaction is already aborted</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para><filename>/contrib/ltree</> fixes (Teodor)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>AIX and HPUX compile fixes (Tom)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Retry file reads and writes after Windows -NO_SYSTEM_RESOURCES error (Qingqing Zhou)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix intermittent failure when <varname>log_line_prefix</> -includes <literal>%i</></para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix <application>psql</> performance issue with long scripts -on Windows (Merlin Moncure)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix missing updates of <filename>pg_group</> flat -file</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix longstanding planning error for outer joins</para> -<para>This bug sometimes caused a bogus error <quote>RIGHT JOIN is -only supported with merge-joinable join conditions</>.</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Postpone timezone initialization until after -<filename>postmaster.pid</> is created</para> -<para>This avoids confusing startup scripts that expect the pid file to appear -quickly.</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Prevent core dump in <application>pg_autovacuum</> when a -table has been dropped</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix problems with whole-row references (<literal>foo.*</>) -to subquery results</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-0-4"> - <title>Release 8.0.4</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2005-10-04</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.3. - For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-0">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.0.4</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0.3, see the release - notes for 8.0.3. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Fix error that allowed <command>VACUUM</> to remove -<literal>ctid</> chains too soon, and add more checking in code that follows -<literal>ctid</> links</para> -<para>This fixes a long-standing problem that could cause crashes in very rare -circumstances.</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <type>CHAR()</> to properly pad spaces to the specified -length when using a multiple-byte character set (Yoshiyuki Asaba)</para> -<para>In prior releases, the padding of <type>CHAR()</> was incorrect -because it only padded to the specified number of bytes without -considering how many characters were stored.</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Force a checkpoint before committing <command>CREATE -DATABASE</></para> -<para>This should fix recent reports of <quote>index is not a btree</> -failures when a crash occurs shortly after <command>CREATE -DATABASE</>.</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix the sense of the test for read-only transaction -in <command>COPY</></para> -<para>The code formerly prohibited <command>COPY TO</>, where it should -prohibit <command>COPY FROM</>. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Handle consecutive embedded newlines in <command>COPY</> -CSV-mode input</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <function>date_trunc(week)</> for dates near year -end</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix planning problem with outer-join ON clauses that reference -only the inner-side relation</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Further fixes for <literal>x FULL JOIN y ON true</> corner -cases</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix overenthusiastic optimization of <literal>x IN (SELECT -DISTINCT ...)</> and related cases</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix mis-planning of queries with small <literal>LIMIT</> -values due to poorly thought out <quote>fuzzy</> cost -comparison</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make <function>array_in</> and <function>array_recv</> more -paranoid about validating their OID parameter</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix missing rows in queries like <literal>UPDATE a=... WHERE -a...</> with GiST index on column <literal>a</></para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve robustness of datetime parsing</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve checking for partially-written WAL -pages</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve robustness of signal handling when SSL is -enabled</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve MIPS and M68K spinlock code</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Don't try to open more than <literal>max_files_per_process</> -files during postmaster startup</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Various memory leakage fixes</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Various portability improvements</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Update timezone data files</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve handling of DLL load failures on Windows</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve random-number generation on Windows</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make <literal>psql -f filename</> return a nonzero exit code -when opening the file fails</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Change <application>pg_dump</> to handle inherited check -constraints more reliably</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix password prompting in <application>pg_restore</> on -Windows</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix PL/PgSQL to handle <literal>var := var</> correctly when -the variable is of pass-by-reference type</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix PL/Perl <literal>%_SHARED</> so it's actually -shared</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <filename>contrib/pg_autovacuum</> to allow sleep -intervals over 2000 sec</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Update <filename>contrib/tsearch2</> to use current Snowball -code</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-0-3"> - <title>Release 8.0.3</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2005-05-09</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.2, including several - security-related issues. - For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-0">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.0.3</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.X. However, - it is one possible way of handling two significant security problems - that have been found in the initial contents of 8.0.X system - catalogs. A dump/initdb/reload sequence using 8.0.3's initdb will - automatically correct these problems. - </para> - - <para> - The larger security problem is that the built-in character set encoding - conversion functions can be invoked from SQL commands by unprivileged - users, but the functions were not designed for such use and are not - secure against malicious choices of arguments. The fix involves changing - the declared parameter list of these functions so that they can no longer - be invoked from SQL commands. (This does not affect their normal use - by the encoding conversion machinery.) - </para> - - <para> - The lesser problem is that the <filename>contrib/tsearch2</> module - creates several functions that are improperly declared to return - <type>internal</> when they do not accept <type>internal</> arguments. - This breaks type safety for all functions using <type>internal</> - arguments. - </para> - - <para> - It is strongly recommended that all installations repair these errors, - either by initdb or by following the manual repair procedure given - below. The errors at least allow unprivileged database users to crash - their server process, and might allow unprivileged users to gain the - privileges of a database superuser. - </para> - - <para> - If you wish not to do an initdb, perform the same manual repair - procedures shown in the <link linkend="release-7-4-8">7.4.8 release - notes</link>. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Change encoding function signature to prevent -misuse</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Change <filename>contrib/tsearch2</> to avoid unsafe use of -<type>INTERNAL</> function results</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Guard against incorrect second parameter to -<function>record_out</></para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Repair ancient race condition that allowed a transaction to be -seen as committed for some purposes (eg SELECT FOR UPDATE) slightly sooner -than for other purposes</para> -<para>This is an extremely serious bug since it could lead to apparent -data inconsistencies being briefly visible to applications.</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Repair race condition between relation extension and -VACUUM</para> -<para>This could theoretically have caused loss of a page's worth of -freshly-inserted data, although the scenario seems of very low probability. -There are no known cases of it having caused more than an Assert failure. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix comparisons of <type>TIME WITH TIME ZONE</> values</para> -<para> -The comparison code was wrong in the case where the -<literal>--enable-integer-datetimes</> configuration switch had been used. -NOTE: if you have an index on a <type>TIME WITH TIME ZONE</> column, -it will need to be <command>REINDEX</>ed after installing this update, because -the fix corrects the sort order of column values. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <function>EXTRACT(EPOCH)</> for -<type>TIME WITH TIME ZONE</> values</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix mis-display of negative fractional seconds in -<type>INTERVAL</> values</para> -<para> -This error only occurred when the -<literal>--enable-integer-datetimes</> configuration switch had been used. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix pg_dump to dump trigger names containing <literal>%</> -correctly (Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Still more 64-bit fixes for -<filename>contrib/intagg</></para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent incorrect optimization of functions returning -<type>RECORD</></para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent crash on <literal>COALESCE(NULL,NULL)</></para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix Borland makefile for libpq</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <filename>contrib/btree_gist</> for <type>timetz</> type -(Teodor)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make <command>pg_ctl</> check the PID found in -<filename>postmaster.pid</> to see if it is still a live -process</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <command>pg_dump</>/<command>pg_restore</> problems caused -by addition of dump timestamps</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix interaction between materializing holdable cursors and -firing deferred triggers during transaction commit</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix memory leak in SQL functions returning pass-by-reference -data types</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-0-2"> - <title>Release 8.0.2</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2005-04-07</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.1. - For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-0">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.0.2</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.*. - This release updates the major version number of the - <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> libraries, so it might be - necessary to re-link some user applications if they cannot - find the properly-numbered shared library. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Increment the major version number of all interface -libraries (Bruce)</para> -<para> -This should have been done in 8.0.0. It is required so 7.4.X versions -of PostgreSQL client applications, like <application>psql</>, -can be used on the same machine as 8.0.X applications. This might require -re-linking user applications that use these libraries. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add Windows-only <varname>wal_sync_method</> setting of -<option>fsync_writethrough</> (Magnus, Bruce)</para> -<para> -This setting causes <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> to write through -any disk-drive write cache when writing to WAL. -This behavior was formerly called <option>fsync</>, but was -renamed because it acts quite differently from <option>fsync</> on other -platforms. -</para> -</listitem> -<listitem><para>Enable the <varname>wal_sync_method</> setting of -<option>open_datasync</> on Windows, and make it the default for that - platform (Magnus, Bruce)</para> -<para> -Because the default is no longer <option>fsync_writethrough</>, -data loss is possible during a power failure if the disk drive has -write caching enabled. To turn off the write cache on Windows, -from the <application>Device Manager</>, choose the drive properties, -then <literal>Policies</>. -</para> -</listitem> -<listitem><para>New cache management algorithm <acronym>2Q</> replaces -<acronym>ARC</> (Tom)</para> -<para> -This was done to avoid a pending US patent on <acronym>ARC</>. The -<acronym>2Q</> code might be a few percentage points slower than -<acronym>ARC</> for some work loads. A better cache management algorithm -will appear in 8.1. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Planner adjustments to improve behavior on freshly-created -tables (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow plpgsql to assign to an element of an array that is -initially <literal>NULL</> (Tom)</para> -<para> -Formerly the array would remain <literal>NULL</>, but now it becomes a -single-element array. The main SQL engine was changed to handle -<command>UPDATE</> of a null array value this way in 8.0, but the similar -case in plpgsql was overlooked. -</para> -</listitem> -<listitem><para>Convert <literal>\r\n</> and <literal>\r</> to <literal>\n</> -in plpython function bodies (Michael Fuhr)</para> -<para> - This prevents syntax errors when plpython code is written on a Windows or - Mac client. -</para> -</listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow SPI cursors to handle utility commands that return rows, -such as <command>EXPLAIN</> (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <command>CLUSTER</> failure after <command>ALTER TABLE -SET WITHOUT OIDS</> (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Reduce memory usage of <command>ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN</> -(Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <command>ALTER LANGUAGE RENAME</> (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Document the Windows-only <literal>register</> and -<literal>unregister</> options of <application>pg_ctl</> (Magnus)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Ensure operations done during backend shutdown are counted by -statistics collector</para> -<para> -This is expected to resolve reports of <application>pg_autovacuum</> -not vacuuming the system catalogs often enough — it was not being -told about catalog deletions caused by temporary table removal during -backend exit. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Change the Windows default for configuration parameter -<varname>log_destination</> to <option>eventlog</> (Magnus)</para> -<para> -By default, a server running on Windows will now send log output to the -Windows event logger rather than standard error. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make Kerberos authentication work on Windows (Magnus)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow <command>ALTER DATABASE RENAME</> by superusers -who aren't flagged as having CREATEDB privilege (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Modify WAL log entries for <command>CREATE</> and -<command>DROP DATABASE</> to not specify absolute paths (Tom)</para> -<para>This allows point-in-time recovery on a different machine with possibly -different database location. Note that <command>CREATE TABLESPACE</> still -poses a hazard in such situations. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix crash from a backend exiting with an open transaction -that created a table and opened a cursor on it (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <function>array_map()</> so it can call PL functions -(Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Several <filename>contrib/tsearch2</> and -<filename>contrib/btree_gist</> fixes (Teodor) -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix crash of some <filename>contrib/pgcrypto</> -functions on some platforms (Marko Kreen)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <filename>contrib/intagg</> for 64-bit platforms -(Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix ecpg bugs in parsing of <command>CREATE</> statement -(Michael)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Work around gcc bug on powerpc and amd64 causing problems in -ecpg (Christof Petig)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Do not use locale-aware versions of <function>upper()</>, -<function>lower()</>, and <function>initcap()</> when the locale is -<literal>C</> (Bruce)</para> -<para> - This allows these functions to work on platforms that generate errors - for non-7-bit data when the locale is <literal>C</>. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <function>quote_ident()</> to quote names that match keywords (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <function>to_date()</> to behave reasonably when -<literal>CC</> and <literal>YY</> fields are both used (Karel)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent <function>to_char(interval)</> from failing -when given a zero-month interval (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix wrong week returned by <function>date_trunc('week')</> -(Bruce)</para> -<para> -<function>date_trunc('week')</> -returned the wrong year for the first few days of January in some years. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Use the correct default mask length for class <literal>D</> -addresses in <type>INET</> data types (Tom)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-0-1"> - <title>Release 8.0.1</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2005-01-31</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.0.0, including several - security-related issues. - For information about new features in the 8.0 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-8-0">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.0.1</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.0.0. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Disallow <command>LOAD</> to non-superusers</para> -<para> -On platforms that will automatically execute initialization functions of a -shared library (this includes at least Windows and ELF-based Unixen), -<command>LOAD</> can be used to make the server execute arbitrary code. -Thanks to NGS Software for reporting this.</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Check that creator of an aggregate function has the right to -execute the specified transition functions</para> -<para> -This oversight made it possible to bypass denial of EXECUTE -permission on a function.</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix security and 64-bit issues in -contrib/intagg</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add needed STRICT marking to some contrib functions (Kris -Jurka)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Avoid buffer overrun when plpgsql cursor declaration has too -many parameters (Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make <command>ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN</> enforce domain -constraints in all cases</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix planning error for FULL and RIGHT outer joins</para> -<para> -The result of the join was mistakenly supposed to be sorted the same as the -left input. This could not only deliver mis-sorted output to the user, but -in case of nested merge joins could give outright wrong answers. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve planning of grouped aggregate queries</para></listitem> -<listitem><para><command>ROLLBACK TO <replaceable>savepoint</></command> -closes cursors created since the savepoint</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix inadequate backend stack size on Windows</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Avoid SHGetSpecialFolderPath() on Windows -(Magnus)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix some problems in running pg_autovacuum as a Windows -service (Dave Page)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Multiple minor bug fixes in -pg_dump/pg_restore</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix ecpg segfault with named structs used in -typedefs (Michael)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-8-0"> - <title>Release 8.0</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2005-01-19</simpara> - </note> - - <sect2> - <title>Overview</title> - - <para> - Major changes in this release: - </para> - - <variablelist> - <varlistentry> - <term> - Microsoft Windows Native Server - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - This is the first <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> release - to run natively on <trademark class="registered">Microsoft Windows</> as - a server. It can run as a <productname>Windows</> service. This - release supports NT-based Windows releases like - <productname>Windows 2000 SP4</>, <productname>Windows XP</>, and - <productname>Windows 2003</>. Older releases like - <productname>Windows 95</>, <productname>Windows 98</>, and - <productname>Windows ME</> are not supported because these operating - systems do not have the infrastructure to support - <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>. A separate installer - project has been created to ease installation on - <productname>Windows</> — see <ulink - url="http://www.postgresql.org/ftp/win32/"></ulink>. - </para> - - <para> - Although tested throughout our release cycle, the Windows port - does not have the benefit of years of use in production - environments that <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> has on - Unix platforms. Therefore it should be treated with the same - level of caution as you would a new product. - </para> - - <para> - Previous releases required the Unix emulation toolkit - <productname>Cygwin</> in order to run the server on Windows - operating systems. <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> has - supported native clients on Windows for many years. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Savepoints - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - Savepoints allow specific parts of a transaction to be aborted - without affecting the remainder of the transaction. Prior - releases had no such capability; there was no way to recover - from a statement failure within a transaction except by - aborting the whole transaction. This feature is valuable for - application writers who require error recovery within a - complex transaction. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Point-In-Time Recovery - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - In previous releases there was no way to recover from disk - drive failure except to restore from a previous backup or use - a standby replication server. Point-in-time recovery allows - continuous backup of the server. You can recover either to - the point of failure or to some transaction in the past. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Tablespaces - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - Tablespaces allow administrators to select different file systems - for storage of individual tables, indexes, and databases. - This improves performance and control over disk space - usage. Prior releases used <application>initlocation</> and - manual symlink management for such tasks. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Improved Buffer Management, <command>CHECKPOINT</command>, - <command>VACUUM</command> - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - This release has a more intelligent buffer replacement strategy, - which will make better use of available shared buffers and - improve performance. The performance impact of vacuum and - checkpoints is also lessened. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Change Column Types - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - A column's data type can now be changed with <command>ALTER - TABLE</command>. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - New Perl Server-Side Language - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - A new version of the <application>plperl</> server-side language now - supports a persistent shared storage area, triggers, returning records - and arrays of records, and SPI calls to access the database. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Comma-separated-value (CSV) support in <command>COPY</command> - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - <command>COPY</command> can now read and write - comma-separated-value files. It has the flexibility to - interpret nonstandard quoting and separation characters too. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - </variablelist> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 8.0</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore using <application>pg_dump</application> is - required for those wishing to migrate data from any previous - release. - </para> - - <para> - Observe the following incompatibilities: - </para> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - In <option>READ COMMITTED</> serialization mode, volatile functions - now see the results of concurrent transactions committed up to the - beginning of each statement within the function, rather than up to the - beginning of the interactive command that called the function. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Functions declared <option>STABLE</> or <option>IMMUTABLE</> always - use the snapshot of the calling query, and therefore do not see the - effects of actions taken after the calling query starts, whether in - their own transaction or other transactions. Such a function must be - read-only, too, meaning that it cannot use any SQL commands other than - <command>SELECT</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Nondeferred <option>AFTER</> triggers are now fired immediately - after completion of the triggering query, rather than upon - finishing the current interactive command. This makes a - difference when the triggering query occurred within a function: - the trigger is invoked before the function proceeds to its next - operation. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Server configuration parameters <varname>virtual_host</> and - <varname>tcpip_socket</> have been replaced with a more general - parameter <varname>listen_addresses</>. Also, the server now listens on - <literal>localhost</> by default, which eliminates the need for the - <literal>-i</> postmaster switch in many scenarios. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Server configuration parameters <varname>SortMem</> and - <varname>VacuumMem</> have been renamed to <varname>work_mem</> - and <varname>maintenance_work_mem</> to better reflect their - use. The original names are still supported in - <command>SET</command> and <command>SHOW</command>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Server configuration parameters <varname>log_pid</>, - <varname>log_timestamp</>, and <varname>log_source_port</> have been - replaced with a more general parameter <varname>log_line_prefix</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Server configuration parameter <varname>syslog</> has been - replaced with a more logical <varname>log_destination</> variable to - control the log output destination. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Server configuration parameter <varname>log_statement</> has been - changed so it can selectively log just database modification or - data definition statements. Server configuration parameter - <varname>log_duration</> now prints only when <varname>log_statement</> - prints the query. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Server configuration parameter <varname>max_expr_depth</> parameter has - been replaced with <varname>max_stack_depth</> which measures the - physical stack size rather than the expression nesting depth. This - helps prevent session termination due to stack overflow caused by - recursive functions. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - The <function>length()</> function no longer counts trailing spaces in - <type>CHAR(n)</> values. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Casting an integer to <type>BIT(N)</> selects the rightmost N bits of the - integer, not the leftmost N bits as before. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Updating an element or slice of a NULL array value now produces - a nonnull array result, namely an array containing - just the assigned-to positions. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Syntax checking of array input values has been tightened up - considerably. Junk that was previously allowed in odd places with - odd results now causes an error. Empty-string element values - must now be written as <literal>""</>, rather than writing nothing. - Also changed behavior with respect to whitespace surrounding - array elements: trailing whitespace is now ignored, for symmetry - with leading whitespace (which has always been ignored). - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Overflow in integer arithmetic operations is now detected and - reported as an error. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - The arithmetic operators associated with the single-byte - <type>"char"</> data type have been removed. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - The <function>extract()</> function (also called - <function>date_part</>) now returns the proper year for BC dates. - It previously returned one less than the correct year. The - function now also returns the proper values for millennium and - century. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <type>CIDR</> values now must have their nonmasked bits be zero. - For example, we no longer allow - <literal>204.248.199.1/31</literal> as a <type>CIDR</> value. Such - values should never have been accepted by - <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> and will now be rejected. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <command>EXECUTE</command> now returns a completion tag that - matches the executed statement. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <application>psql</>'s <command>\copy</> command now reads or - writes to the query's <literal>stdin/stdout</>, rather than - <application>psql</>'s <literal>stdin/stdout</>. The previous - behavior can be accessed via new - <option>pstdin</>/<option>pstdout</> parameters. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - The JDBC client interface has been removed from the core - distribution, and is now hosted at <ulink url= - "http://jdbc.postgresql.org"></ulink>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - The Tcl client interface has also been removed. There are several - Tcl interfaces now hosted at <ulink url= - "http://gborg.postgresql.org"></ulink>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - The server now uses its own time zone database, rather than the - one supplied by the operating system. This will provide consistent - behavior across all platforms. In most cases, there should be - little noticeable difference in time zone behavior, except that - the time zone names used by <command>SET</>/<command>SHOW</> - <varname>TimeZone</> might be different from what your platform provides. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <application>Configure</>'s threading option no longer requires - users to run tests or edit configuration files; threading options - are now detected automatically. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Now that tablespaces have been implemented, - <application>initlocation</> has been removed. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - The API for user-defined GiST indexes has been changed. The - Union and PickSplit methods are now passed a pointer to a - special <structname>GistEntryVector</structname> structure, - rather than a <type>bytea</type>. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Deprecated Features</title> - - <para> - Some aspects of <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>'s behavior - have been determined to be suboptimal. For the sake of backward - compatibility these have not been removed in 8.0, but they are - considered deprecated and will be removed in the next major - release. - </para> - - <itemizedlist> - <listitem> - <para> - The 8.1 release will remove the <function>to_char()</> function - for intervals. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - The server now warns of empty strings passed to - <type>oid</type>/<type>float4</type>/<type>float8</type> data - types, but continues to interpret them as zeroes as before. - In the next major release, empty strings will be considered - invalid input for these data types. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - By default, tables in <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> 8.0 - and earlier are created with <type>OID</>s. In the next release, - this will <emphasis>not</emphasis> be the case: to create a table - that contains <type>OID</>s, the <option>WITH OIDS</> clause must - be specified or the <varname>default_with_oids</varname> - configuration parameter must be set. Users are encouraged to - explicitly specify <option>WITH OIDS</> if their tables - require OIDs for compatibility with future releases of - <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <para> - Below you will find a detailed account of the changes between - release 8.0 and the previous major release. - </para> - - <sect3> - <title>Performance Improvements</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support cross-data-type index usage (Tom) - </para> - <para> - Before this change, many queries would not use an index if the data - types did not match exactly. This improvement makes index usage more - intuitive and consistent. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - New buffer replacement strategy that improves caching (Jan) - </para> - <para> - Prior releases used a least-recently-used (LRU) cache to keep - recently referenced pages in memory. The LRU algorithm - did not consider the number of times a specific cache entry was - accessed, so large table scans could force out useful cache pages. - The new cache algorithm uses four separate lists to track most - recently used and most frequently used cache pages and dynamically - optimize their replacement based on the work load. This should - lead to much more efficient use of the shared buffer cache. - Administrators who have tested shared buffer sizes in the past - should retest with this new cache replacement policy. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add subprocess to write dirty buffers periodically to reduce - checkpoint writes (Jan) - </para> - <para> - In previous releases, the checkpoint process, which runs every few - minutes, would write all dirty buffers to the operating system's - buffer cache then flush all dirty operating system buffers to - disk. This resulted in a periodic spike in disk usage that often - hurt performance. The new code uses a background writer to trickle - disk writes at a steady pace so checkpoints have far fewer dirty - pages to write to disk. Also, the new code does not issue a global - <function>sync()</> call, but instead <function>fsync()</>s just - the files written since the last checkpoint. This should improve - performance and minimize degradation during checkpoints. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add ability to prolong vacuum to reduce performance impact (Jan) - </para> - <para> - On busy systems, <command>VACUUM</command> performs many I/O - requests which can hurt performance for other users. This - release allows you to slow down <command>VACUUM</command> to - reduce its impact on other users, though this increases the - total duration of <command>VACUUM</command>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve B-tree index performance for duplicate keys (Dmitry Tkach, Tom) - </para> - <para> - This improves the way indexes are scanned when many duplicate - values exist in the index. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Use dynamically-generated table size estimates while planning (Tom) - </para> - <para> - Formerly the planner estimated table sizes using the values seen - by the last <command>VACUUM</command> or <command>ANALYZE</command>, - both as to physical table size (number of pages) and number of rows. - Now, the current physical table size is obtained from the kernel, - and the number of rows is estimated by multiplying the table size - by the row density (rows per page) seen by the last - <command>VACUUM</command> or <command>ANALYZE</command>. This should - produce more reliable estimates in cases where the table size has - changed significantly since the last housekeeping command. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improved index usage with <literal>OR</> clauses (Tom) - </para> - <para> - This allows the optimizer to use indexes in statements with many OR - clauses that would not have been indexed in the past. It can also use - multi-column indexes where the first column is specified and the second - column is part of an <literal>OR</> clause. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve matching of partial index clauses (Tom) - </para> - <para> - The server is now smarter about using partial indexes in queries - involving complex <option>WHERE</> clauses. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve performance of the GEQO optimizer (Tom) - </para> - <para> - The GEQO optimizer is used to plan queries involving many tables (by - default, twelve or more). This release speeds up the way queries are - analyzed to decrease time spent in optimization. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Miscellaneous optimizer improvements - </para> - <para> - There is not room here to list all the minor improvements made, but - numerous special cases work better than in prior releases. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve lookup speed for C functions (Tom) - </para> - <para> - This release uses a hash table to lookup information for dynamically - loaded C functions. This improves their speed so they perform nearly as - quickly as functions that are built into the server executable. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add type-specific <command>ANALYZE</command> statistics - capability (Mark Cave-Ayland) - </para> - <para> - This feature allows more flexibility in generating statistics - for nonstandard data types. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <command>ANALYZE</command> now collects statistics for - expression indexes (Tom) - </para> - <para> - Expression indexes (also called functional indexes) allow users to - index not just columns but the results of expressions and function - calls. With this release, the optimizer can gather and use statistics - about the contents of expression indexes. This will greatly improve - the quality of planning for queries in which an expression index is - relevant. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - New two-stage sampling method for <command>ANALYZE</command> - (Manfred Koizar) - </para> - <para> - This gives better statistics when the density of valid rows is very - different in different regions of a table. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Speed up <command>TRUNCATE</command> (Tom) - </para> - <para> - This buys back some of the performance loss observed in 7.4, while still - keeping <command>TRUNCATE</command> transaction-safe. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - - <sect3> - <title>Server Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add WAL file archiving and point-in-time recovery (Simon Riggs) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add tablespaces so admins can control disk layout (Gavin) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add a built-in log rotation program (Andreas Pflug) - </para> - <para> - It is now possible to log server messages conveniently without - relying on either <application>syslog</> or an external log - rotation program. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add new read-only server configuration parameters to show server - compile-time settings: <varname>block_size</>, - <varname>integer_datetimes</>, <varname>max_function_args</>, - <varname>max_identifier_length</>, <varname>max_index_keys</> (Joe) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make quoting of <literal>sameuser</>, <literal>samegroup</>, and - <literal>all</> remove special meaning of these terms in - <filename>pg_hba.conf</> (Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Use clearer IPv6 name <literal>::1/128</> for - <literal>localhost</> in default <filename>pg_hba.conf</> (Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Use CIDR format in <filename>pg_hba.conf</> examples (Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Rename server configuration parameters <varname>SortMem</> and - <varname>VacuumMem</> to <varname>work_mem</> and - <varname>maintenance_work_mem</> (Old names still supported) (Tom) - </para> - <para> - This change was made to clarify that bulk operations such as index and - foreign key creation use <varname>maintenance_work_mem</>, while - <varname>work_mem</> is for workspaces used during query execution. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow logging of session disconnections using server configuration - <varname>log_disconnections</> (Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add new server configuration parameter <varname>log_line_prefix</> to - allow control of information emitted in each log line (Andrew) - </para> - <para> - Available information includes user name, database name, remote IP - address, and session start time. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove server configuration parameters <varname>log_pid</>, - <varname>log_timestamp</>, <varname>log_source_port</>; functionality - superseded by <varname>log_line_prefix</> (Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Replace the <varname>virtual_host</> and <varname>tcpip_socket</> - parameters with a unified <varname>listen_addresses</> parameter - (Andrew, Tom) - </para> - <para> - <varname>virtual_host</> could only specify a single IP address to - listen on. <varname>listen_addresses</> allows multiple addresses - to be specified. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Listen on localhost by default, which eliminates the need for the - <option>-i</> postmaster switch in many scenarios (Andrew) - </para> - <para> - Listening on localhost (<literal>127.0.0.1</>) opens no new - security holes but allows configurations like Windows and JDBC, - which do not support local sockets, to work without special - adjustments. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove <varname>syslog</> server configuration parameter, and add more - logical <varname>log_destination</> variable to control log output - location (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Change server configuration parameter <varname>log_statement</> to take - values <varname>all</>, <varname>mod</>, <varname>ddl</>, or - <varname>none</> to select which queries are logged (Bruce) - </para> - <para> - This allows administrators to log only data definition changes or - only data modification statements. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Some logging-related configuration parameters could formerly be adjusted - by ordinary users, but only in the <quote>more verbose</> direction. - They are now treated more strictly: only superusers can set them. - However, a superuser can use <command>ALTER USER</> to provide per-user - settings of these values for non-superusers. Also, it is now possible - for superusers to set values of superuser-only configuration parameters - via <literal>PGOPTIONS</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow configuration files to be placed outside the data directory (mlw) - </para> - <para> - By default, configuration files are kept in the cluster's top directory. - With this addition, configuration files can be placed outside the - data directory, easing administration. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Plan prepared queries only when first executed so constants can be - used for statistics (Oliver Jowett) - </para> - <para> - Prepared statements plan queries once and execute them many - times. While prepared queries avoid the overhead of re-planning - on each use, the quality of the plan suffers from not knowing the exact - parameters to be used in the query. In this release, planning of - unnamed prepared statements is delayed until the first execution, - and the actual parameter values of that execution are used as - optimization hints. This allows use of out-of-line parameter passing - without incurring a performance penalty. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <command>DECLARE CURSOR</command> to take parameters - (Oliver Jowett) - </para> - <para> - It is now useful to issue <command>DECLARE CURSOR</command> in a - <function>Parse</> message with parameters. The parameter values - sent at <function>Bind</> time will be substituted into the - execution of the cursor's query. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix hash joins and aggregates of <type>inet</type> and - <type>cidr</type> data types (Tom) - </para> - <para> - Release 7.4 handled hashing of mixed <type>inet</type> and - <type>cidr</type> values incorrectly. (This bug did not exist - in prior releases because they wouldn't try to hash either - data type.) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <varname>log_duration</> print only when <varname>log_statement</> - prints the query (Ed L.) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - - <sect3> - <title>Query Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add savepoints (nested transactions) (Alvaro) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Unsupported isolation levels are now accepted and promoted to the - nearest supported level (Peter) - </para> - <para> - The SQL specification states that if a database doesn't support a - specific isolation level, it should use the next more restrictive level. - This change complies with that recommendation. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <command>BEGIN WORK</command> to specify transaction - isolation levels like <command>START TRANSACTION</command> does - (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix table permission checking for cases in which rules generate - a query type different from the originally submitted query (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Implement dollar quoting to simplify single-quote usage (Andrew, Tom, - David Fetter) - </para> - <para> - In previous releases, because single quotes had to be used to - quote a function's body, the use of single quotes inside the - function text required use of two single quotes or other error-prone - notations. With this release we add the ability to use "dollar - quoting" to quote a block of text. The ability to use different - quoting delimiters at different nesting levels greatly simplifies - the task of quoting correctly, especially in complex functions. - Dollar quoting can be used anywhere quoted text is needed. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <literal>CASE val WHEN compval1 THEN ...</> evaluate <literal>val</> only once (Tom) - </para> - <para> - <option>CASE</> no longer evaluates the tested expression multiple - times. This has benefits when the expression is complex or is - volatile. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Test <option>HAVING</> before computing target list of an - aggregate query (Tom) - </para> - <para> - Fixes improper failure of cases such as <literal>SELECT SUM(win)/SUM(lose) - ... GROUP BY ... HAVING SUM(lose) > 0</>. This should work but formerly - could fail with divide-by-zero. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Replace <varname>max_expr_depth</> parameter with - <varname>max_stack_depth</> parameter, measured in kilobytes of stack - size (Tom) - </para> - <para> - This gives us a fairly bulletproof defense against crashing due to - runaway recursive functions. Instead of measuring the depth of expression - nesting, we now directly measure the size of the execution stack. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow arbitrary row expressions (Tom) - </para> - <para> - This release allows SQL expressions to contain arbitrary composite - types, that is, row values. It also allows functions to more easily - take rows as arguments and return row values. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <option>LIKE</>/<option>ILIKE</> to be used as the operator - in row and subselect comparisons (Fabien Coelho) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Avoid locale-specific case conversion of basic ASCII letters in - identifiers and keywords (Tom) - </para> - <para> - This solves the <quote>Turkish problem</> with mangling of words - containing <literal>I</> and <literal>i</>. Folding of characters - outside the 7-bit-ASCII set is still locale-aware. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve syntax error reporting (Fabien, Tom) - </para> - <para> - Syntax error reports are more useful than before. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Change <command>EXECUTE</command> to return a completion tag - matching the executed statement (Kris Jurka) - </para> - <para> - Previous releases return an <command>EXECUTE</command> tag for - any <command>EXECUTE</command> call. In this release, the tag - returned will reflect the command executed. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Avoid emitting <option>NATURAL CROSS JOIN</> in rule listings (Tom) - </para> - <para> - Such a clause makes no logical sense, but in some cases the rule - decompiler formerly produced this syntax. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - - <sect3> - <title>Object Manipulation Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <command>COMMENT ON</> for casts, conversions, languages, - operator classes, and large objects (Christopher) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add new server configuration parameter <varname>default_with_oids</> to - control whether tables are created with <type>OID</>s by default (Neil) - </para> - <para> - This allows administrators to control whether <command>CREATE - TABLE</command> commands create tables with or without <type>OID</> - columns by default. (Note: the current factory default setting for - <varname>default_with_oids</> is <literal>TRUE</>, but the default - will become <literal>FALSE</> in future releases.) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <option>WITH</> / <option>WITHOUT OIDS</> clause to - <command>CREATE TABLE AS</command> (Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <command>ALTER TABLE DROP COLUMN</> to drop an <type>OID</> - column (<command>ALTER TABLE SET WITHOUT OIDS</> still works) - (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow composite types as table columns (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <command>ALTER ... ADD COLUMN</> with defaults and - <option>NOT NULL</> constraints; works per SQL spec (Rod) - </para> - <para> - It is now possible for <option>ADD COLUMN</> to create a column - that is not initially filled with NULLs, but with a specified - default value. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <command>ALTER COLUMN TYPE</> to change column's type (Rod) - </para> - <para> - It is now possible to alter a column's data type without dropping - and re-adding the column. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow multiple <command>ALTER</> actions in a single <command>ALTER - TABLE</command> command (Rod) - </para> - <para> - This is particularly useful for <command>ALTER</> commands that - rewrite the table (which include <option>ALTER COLUMN TYPE</> and - <option>ADD COLUMN</> with a default). By grouping - <command>ALTER</> commands together, the table need be rewritten - only once. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <command>ALTER TABLE</command> to add <type>SERIAL</type> - columns (Tom) - </para> - <para> - This falls out from the new capability of specifying defaults for new - columns. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow changing the owners of aggregates, conversions, databases, - functions, operators, operator classes, schemas, types, and tablespaces - (Christopher, Euler Taveira de Oliveira) - </para> - <para> - Previously this required modifying the system tables directly. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow temporary object creation to be limited to <option>SECURITY - DEFINER</> functions (Sean Chittenden) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <option>ALTER TABLE ... SET WITHOUT CLUSTER</> (Christopher) - </para> - <para> - Prior to this release, there was no way to clear an auto-cluster - specification except to modify the system tables. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Constraint/Index/<type>SERIAL</> names are now - <replaceable>table_column_type</> - with numbers appended to guarantee uniqueness within the schema - (Tom) - </para> - <para> - The SQL specification states that such names should be unique - within a schema. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>pg_get_serial_sequence()</> to return a - <type>SERIAL</> column's sequence name (Christopher) - </para> - <para> - This allows automated scripts to reliably find the <type>SERIAL</> - sequence name. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Warn when primary/foreign key data type mismatch requires costly lookup - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - New <command>ALTER INDEX</> command to allow moving of indexes - between tablespaces (Gavin) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>ALTER TABLE OWNER</> change dependent sequence - ownership too (Alvaro) - </para> - </listitem> - - - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - - <sect3> - <title>Utility Command Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <command>CREATE SCHEMA</command> to create triggers, - indexes, and sequences (Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <option>ALSO</> keyword to <command>CREATE RULE</command> (Fabien - Coelho) - </para> - <para> - This allows <option>ALSO</> to be added to rule creation to contrast it with - <option>INSTEAD</> rules. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <option>NOWAIT</> option to <command>LOCK</command> (Tatsuo) - </para> - <para> - This allows the <command>LOCK</command> command to fail if it - would have to wait for the requested lock. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <command>COPY</command> to read and write - comma-separated-value (CSV) files (Andrew, Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Generate error if the <command>COPY</command> delimiter and NULL - string conflict (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <command>GRANT</command>/<command>REVOKE</command> behavior - follows the SQL spec more closely - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Avoid locking conflict between <command>CREATE INDEX</command> - and <command>CHECKPOINT</command> (Tom) - </para> - <para> - In 7.3 and 7.4, a long-running B-tree index build could block concurrent - <command>CHECKPOINT</>s from completing, thereby causing WAL bloat because the - WAL log could not be recycled. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Database-wide <command>ANALYZE</command> does not hold locks - across tables (Tom) - </para> - <para> - This reduces the potential for deadlocks against other backends - that want exclusive locks on tables. To get the benefit of this - change, do not execute database-wide <command>ANALYZE</command> - inside a transaction block (<command>BEGIN</command> block); it - must be able to commit and start a new transaction for each - table. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <command>REINDEX</command> does not exclusively lock the index's - parent table anymore - </para> - <para> - The index itself is still exclusively locked, but readers of the - table can continue if they are not using the particular index - being rebuilt. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Erase MD5 user passwords when a user is renamed (Bruce) - </para> - <para> - <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> uses the user name as salt - when encrypting passwords via MD5. When a user's name is changed, - the salt will no longer match the stored MD5 password, so the - stored password becomes useless. In this release a notice is - generated and the password is cleared. A new password must then - be assigned if the user is to be able to log in with a password. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - New <application>pg_ctl</> <option>kill</> option for Windows (Andrew) - </para> - <para> - Windows does not have a <literal>kill</> command to send signals to - backends so this capability was added to <application>pg_ctl</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Information schema improvements - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <option>--pwfile</> option to - <application>initdb</application> so the initial password can be - set by GUI tools (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Detect locale/encoding mismatch in - <application>initdb</application> (Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <option>register</> command to <application>pg_ctl</> to - register Windows operating system service (Dave Page) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - - <sect3> - <title>Data Type and Function Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - More complete support for composite types (row types) (Tom) - </para> - <para> - Composite values can be used in many places where only scalar values - worked before. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Reject nonrectangular array values as erroneous (Joe) - </para> - <para> - Formerly, <function>array_in</> would silently build a - surprising result. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Overflow in integer arithmetic operations is now detected (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - The arithmetic operators associated with the single-byte - <type>"char"</> data type have been removed. - </para> - <para> - Formerly, the parser would select these operators in many situations - where an <quote>unable to select an operator</> error would be more - appropriate, such as <literal>null * null</>. If you actually want - to do arithmetic on a <type>"char"</> column, you can cast it to - integer explicitly. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Syntax checking of array input values considerably tightened up (Joe) - </para> - <para> - Junk that was previously allowed in odd places with odd results - now causes an <literal>ERROR</>, for example, non-whitespace - after the closing right brace. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Empty-string array element values must now be written as - <literal>""</>, rather than writing nothing (Joe) - </para> - <para> - Formerly, both ways of writing an empty-string element value were - allowed, but now a quoted empty string is required. The case where - nothing at all appears will probably be considered to be a NULL - element value in some future release. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Array element trailing whitespace is now ignored (Joe) - </para> - <para> - Formerly leading whitespace was ignored, but trailing whitespace - between an element value and the delimiter or right brace was - significant. Now trailing whitespace is also ignored. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Emit array values with explicit array bounds when lower bound is not one - (Joe) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Accept <literal>YYYY-monthname-DD</> as a date string (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <function>netmask</> and <function>hostmask</> functions - return maximum-length mask length (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Change factorial function to return <type>numeric</type> (Gavin) - </para> - <para> - Returning <type>numeric</type> allows the factorial function to - work for a wider range of input values. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <function>to_char</>/<function>to_date()</> date conversion - improvements (Kurt Roeckx, Fabien Coelho) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <function>length()</> disregard trailing spaces in - <type>CHAR(n)</> (Gavin) - </para> - <para> - This change was made to improve consistency: trailing spaces are - semantically insignificant in <type>CHAR(n)</> data, so they - should not be counted by <function>length()</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Warn about empty string being passed to - <type>OID</>/<type>float4</>/<type>float8</> data types (Neil) - </para> - <para> - 8.1 will throw an error instead. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow leading or trailing whitespace in - <type>int2</>/<type>int4</>/<type>int8</>/<type>float4</>/<type>float8</> - input routines - (Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Better support for IEEE <literal>Infinity</> and <literal>NaN</> - values in <type>float4</type>/<type>float8</type> (Neil) - </para> - <para> - These should now work on all platforms that support IEEE-compliant - floating point arithmetic. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <option>week</> option to <function>date_trunc()</> (Robert Creager) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <function>to_char</function> for <literal>1 BC</> - (previously it returned <literal>1 AD</>) (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <function>date_part(year)</> for BC dates (previously it - returned one less than the correct year) (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <function>date_part()</> to return the proper millennium and - century (Fabien Coelho) - </para> - <para> - In previous versions, the century and millennium results had a wrong - number and started in the wrong year, as compared to standard - reckoning of such things. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>ceiling()</> as an alias for <function>ceil()</>, - and <function>power()</> as an alias for <function>pow()</> for - standards compliance (Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Change <function>ln()</>, <function>log()</>, - <function>power()</>, and <function>sqrt()</> to emit the correct - <literal>SQLSTATE</> error codes for certain error conditions, as - specified by SQL:2003 (Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>width_bucket()</> function as defined by SQL:2003 (Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>generate_series()</> functions to simplify working - with numeric sets (Joe) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <function>upper/lower/initcap()</> functions to work with - multibyte encodings (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add boolean and bitwise integer <option>AND</>/<option>OR</> - aggregates (Fabien Coelho) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - New session information functions to return network addresses for client - and server (Sean Chittenden) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add function to determine the area of a closed path (Sean Chittenden) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add function to send cancel request to other backends (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <type>interval</> plus <type>datetime</> operators (Tom) - </para> - <para> - The reverse ordering, <type>datetime</> plus <type>interval</>, - was already supported, but both are required by the SQL standard. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Casting an integer to <type>BIT(N)</> selects the rightmost N bits - of the integer - (Tom) - </para> - <para> - In prior releases, the leftmost N bits were selected, but this was - deemed unhelpful, not to mention inconsistent with casting from bit - to int. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Require <type>CIDR</> values to have all nonmasked bits be zero - (Kevin Brintnall) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - - <sect3> - <title>Server-Side Language Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - In <literal>READ COMMITTED</> serialization mode, volatile functions - now see the results of concurrent transactions committed up to the - beginning of each statement within the function, rather than up to the - beginning of the interactive command that called the function. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Functions declared <literal>STABLE</> or <literal>IMMUTABLE</> always - use the snapshot of the calling query, and therefore do not see the - effects of actions taken after the calling query starts, whether in - their own transaction or other transactions. Such a function must be - read-only, too, meaning that it cannot use any SQL commands other than - <command>SELECT</>. There is a considerable performance gain from - declaring a function <literal>STABLE</> or <literal>IMMUTABLE</> - rather than <literal>VOLATILE</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Nondeferred <option>AFTER</> triggers are now fired immediately - after completion of the triggering query, rather than upon - finishing the current interactive command. This makes a difference - when the triggering query occurred within a function: the trigger - is invoked before the function proceeds to its next operation. For - example, if a function inserts a new row into a table, any - nondeferred foreign key checks occur before proceeding with the - function. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow function parameters to be declared with names (Dennis Björklund) - </para> - <para> - This allows better documentation of functions. Whether the names - actually do anything depends on the specific function language - being used. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow PL/pgSQL parameter names to be referenced in the function (Dennis Björklund) - </para> - <para> - This basically creates an automatic alias for each named parameter. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Do minimal syntax checking of PL/pgSQL functions at creation time (Tom) - </para> - <para> - This allows us to catch simple syntax errors sooner. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - More support for composite types (row and record variables) in PL/pgSQL - </para> - <para> - For example, it now works to pass a rowtype variable to another function - as a single variable. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Default values for PL/pgSQL variables can now reference previously - declared variables - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve parsing of PL/pgSQL FOR loops (Tom) - </para> - <para> - Parsing is now driven by presence of <literal>".."</> rather than - data type of <option>FOR</> variable. This makes no difference for - correct functions, but should result in more understandable error - messages when a mistake is made. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Major overhaul of PL/Perl server-side language (Command Prompt, Andrew Dunstan) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - In PL/Tcl, SPI commands are now run in subtransactions. If an error - occurs, the subtransaction is cleaned up and the error is reported - as an ordinary Tcl error, which can be trapped with <literal>catch</>. - Formerly, it was not possible to catch such errors. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Accept <command>ELSEIF</> in PL/pgSQL (Neil) - </para> - <para> - Previously PL/pgSQL only allowed <command>ELSIF</>, but many people - are accustomed to spelling this keyword <command>ELSEIF</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - - <sect3> - <title><application>psql</> Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve <application>psql</> information display about database - objects (Christopher) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <application>psql</> to display group membership in - <command>\du</> and <command>\dg</> (Markus Bertheau) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent <application>psql</> <command>\dn</command> from showing - temporary schemas (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <application>psql</> to handle tilde user expansion for file - names (Zach Irmen) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <application>psql</> to display fancy prompts, including - color, via <application>readline</> (Reece Hart, Chet Ramey) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <application>psql</> <command>\copy</> match <command>COPY</command> command syntax - fully (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Show the location of syntax errors (Fabien Coelho, Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <command>CLUSTER</command> information to <application>psql</> - <command>\d</> display - (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Change <application>psql</> <command>\copy stdin/stdout</> to read - from command input/output (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <option>pstdin</>/<option>pstdout</> to read from - <application>psql</>'s <literal>stdin</>/<literal>stdout</> (Mark - Feit) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add global <application>psql</> configuration file, <filename>psqlrc.sample</filename> - (Bruce) - </para> - <para> - This allows a central file where global <application>psql</> startup commands can - be stored. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Have <application>psql</> <command>\d+</> indicate if the table - has an <type>OID</> column (Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - On Windows, use binary mode in <application>psql</> when reading files so control-Z - is not seen as end-of-file - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Have <command>\dn+</> show permissions and description for schemas (Dennis - Björklund) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve tab completion support (Stefan Kaltenbrunn, Greg Sabino Mullane) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow boolean settings to be set using upper or lower case (Michael Paesold) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - - <sect3> - <title><application>pg_dump</> Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Use dependency information to improve the reliability of - <application>pg_dump</> (Tom) - </para> - <para> - This should solve the longstanding problems with related objects - sometimes being dumped in the wrong order. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Have <application>pg_dump</> output objects in alphabetical order if possible (Tom) - </para> - <para> - This should make it easier to identify changes between - dump files. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <application>pg_restore</> to ignore some SQL errors (Fabien Coelho) - </para> - <para> - This makes <application>pg_restore</>'s behavior similar to the - results of feeding a <application>pg_dump</> output script to - <application>psql</>. In most cases, ignoring errors and plowing - ahead is the most useful thing to do. Also added was a pg_restore - option to give the old behavior of exiting on an error. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <application>pg_restore</> <option>-l</> display now includes - objects' schema names - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - New begin/end markers in <application>pg_dump</> text output (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add start/stop times for - <application>pg_dump</>/<application>pg_dumpall</> in verbose mode - (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow most <application>pg_dump</> options in - <application>pg_dumpall</> (Christopher) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Have <application>pg_dump</> use <command>ALTER OWNER</> rather - than <command>SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION</> by default - (Christopher) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - - <sect3> - <title>libpq Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make libpq's <option>SIGPIPE</> handling thread-safe (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>PQmbdsplen()</> which returns the display length - of a character (Tatsuo) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add thread locking to <application>SSL</> and - <application>Kerberos</> connections (Manfred Spraul) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <function>PQoidValue()</>, <function>PQcmdTuples()</>, and - <function>PQoidStatus()</> to work on <command>EXECUTE</command> - commands (Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>PQserverVersion()</> to provide more convenient - access to the server version number (Greg Sabino Mullane) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <function>PQprepare/PQsendPrepared()</> functions to support - preparing statements without necessarily specifying the data types - of their parameters (Abhijit Menon-Sen) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Many ECPG improvements, including <command>SET DESCRIPTOR</> (Michael) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - - <sect3> - <title>Source Code Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow the database server to run natively on Windows (Claudio, Magnus, Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Shell script commands converted to C versions for Windows support (Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Create an extension makefile framework (Fabien Coelho, Peter) - </para> - <para> - This simplifies the task of building extensions outside the original - source tree. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support relocatable installations (Bruce) - </para> - <para> - Directory paths for installed files (such as the - <filename>/share</> directory) are now computed relative to the - actual location of the executables, so that an installation tree - can be moved to another place without reconfiguring and - rebuilding. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Use <option>--with-docdir</> to choose installation location of documentation; also - allow <option>--infodir</> (Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <option>--without-docdir</> to prevent installation of documentation (Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Upgrade to <application>DocBook</> V4.2 SGML (Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - New <literal>PostgreSQL</> <application>CVS</> tag (Marc) - </para> - <para> - This was done to make it easier for organizations to manage their - own copies of the <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> - <application>CVS</> repository. File version stamps from the master - repository will not get munged by checking into or out of a copied - repository. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Clarify locking code (Manfred Koizar) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Buffer manager cleanup (Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Decouple platform tests from CPU spinlock code (Bruce, Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add inlined test-and-set code on PA-RISC for <application>gcc</> - (ViSolve, Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve i386 spinlock code (Manfred Spraul) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Clean up spinlock assembly code to avoid warnings from newer - <application>gcc</> releases (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove JDBC from source tree; now a separate project - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove the libpgtcl client interface; now a separate project - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - More accurately estimate memory and file descriptor usage (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improvements to the Mac OS X startup scripts (Ray A.) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - New <function>fsync()</> test program (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Major documentation improvements (Neil, Peter) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove <application>pg_encoding</application>; not needed - anymore - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove <application>pg_id</application>; not needed anymore - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove <application>initlocation</application>; not needed - anymore - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Auto-detect thread flags (no more manual testing) (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Use Olson's public domain <application>timezone</> library (Magnus) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - With threading enabled, use thread flags on Unixware for - backend executables too (Bruce) - </para> - <para> - Unixware cannot mix threaded and nonthreaded object files in the - same executable, so everything must be compiled as threaded. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <application>psql</> now uses a <application>flex</>-generated - lexical analyzer to process command strings - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Reimplement the linked list data structure used throughout the - backend (Neil) - </para> - <para> - This improves performance by allowing list append and length - operations to be more efficient. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow dynamically loaded modules to create their own server configuration - parameters (Thomas Hallgren) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - New Brazilian version of FAQ (Euler Taveira de Oliveira) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add French FAQ (Guillaume Lelarge) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - New <application>pgevent</> for Windows logging - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make libpq and ECPG build as proper shared libraries on OS X (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - - <sect3> - <title>Contrib Changes</title> - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Overhaul of <filename>contrib/dblink</> (Joe) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <filename>contrib/dbmirror</> improvements (Steven Singer) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - New <filename>contrib/xml2</> (John Gray, Torchbox) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Updated <filename>contrib/mysql</filename> - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - New version of <filename>contrib/btree_gist</> (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - New <filename>contrib/trgm</>, trigram matching for - <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Many <filename>contrib/tsearch2</> improvements (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add double metaphone to <filename>contrib/fuzzystrmatch</> (Andrew) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <filename>contrib/pg_autovacuum</> to run as a Windows service (Dave Page) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add functions to <filename>contrib/dbsize</> (Andreas Pflug) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Removed <filename>contrib/pg_logger</>: obsoleted by integrated logging - subprocess - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Removed <filename>contrib/rserv</>: obsoleted by various separate projects - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-4-25"> - <title>Release 7.4.25</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2009-03-16</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.24. - For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-7-4">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.4.25</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.11, - see the release notes for 7.4.11. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent error recursion crashes when encoding conversion fails (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This change extends fixes made in the last two minor releases for - related failure scenarios. The previous fixes were narrowly tailored - for the original problem reports, but we have now recognized that - <emphasis>any</> error thrown by an encoding conversion function could - potentially lead to infinite recursion while trying to report the - error. The solution therefore is to disable translation and encoding - conversion and report the plain-ASCII form of any error message, - if we find we have gotten into a recursive error reporting situation. - (CVE-2009-0922) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Disallow <command>CREATE CONVERSION</> with the wrong encodings - for the specified conversion function (Heikki) - </para> - - <para> - This prevents one possible scenario for encoding conversion failure. - The previous change is a backstop to guard against other kinds of - failures in the same area. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix core dump when <function>to_char()</> is given format codes that - are inappropriate for the type of the data argument (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>MUST</> (Mauritius Island Summer Time) to the default list - of known timezone abbreviations (Xavier Bugaud) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-4-24"> - <title>Release 7.4.24</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2009-02-02</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.23. - For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-7-4">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.4.24</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.11, - see the release notes for 7.4.11. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve handling of URLs in <function>headline()</> function (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve handling of overlength headlines in <function>headline()</> - function (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent possible Assert failure or misconversion if an encoding - conversion is created with the wrong conversion function for the - specified pair of encodings (Tom, Heikki) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Avoid unnecessary locking of small tables in <command>VACUUM</> - (Heikki) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix uninitialized variables in <filename>contrib/tsearch2</>'s - <function>get_covers()</> function (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix bug in <function>to_char()</>'s handling of <literal>TH</> - format codes (Andreas Scherbaum) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make all documentation reference <literal>pgsql-bugs</> and/or - <literal>pgsql-hackers</> as appropriate, instead of the - now-decommissioned <literal>pgsql-ports</> and <literal>pgsql-patches</> - mailing lists (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-4-23"> - <title>Release 7.4.23</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2008-11-03</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.22. - For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-7-4">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.4.23</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.11, - see the release notes for 7.4.11. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix backend crash when the client encoding cannot represent a localized - error message (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - We have addressed similar issues before, but it would still fail if - the <quote>character has no equivalent</> message itself couldn't - be converted. The fix is to disable localization and send the plain - ASCII error message when we detect such a situation. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix incorrect tsearch2 headline generation when single query - item matches first word of text (Sushant Sinha) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix improper display of fractional seconds in interval values when - using a non-ISO datestyle in an <option>--enable-integer-datetimes</> - build (Ron Mayer) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Ensure <function>SPI_getvalue</> and <function>SPI_getbinval</> - behave correctly when the passed tuple and tuple descriptor have - different numbers of columns (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This situation is normal when a table has had columns added or removed, - but these two functions didn't handle it properly. - The only likely consequence is an incorrect error indication. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>ecpg</>'s parsing of <command>CREATE USER</> (Michael) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-4-22"> - <title>Release 7.4.22</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2008-09-22</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.21. - For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-7-4">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.4.22</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.11, - see the release notes for 7.4.11. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix datetime input functions to correctly detect integer overflow when - running on a 64-bit platform (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve performance of writing very long log messages to syslog (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix bug in backwards scanning of a cursor on a <literal>SELECT DISTINCT - ON</> query (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix planner to estimate that <literal>GROUP BY</> expressions yielding - boolean results always result in two groups, regardless of the - expressions' contents (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This is very substantially more accurate than the regular <literal>GROUP - BY</> estimate for certain boolean tests like <replaceable>col</> - <literal>IS NULL</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve <application>pg_dump</> and <application>pg_restore</>'s - error reporting after failure to send a SQL command (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-4-21"> - <title>Release 7.4.21</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2008-06-12</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains one serious bug fix over 7.4.20. - For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-7-4">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.4.21</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.11, - see the release notes for 7.4.11. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <function>pg_get_ruledef()</> parenthesize negative constants (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Before this fix, a negative constant in a view or rule might be dumped - as, say, <literal>-42::integer</>, which is subtly incorrect: it should - be <literal>(-42)::integer</> due to operator precedence rules. - Usually this would make little difference, but it could interact with - another recent patch to cause - <productname>PostgreSQL</> to reject what had been a valid - <command>SELECT DISTINCT</> view query. Since this could result in - <application>pg_dump</> output failing to reload, it is being treated - as a high-priority fix. The only released versions in which dump - output is actually incorrect are 8.3.1 and 8.2.7. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-4-20"> - <title>Release 7.4.20</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>never released</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.19. - For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-7-4">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.4.20</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. - However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.11, - see the release notes for 7.4.11. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix conversions between ISO-8859-5 and other encodings to handle - Cyrillic <quote>Yo</> characters (<literal>e</> and <literal>E</> with - two dots) (Sergey Burladyan) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix a few datatype input functions - that were allowing unused bytes in their results to contain - uninitialized, unpredictable values (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This could lead to failures in which two apparently identical literal - values were not seen as equal, resulting in the parser complaining - about unmatched <literal>ORDER BY</> and <literal>DISTINCT</> - expressions. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix a corner case in regular-expression substring matching - (<literal>substring(<replaceable>string</> from - <replaceable>pattern</>)</literal>) (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - The problem occurs when there is a match to the pattern overall but - the user has specified a parenthesized subexpression and that - subexpression hasn't got a match. An example is - <literal>substring('foo' from 'foo(bar)?')</>. - This should return NULL, since <literal>(bar)</> isn't matched, but - it was mistakenly returning the whole-pattern match instead (ie, - <literal>foo</>). - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix incorrect result from <application>ecpg</>'s - <function>PGTYPEStimestamp_sub()</> function (Michael) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <literal>DatumGetBool</> macro to not fail with <application>gcc</> - 4.3 (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This problem affects <quote>old style</> (V0) C functions that - return boolean. The fix is already in 8.3, but the need to - back-patch it was not realized at the time. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix longstanding <command>LISTEN</>/<command>NOTIFY</> - race condition (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - In rare cases a session that had just executed a - <command>LISTEN</> might not get a notification, even though - one would be expected because the concurrent transaction executing - <command>NOTIFY</> was observed to commit later. - </para> - - <para> - A side effect of the fix is that a transaction that has executed - a not-yet-committed <command>LISTEN</> command will not see any - row in <structname>pg_listener</> for the <command>LISTEN</>, - should it choose to look; formerly it would have. This behavior - was never documented one way or the other, but it is possible that - some applications depend on the old behavior. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix display of constant expressions in <literal>ORDER BY</> - and <literal>GROUP BY</> (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - An explictly casted constant would be shown incorrectly. This could - for example lead to corruption of a view definition during - dump and reload. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <application>libpq</> to handle NOTICE messages correctly - during COPY OUT (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This failure has only been observed to occur when a user-defined - datatype's output routine issues a NOTICE, but there is no - guarantee it couldn't happen due to other causes. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-4-19"> - <title>Release 7.4.19</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2008-01-07</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.18, - including fixes for significant security issues. - For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-7-4">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.4.19</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.11, see the release - notes for 7.4.11. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent functions in indexes from executing with the privileges of - the user running <command>VACUUM</>, <command>ANALYZE</>, etc (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Functions used in index expressions and partial-index - predicates are evaluated whenever a new table entry is made. It has - long been understood that this poses a risk of trojan-horse code - execution if one modifies a table owned by an untrustworthy user. - (Note that triggers, defaults, check constraints, etc. pose the - same type of risk.) But functions in indexes pose extra danger - because they will be executed by routine maintenance operations - such as <command>VACUUM FULL</>, which are commonly performed - automatically under a superuser account. For example, a nefarious user - can execute code with superuser privileges by setting up a - trojan-horse index definition and waiting for the next routine vacuum. - The fix arranges for standard maintenance operations - (including <command>VACUUM</>, <command>ANALYZE</>, <command>REINDEX</>, - and <command>CLUSTER</>) to execute as the table owner rather than - the calling user, using the same privilege-switching mechanism already - used for <literal>SECURITY DEFINER</> functions. To prevent bypassing - this security measure, execution of <command>SET SESSION - AUTHORIZATION</> and <command>SET ROLE</> is now forbidden within a - <literal>SECURITY DEFINER</> context. (CVE-2007-6600) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Repair assorted bugs in the regular-expression package (Tom, Will Drewry) - </para> - - <para> - Suitably crafted regular-expression patterns could cause crashes, - infinite or near-infinite looping, and/or massive memory consumption, - all of which pose denial-of-service hazards for applications that - accept regex search patterns from untrustworthy sources. - (CVE-2007-4769, CVE-2007-4772, CVE-2007-6067) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Require non-superusers who use <filename>/contrib/dblink</> to use only - password authentication, as a security measure (Joe) - </para> - - <para> - The fix that appeared for this in 7.4.18 was incomplete, as it plugged - the hole for only some <filename>dblink</> functions. (CVE-2007-6601, - CVE-2007-3278) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix planner failure in some cases of <literal>WHERE false AND var IN - (SELECT ...)</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix potential crash in <function>translate()</> when using a multibyte - database encoding (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix PL/Python to not crash on long exception messages (Alvaro) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <application>ecpg</> parser fixes (Michael) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <filename>contrib/tablefunc</>'s <function>crosstab()</> handle - NULL rowid as a category in its own right, rather than crashing (Joe) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <type>tsvector</> and <type>tsquery</> output routines to - escape backslashes correctly (Teodor, Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix crash of <function>to_tsvector()</> on huge input strings (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Require a specific version of <productname>Autoconf</> to be used - when re-generating the <command>configure</> script (Peter) - </para> - - <para> - This affects developers and packagers only. The change was made - to prevent accidental use of untested combinations of - <productname>Autoconf</> and <productname>PostgreSQL</> versions. - You can remove the version check if you really want to use a - different <productname>Autoconf</> version, but it's - your responsibility whether the result works or not. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-4-18"> - <title>Release 7.4.18</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2007-09-17</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains fixes from 7.4.17. - For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-7-4">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.4.18</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.11, see the release - notes for 7.4.11. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent index corruption when a transaction inserts rows and - then aborts close to the end of a concurrent <command>VACUUM</> - on the same table (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>CREATE DOMAIN ... DEFAULT NULL</> work properly (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix excessive logging of <acronym>SSL</> error messages (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix crash when <varname>log_min_error_statement</> logging runs out - of memory (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent <command>CLUSTER</> from failing - due to attempting to process temporary tables of other sessions (Alvaro) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Require non-superusers who use <filename>/contrib/dblink</> to use only - password authentication, as a security measure (Joe) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-4-17"> - <title>Release 7.4.17</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2007-04-23</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains fixes from 7.4.16, - including a security fix. - For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-7-4">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.4.17</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.11, see the release - notes for 7.4.11. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support explicit placement of the temporary-table schema within - <varname>search_path</>, and disable searching it for functions - and operators (Tom) - </para> - <para> - This is needed to allow a security-definer function to set a - truly secure value of <varname>search_path</>. Without it, - an unprivileged SQL user can use temporary objects to execute code - with the privileges of the security-definer function (CVE-2007-2138). - See <command>CREATE FUNCTION</> for more information. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <filename>/contrib/tsearch2</> crash fixes (Teodor) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix potential-data-corruption bug in how <command>VACUUM FULL</> handles - <command>UPDATE</> chains (Tom, Pavan Deolasee) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix PANIC during enlargement of a hash index (bug introduced in 7.4.15) - (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-4-16"> - <title>Release 7.4.16</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2007-02-05</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.15, including - a security fix. - For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-7-4">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.4.16</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.11, see the release - notes for 7.4.11. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove security vulnerability that allowed connected users - to read backend memory (Tom) - </para> - <para> - The vulnerability involves suppressing the normal check that a SQL - function returns the data type it's declared to, or changing the - data type of a table column used in a SQL function (CVE-2007-0555). - This error can easily be exploited to cause a backend crash, and in - principle might be used to read database content that the user - should not be able to access. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix rare bug wherein btree index page splits could fail - due to choosing an infeasible split point (Heikki Linnakangas) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix for rare Assert() crash triggered by <literal>UNION</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Tighten security of multi-byte character processing for UTF8 sequences - over three bytes long (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-4-15"> - <title>Release 7.4.15</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2007-01-08</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.14. - For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-7-4">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.4.15</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.11, see the release - notes for 7.4.11. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve handling of <function>getaddrinfo()</> on AIX (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This fixes a problem with starting the statistics collector, - among other things. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix <quote>failed to re-find parent key</> errors in - <command>VACUUM</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix bugs affecting multi-gigabyte hash indexes (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix error when constructing an <literal>ARRAY[]</> made up of multiple - empty elements (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <function>to_number()</> and <function>to_char(numeric)</> - are now <literal>STABLE</>, not <literal>IMMUTABLE</>, for - new <application>initdb</> installs (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This is because <varname>lc_numeric</> can potentially - change the output of these functions. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve index usage of regular expressions that use parentheses (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This improves <application>psql</> <literal>\d</> performance also. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-4-14"> - <title>Release 7.4.14</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2006-10-16</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.13. - For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-7-4">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.4.14</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.11, see the release - notes for 7.4.11. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Fix core dump when an untyped literal is taken as -ANYARRAY</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <function>string_to_array()</> to handle overlapping - matches for the separator string</para> -<para>For example, <literal>string_to_array('123xx456xxx789', 'xx')</>. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix corner cases in pattern matching for - <application>psql</>'s <literal>\d</> commands</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix index-corrupting bugs in /contrib/ltree - (Teodor)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix backslash escaping in /contrib/dbmirror</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Adjust regression tests for recent changes in US DST laws -</para> </listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-4-13"> - <title>Release 7.4.13</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2006-05-23</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.12, - including patches for extremely serious security issues. - For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-7-4">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.4.13</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.11, see the release - notes for 7.4.11. - </para> - - <para> - Full security against the SQL-injection attacks described in - CVE-2006-2313 and CVE-2006-2314 might require changes in application - code. If you have applications that embed untrustworthy strings - into SQL commands, you should examine them as soon as possible to - ensure that they are using recommended escaping techniques. In - most cases, applications should be using subroutines provided by - libraries or drivers (such as <application>libpq</>'s - <function>PQescapeStringConn()</>) to perform string escaping, - rather than relying on <foreignphrase>ad hoc</> code to do it. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Change the server to reject invalidly-encoded multibyte -characters in all cases (Tatsuo, Tom)</para> -<para>While <productname>PostgreSQL</> has been moving in this direction for -some time, the checks are now applied uniformly to all encodings and all -textual input, and are now always errors not merely warnings. This change -defends against SQL-injection attacks of the type described in CVE-2006-2313. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Reject unsafe uses of <literal>\'</> in string literals</para> -<para>As a server-side defense against SQL-injection attacks of the type -described in CVE-2006-2314, the server now only accepts <literal>''</> and not -<literal>\'</> as a representation of ASCII single quote in SQL string -literals. By default, <literal>\'</> is rejected only when -<varname>client_encoding</> is set to a client-only encoding (SJIS, BIG5, GBK, -GB18030, or UHC), which is the scenario in which SQL injection is possible. -A new configuration parameter <varname>backslash_quote</> is available to -adjust this behavior when needed. Note that full security against -CVE-2006-2314 might require client-side changes; the purpose of -<varname>backslash_quote</> is in part to make it obvious that insecure -clients are insecure. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Modify <application>libpq</>'s string-escaping routines to be -aware of encoding considerations and -<varname>standard_conforming_strings</></para> -<para>This fixes <application>libpq</>-using applications for the security -issues described in CVE-2006-2313 and CVE-2006-2314, and also future-proofs -them against the planned changeover to SQL-standard string literal syntax. -Applications that use multiple <productname>PostgreSQL</> connections -concurrently should migrate to <function>PQescapeStringConn()</> and -<function>PQescapeByteaConn()</> to ensure that escaping is done correctly -for the settings in use in each database connection. Applications that -do string escaping <quote>by hand</> should be modified to rely on library -routines instead. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix some incorrect encoding conversion functions</para> -<para><function>win1251_to_iso</>, <function>alt_to_iso</>, -<function>euc_tw_to_big5</>, <function>euc_tw_to_mic</>, -<function>mic_to_euc_tw</> were all broken to varying -extents. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Clean up stray remaining uses of <literal>\'</> in strings -(Bruce, Jan)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix bug that sometimes caused OR'd index scans to -miss rows they should have returned</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix WAL replay for case where a btree index has been -truncated</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix <literal>SIMILAR TO</> for patterns involving -<literal>|</> (Tom)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix server to use custom DH SSL parameters correctly (Michael -Fuhr)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix for Bonjour on Intel Macs (Ashley Clark)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix various minor memory leaks</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-4-12"> - <title>Release 7.4.12</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2006-02-14</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.11. - For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-7-4">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.4.12</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.11, see the release - notes for 7.4.11. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> - -<listitem><para>Fix potential crash in <command>SET -SESSION AUTHORIZATION</> (CVE-2006-0553)</para> -<para>An unprivileged user could crash the server process, resulting in -momentary denial of service to other users, if the server has been compiled -with Asserts enabled (which is not the default). -Thanks to Akio Ishida for reporting this problem. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix bug with row visibility logic in self-inserted -rows (Tom)</para> -<para>Under rare circumstances a row inserted by the current command -could be seen as already valid, when it should not be. Repairs bug -created in 7.4.9 and 7.3.11 releases. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix race condition that could lead to <quote>file already -exists</> errors during pg_clog file creation -(Tom)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Properly check <literal>DOMAIN</> constraints for -<literal>UNKNOWN</> parameters in prepared statements -(Neil)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix to allow restoring dumps that have cross-schema -references to custom operators (Tom)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Portability fix for testing presence of <function>finite</> -and <function>isinf</> during configure (Tom)</para></listitem> - -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-4-11"> - <title>Release 7.4.11</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2006-01-09</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.10. - For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-7-4">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.4.11</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.8, see the release - notes for 7.4.8. - Also, you might need to <command>REINDEX</> indexes on textual - columns after updating, if you are affected by the locale or - <application>plperl</> issues described below. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> - -<listitem><para>Fix for protocol-level Describe messages issued -outside a transaction or in a failed transaction (Tom)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix character string comparison for locales that consider -different character combinations as equal, such as Hungarian (Tom)</para> -<para>This might require <command>REINDEX</> to fix existing indexes on -textual columns.</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Set locale environment variables during postmaster startup -to ensure that <application>plperl</> won't change the locale later</para> -<para>This fixes a problem that occurred if the <application>postmaster</> was -started with environment variables specifying a different locale than what -<application>initdb</> had been told. Under these conditions, any use of -<application>plperl</> was likely to lead to corrupt indexes. You might need -<command>REINDEX</> to fix existing indexes on -textual columns if this has happened to you.</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix longstanding bug in strpos() and regular expression -handling in certain rarely used Asian multi-byte character sets (Tatsuo) -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix bug in <filename>/contrib/pgcrypto</> gen_salt, -which caused it not to use all available salt space for MD5 and -XDES algorithms (Marko Kreen, Solar Designer)</para> -<para>Salts for Blowfish and standard DES are unaffected.</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix <filename>/contrib/dblink</> to throw an error, -rather than crashing, when the number of columns specified is different from -what's actually returned by the query (Joe)</para></listitem> - -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-4-10"> - <title>Release 7.4.10</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2005-12-12</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.9. - For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-7-4">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.4.10</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.8, see the release - notes for 7.4.8. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> - -<listitem><para>Fix race condition in transaction log management</para> -<para>There was a narrow window in which an I/O operation could be initiated -for the wrong page, leading to an Assert failure or data -corruption.</para> -</listitem> - -<listitem><para>Prevent failure if client sends Bind protocol message -when current transaction is already aborted</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para><filename>/contrib/ltree</> fixes (Teodor)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>AIX and HPUX compile fixes (Tom)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix longstanding planning error for outer joins</para> -<para>This bug sometimes caused a bogus error <quote>RIGHT JOIN is -only supported with merge-joinable join conditions</>.</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Prevent core dump in <application>pg_autovacuum</> when a -table has been dropped</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-4-9"> - <title>Release 7.4.9</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2005-10-04</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.8. - For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-7-4">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.4.9</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.4.8, see the release - notes for 7.4.8. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Fix error that allowed <command>VACUUM</> to remove -<literal>ctid</> chains too soon, and add more checking in code that follows -<literal>ctid</> links</para> -<para>This fixes a long-standing problem that could cause crashes in very rare -circumstances.</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <type>CHAR()</> to properly pad spaces to the specified -length when using a multiple-byte character set (Yoshiyuki Asaba)</para> -<para>In prior releases, the padding of <type>CHAR()</> was incorrect -because it only padded to the specified number of bytes without -considering how many characters were stored.</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix the sense of the test for read-only transaction -in <command>COPY</></para> -<para>The code formerly prohibited <command>COPY TO</>, where it should -prohibit <command>COPY FROM</>. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix planning problem with outer-join ON clauses that reference -only the inner-side relation</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Further fixes for <literal>x FULL JOIN y ON true</> corner -cases</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make <function>array_in</> and <function>array_recv</> more -paranoid about validating their OID parameter</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix missing rows in queries like <literal>UPDATE a=... WHERE -a...</> with GiST index on column <literal>a</></para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve robustness of datetime parsing</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve checking for partially-written WAL -pages</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve robustness of signal handling when SSL is -enabled</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Don't try to open more than <literal>max_files_per_process</> -files during postmaster startup</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Various memory leakage fixes</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Various portability improvements</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix PL/PgSQL to handle <literal>var := var</> correctly when -the variable is of pass-by-reference type</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Update <filename>contrib/tsearch2</> to use current Snowball -code</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-4-8"> - <title>Release 7.4.8</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2005-05-09</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.7, including several - security-related issues. - For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-7-4">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.4.8</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. However, - it is one possible way of handling two significant security problems - that have been found in the initial contents of 7.4.X system - catalogs. A dump/initdb/reload sequence using 7.4.8's initdb will - automatically correct these problems. - </para> - - <para> - The larger security problem is that the built-in character set encoding - conversion functions can be invoked from SQL commands by unprivileged - users, but the functions were not designed for such use and are not - secure against malicious choices of arguments. The fix involves changing - the declared parameter list of these functions so that they can no longer - be invoked from SQL commands. (This does not affect their normal use - by the encoding conversion machinery.) - </para> - - <para> - The lesser problem is that the <filename>contrib/tsearch2</> module - creates several functions that are misdeclared to return - <type>internal</> when they do not accept <type>internal</> arguments. - This breaks type safety for all functions using <type>internal</> - arguments. - </para> - - <para> - It is strongly recommended that all installations repair these errors, - either by initdb or by following the manual repair procedures given - below. The errors at least allow unprivileged database users to crash - their server process, and might allow unprivileged users to gain the - privileges of a database superuser. - </para> - - <para> - If you wish not to do an initdb, perform the following procedures instead. - As the database superuser, do: - -<programlisting> -BEGIN; -UPDATE pg_proc SET proargtypes[3] = 'internal'::regtype -WHERE pronamespace = 11 AND pronargs = 5 - AND proargtypes[2] = 'cstring'::regtype; --- The command should report having updated 90 rows; --- if not, rollback and investigate instead of committing! -COMMIT; -</programlisting> - - Next, if you have installed <filename>contrib/tsearch2</>, do: - -<programlisting> -BEGIN; -UPDATE pg_proc SET proargtypes[0] = 'internal'::regtype -WHERE oid IN ( - 'dex_init(text)'::regprocedure, - 'snb_en_init(text)'::regprocedure, - 'snb_ru_init(text)'::regprocedure, - 'spell_init(text)'::regprocedure, - 'syn_init(text)'::regprocedure -); --- The command should report having updated 5 rows; --- if not, rollback and investigate instead of committing! -COMMIT; -</programlisting> - - If this command fails with a message like <quote>function - "dex_init(text)" does not exist</>, then either <filename>tsearch2</> - is not installed in this database, or you already did the update. - </para> - - <para> - The above procedures must be carried out in <emphasis>each</> database - of an installation, including <literal>template1</>, and ideally - including <literal>template0</> as well. If you do not fix the - template databases then any subsequently created databases will contain - the same errors. <literal>template1</> can be fixed in the same way - as any other database, but fixing <literal>template0</> requires - additional steps. First, from any database issue: -<programlisting> -UPDATE pg_database SET datallowconn = true WHERE datname = 'template0'; -</programlisting> - Next connect to <literal>template0</> and perform the above repair - procedures. Finally, do: -<programlisting> --- re-freeze template0: -VACUUM FREEZE; --- and protect it against future alterations: -UPDATE pg_database SET datallowconn = false WHERE datname = 'template0'; -</programlisting> - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Change encoding function signature to prevent -misuse</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Change <filename>contrib/tsearch2</> to avoid unsafe use of -<type>INTERNAL</> function results</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Repair ancient race condition that allowed a transaction to be -seen as committed for some purposes (eg SELECT FOR UPDATE) slightly sooner -than for other purposes</para> -<para>This is an extremely serious bug since it could lead to apparent -data inconsistencies being briefly visible to applications.</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Repair race condition between relation extension and -VACUUM</para> -<para>This could theoretically have caused loss of a page's worth of -freshly-inserted data, although the scenario seems of very low probability. -There are no known cases of it having caused more than an Assert failure. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix comparisons of <type>TIME WITH TIME ZONE</> values</para> -<para> -The comparison code was wrong in the case where the -<literal>--enable-integer-datetimes</> configuration switch had been used. -NOTE: if you have an index on a <type>TIME WITH TIME ZONE</> column, -it will need to be <command>REINDEX</>ed after installing this update, because -the fix corrects the sort order of column values. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <function>EXTRACT(EPOCH)</> for -<type>TIME WITH TIME ZONE</> values</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix mis-display of negative fractional seconds in -<type>INTERVAL</> values</para> -<para> -This error only occurred when the -<literal>--enable-integer-datetimes</> configuration switch had been used. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Ensure operations done during backend shutdown are counted by -statistics collector</para> -<para> -This is expected to resolve reports of <application>pg_autovacuum</> -not vacuuming the system catalogs often enough — it was not being -told about catalog deletions caused by temporary table removal during -backend exit. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Additional buffer overrun checks in plpgsql -(Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix pg_dump to dump trigger names containing <literal>%</> -correctly (Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <filename>contrib/pgcrypto</> for newer OpenSSL builds -(Marko Kreen)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Still more 64-bit fixes for -<filename>contrib/intagg</></para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent incorrect optimization of functions returning -<type>RECORD</></para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent <function>to_char(interval)</> from dumping core for -month-related formats</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent crash on <literal>COALESCE(NULL,NULL)</></para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <function>array_map</> to call PL functions correctly</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix permission checking in <command>ALTER DATABASE RENAME</></para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <command>ALTER LANGUAGE RENAME</></para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make <function>RemoveFromWaitQueue</> clean up after itself</para> -<para> -This fixes a lock management error that would only be visible if a transaction -was kicked out of a wait for a lock (typically by query cancel) and then the -holder of the lock released it within a very narrow window. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix problem with untyped parameter appearing in -<command>INSERT ... SELECT</></para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <command>CLUSTER</> failure after -<command>ALTER TABLE SET WITHOUT OIDS</></para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-4-7"> - <title>Release 7.4.7</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2005-01-31</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.6, including several - security-related issues. - For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-7-4">. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.4.7</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Disallow <command>LOAD</> to non-superusers</para> -<para> -On platforms that will automatically execute initialization functions of a -shared library (this includes at least Windows and ELF-based Unixen), -<command>LOAD</> can be used to make the server execute arbitrary code. -Thanks to NGS Software for reporting this.</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Check that creator of an aggregate function has the right to -execute the specified transition functions</para> -<para> -This oversight made it possible to bypass denial of EXECUTE -permission on a function.</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix security and 64-bit issues in -contrib/intagg</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add needed STRICT marking to some contrib functions (Kris -Jurka)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Avoid buffer overrun when plpgsql cursor declaration has too -many parameters (Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix planning error for FULL and RIGHT outer joins</para> -<para> -The result of the join was mistakenly supposed to be sorted the same as the -left input. This could not only deliver mis-sorted output to the user, but -in case of nested merge joins could give outright wrong answers. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix plperl for quote marks in tuple fields</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix display of negative intervals in SQL and GERMAN -datestyles</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make age(timestamptz) do calculation in local timezone not -GMT</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-4-6"> - <title>Release 7.4.6</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2004-10-22</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.5. - For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-7-4">. - </para> - - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.4.6</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Repair possible failure to update hint bits on disk</para> -<para> -Under rare circumstances this oversight could lead to -<quote>could not access transaction status</> failures, which qualifies -it as a potential-data-loss bug. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Ensure that hashed outer join does not miss tuples</para> -<para> -Very large left joins using a hash join plan could fail to output unmatched -left-side rows given just the right data distribution. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Disallow running <application>pg_ctl</> as root</para> -<para> -This is to guard against any possible security issues. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Avoid using temp files in <filename>/tmp</> in <command>make_oidjoins_check</command></para> -<para> -This has been reported as a security issue, though it's hardly worthy of -concern since there is no reason for non-developers to use this script anyway. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent forced backend shutdown from re-emitting prior command -result</para> -<para> -In rare cases, a client might think that its last command had succeeded when -it really had been aborted by forced database shutdown. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Repair bug in <function>pg_stat_get_backend_idset</function></para> -<para> -This could lead to misbehavior in some of the system-statistics views. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix small memory leak in postmaster</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <quote>expected both swapped tables to have TOAST -tables</> bug</para> -<para> -This could arise in cases such as CLUSTER after ALTER TABLE DROP COLUMN. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent <literal>pg_ctl restart</> from adding <literal>-D</> multiple times</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix problem with NULL values in GiST indexes</para></listitem> -<listitem><para><literal>::</> is no longer interpreted as a variable in an -ECPG prepare statement</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-4-5"> - <title>Release 7.4.5</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2004-08-18</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains one serious bug fix over 7.4.4. - For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-7-4">. - </para> - - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.4.5</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Repair possible crash during concurrent B-tree index insertions</para> -<para> -This patch fixes a rare case in which concurrent insertions into a B-tree index -could result in a server panic. No permanent damage would result, but it's -still worth a re-release. The bug does not exist in pre-7.4 releases. -</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-4-4"> - <title>Release 7.4.4</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2004-08-16</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.3. - For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-7-4">. - </para> - - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.4.4</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Prevent possible loss of committed transactions during crash</para> -<para> -Due to insufficient interlocking between transaction commit and checkpointing, -it was possible for transactions committed just before the most recent -checkpoint to be lost, in whole or in part, following a database crash and -restart. This is a serious bug that has existed -since <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> 7.1. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Check HAVING restriction before evaluating result list of an -aggregate plan</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Avoid crash when session's current user ID is deleted</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix hashed crosstab for zero-rows case (Joe)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Force cache update after renaming a column in a foreign key</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Pretty-print UNION queries correctly</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make psql handle <literal>\r\n</> newlines properly in COPY IN</para></listitem> -<listitem><para><application>pg_dump</> handled ACLs with grant options incorrectly</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix thread support for OS X and Solaris</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Updated JDBC driver (build 215) with various fixes</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>ECPG fixes</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Translation updates (various contributors)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-4-3"> - <title>Release 7.4.3</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2004-06-14</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.2. - For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-7-4">. - </para> - - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.4.3</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Fix temporary memory leak when using non-hashed aggregates (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>ECPG fixes, including some for Informix compatibility (Michael)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fixes for compiling with thread-safety, particularly Solaris (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix error in COPY IN termination when using the old network protocol (ljb)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Several important fixes in pg_autovacuum, including fixes for -large tables, unsigned oids, stability, temp tables, and debug mode -(Matthew T. O'Connor)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix problem with reading tar-format dumps on NetBSD and BSD/OS (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Several JDBC fixes</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix ALTER SEQUENCE RESTART where last_value equals the restart value (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Repair failure to recalculate nested sub-selects (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix problems with non-constant expressions in LIMIT/OFFSET</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Support FULL JOIN with no join clause, such as X FULL JOIN Y ON TRUE (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix another zero-column table bug (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve handling of non-qualified identifiers in GROUP BY clauses in sub-selects (Tom)</para> -<para> -Select-list aliases within the sub-select will now take precedence over -names from outer query levels. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Do not generate <quote>NATURAL CROSS JOIN</> when decompiling rules (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add checks for invalid field length in binary COPY (Tom)</para> -<para> - This fixes a difficult-to-exploit security hole. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Avoid locking conflict between <command>ANALYZE</command> and <command>LISTEN</command>/<command>NOTIFY</command></para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Numerous translation updates (various contributors)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-4-2"> - <title>Release 7.4.2</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2004-03-08</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4.1. - For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-7-4">. - </para> - - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.4.2</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.4.X. However, - it might be advisable as the easiest method of incorporating fixes for - two errors that have been found in the initial contents of 7.4.X system - catalogs. A dump/initdb/reload sequence using 7.4.2's initdb will - automatically correct these problems. - </para> - - <para> - The more severe of the two errors is that data type <type>anyarray</> - has the wrong alignment label; this is a problem because the - <structname>pg_statistic</> system catalog uses <type>anyarray</> - columns. The mislabeling can cause planner misestimations and even - crashes when planning queries that involve <literal>WHERE</> clauses on - double-aligned columns (such as <type>float8</> and <type>timestamp</>). - It is strongly recommended that all installations repair this error, - either by initdb or by following the manual repair procedure given - below. - </para> - - <para> - The lesser error is that the system view <structname>pg_settings</> - ought to be marked as having public update access, to allow - <literal>UPDATE pg_settings</> to be used as a substitute for - <command>SET</>. This can also be fixed either by initdb or manually, - but it is not necessary to fix unless you want to use <literal>UPDATE - pg_settings</>. - </para> - - <para> - If you wish not to do an initdb, the following procedure will work - for fixing <structname>pg_statistic</>. As the database superuser, - do: - -<programlisting> --- clear out old data in pg_statistic: -DELETE FROM pg_statistic; -VACUUM pg_statistic; --- this should update 1 row: -UPDATE pg_type SET typalign = 'd' WHERE oid = 2277; --- this should update 6 rows: -UPDATE pg_attribute SET attalign = 'd' WHERE atttypid = 2277; --- --- At this point you MUST start a fresh backend to avoid a crash! --- --- repopulate pg_statistic: -ANALYZE; -</programlisting> - - This can be done in a live database, but beware that all backends - running in the altered database must be restarted before it is safe to - repopulate <structname>pg_statistic</>. - </para> - - <para> - To repair the <structname>pg_settings</> error, simply do: -<programlisting> -GRANT SELECT, UPDATE ON pg_settings TO PUBLIC; -</programlisting> - </para> - - <para> - The above procedures must be carried out in <emphasis>each</> database - of an installation, including <literal>template1</>, and ideally - including <literal>template0</> as well. If you do not fix the - template databases then any subsequently created databases will contain - the same errors. <literal>template1</> can be fixed in the same way - as any other database, but fixing <literal>template0</> requires - additional steps. First, from any database issue: -<programlisting> -UPDATE pg_database SET datallowconn = true WHERE datname = 'template0'; -</programlisting> - Next connect to <literal>template0</> and perform the above repair - procedures. Finally, do: -<programlisting> --- re-freeze template0: -VACUUM FREEZE; --- and protect it against future alterations: -UPDATE pg_database SET datallowconn = false WHERE datname = 'template0'; -</programlisting> - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<para> - Release 7.4.2 incorporates all the fixes included in release 7.3.6, - plus the following fixes: -</para> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Fix <structname>pg_statistics</> alignment bug that could crash optimizer</para> -<para>See above for details about this problem.</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow non-super users to update <structname>pg_settings</></para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix several optimizer bugs, most of which led to -<quote>variable not found in subplan target lists</> errors</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Avoid out-of-memory failure during startup of large multiple -index scan</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix multibyte problem that could lead to <quote>out of -memory</> error during <command>COPY IN</></para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix problems with <command>SELECT INTO</> / <command>CREATE -TABLE AS</> from tables without OIDs</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix problems with <filename>alter_table</> regression test -during parallel testing</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix problems with hitting open file limit, especially on OS X (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Partial fix for Turkish-locale issues</para> -<para>initdb will succeed now in Turkish locale, but there are still some -inconveniences associated with the <literal>i/I</> problem.</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make pg_dump set client encoding on restore</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Other minor pg_dump fixes</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow ecpg to again use C keywords as column names (Michael)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Added ecpg <literal>WHENEVER NOT_FOUND</> to -<literal>SELECT/INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE</> (Michael)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix ecpg crash for queries calling set-returning functions (Michael)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Various other ecpg fixes (Michael)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fixes for Borland compiler</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Thread build improvements (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Various other build fixes</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Various JDBC fixes</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-4-1"> - <title>Release 7.4.1</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2003-12-22</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.4. - For information about new features in the 7.4 major release, see - <xref linkend="release-7-4">. - </para> - - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.4.1</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those - running 7.4. - </para> - - <para> - If you want to install the fixes in the information schema - you need to reload it into the database. - This is either accomplished by initializing a new cluster - by running <command>initdb</command>, or by running the following - sequence of SQL commands in each database (ideally including - <literal>template1</literal>) as a superuser in - <application>psql</application>, after installing the new release: -<programlisting> -DROP SCHEMA information_schema CASCADE; -\i /usr/local/pgsql/share/information_schema.sql -</programlisting> - Substitute your installation path in the second command. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Fixed bug in <command>CREATE SCHEMA</command> parsing in ECPG (Michael)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix compile error when <option>--enable-thread-safety</option> and <option>--with-perl</option> are used together (Peter)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for subqueries that used hash joins (Tom)</para> -<para> - Certain subqueries that used hash joins would crash because of - improperly shared structures. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix free space map compaction bug (Tom)</para> -<para> - This fixes a bug where compaction of the free space map could lead - to a database server shutdown. -</para> -</listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for Borland compiler build of libpq (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <function>netmask()</function> and <function>hostmask()</function> to return the maximum-length masklen (Tom)</para> -<para> - Fix these functions to return values consistent with pre-7.4 - releases. -</para> -</listitem> -<listitem><para>Several <filename>contrib/pg_autovacuum</filename> fixes</para> -<para> - Fixes include improper variable initialization, missing vacuum after - <command>TRUNCATE</command>, and duration computation overflow for long vacuums. -</para> -</listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow compile of <filename>contrib/cube</filename> under Cygwin (Jason Tishler)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix Solaris use of password file when no passwords are defined (Tom)</para> -<para> - Fix crash on Solaris caused by use of any type of password - authentication when no passwords were defined. -</para> -</listitem> -<listitem><para>JDBC fix for thread problems, other fixes</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for <type>bytea</type> index lookups (Joe)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix information schema for bit data types (Peter)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Force zero_damaged_pages to be on during recovery from WAL</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent some obscure cases of <quote>variable not in subplan target lists</quote></para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make <function>PQescapeBytea</function> and <function>byteaout</function> consistent with each other (Joe)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Escape <type>bytea</type> output for bytes > 0x7e(Joe)</para> -<para> - If different client encodings are used for <type>bytea</type> output and input, it - is possible for <type>bytea</type> values to be corrupted by the differing - encodings. This fix escapes all bytes that might be affected. -</para> -</listitem> -<listitem><para>Added missing <function>SPI_finish()</function> calls to dblink's <function>get_tuple_of_interest()</function> (Joe)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New Czech FAQ</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix information schema view <literal>constraint_column_usage</literal> for foreign keys (Peter)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>ECPG fixes (Michael)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix bug with multiple <literal>IN</literal> subqueries and joins in the subqueries (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow <literal>COUNT('x')</literal> to work (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Install ECPG include files for Informix compatibility into separate directory (Peter)</para> -<para> - Some names of ECPG include files for Informix compatibility conflicted with operating system include files. - By installing them in their own directory, name conflicts have been reduced. -</para> -</listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix SSL memory leak (Neil)</para> -<para> - This release fixes a bug in 7.4 where SSL didn't free all memory it allocated. -</para> -</listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent <filename>pg_service.conf</filename> from using service name as default dbname (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix local ident authentication on FreeBSD (Tom)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> -</sect1> - -<sect1 id="release-7-4"> - <title>Release 7.4</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2003-11-17</simpara> - </note> - - <sect2> - <title>Overview</title> - - <para> - Major changes in this release: - </para> - - <variablelist> - <varlistentry> - <term> - <literal>IN</literal> / <literal>NOT IN</literal> subqueries are - now much more efficient - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - In previous releases, <literal>IN</literal>/<literal>NOT - IN</literal> subqueries were joined to the upper query by - sequentially scanning the subquery looking for a match. The - 7.4 code uses the same sophisticated techniques used by - ordinary joins and so is much faster. An - <literal>IN</literal> will now usually be as fast as or faster - than an equivalent <literal>EXISTS</literal> subquery; this - reverses the conventional wisdom that applied to previous - releases. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Improved <literal>GROUP BY</literal> processing by using hash buckets - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - In previous releases, rows to be grouped had to be sorted - first. The 7.4 code can do <literal>GROUP BY</literal> - without sorting, by accumulating results into a hash table - with one entry per group. It will still use the sort - technique, however, if the hash table is estimated to be too - large to fit in <varname>sort_mem</>. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - New multikey hash join capability - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - In previous releases, hash joins could only occur on single - keys. This release allows multicolumn hash joins. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Queries using the explicit <literal>JOIN</literal> syntax are - now better optimized - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prior releases evaluated queries using the explicit - <literal>JOIN</literal> syntax only in the order implied by - the syntax. 7.4 allows full optimization of these queries, - meaning the optimizer considers all possible join orderings - and chooses the most efficient. Outer joins, however, must - still follow the declared ordering. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Faster and more powerful regular expression code - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - The entire regular expression module has been replaced with a - new version by Henry Spencer, originally written for Tcl. The - code greatly improves performance and supports several flavors - of regular expressions. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Function-inlining for simple SQL functions - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - Simple SQL functions can now be inlined by including their SQL - in the main query. This improves performance by eliminating - per-call overhead. That means simple SQL functions now - behave like macros. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Full support for IPv6 connections and IPv6 address data types - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - Previous releases allowed only IPv4 connections, and the IP - data types only supported IPv4 addresses. This release adds - full IPv6 support in both of these areas. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Major improvements in SSL performance and reliability - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - Several people very familiar with the SSL API have overhauled - our SSL code to improve SSL key negotiation and error - recovery. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Make free space map efficiently reuse empty index pages, - and other free space management improvements - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - In previous releases, B-tree index pages that were left empty - because of deleted rows could only be reused by rows with - index values similar to the rows originally indexed on that - page. In 7.4, <command>VACUUM</command> records empty index - pages and allows them to be reused for any future index rows. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - SQL-standard information schema - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - The information schema provides a standardized and stable way - to access information about the schema objects defined in a - database. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Cursors conform more closely to the SQL standard - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - The commands <command>FETCH</command> and - <command>MOVE</command> have been overhauled to conform more - closely to the SQL standard. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Cursors can exist outside transactions - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - These cursors are also called holdable cursors. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - New client-to-server protocol - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - The new protocol adds error codes, more status information, - faster startup, better support for binary data transmission, - parameter values separated from SQL commands, prepared - statements available at the protocol level, and cleaner - recovery from <command>COPY</command> failures. The older - protocol is still supported by both server and clients. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - <application>libpq</application> and - <application>ECPG</application> applications are now fully - thread-safe - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - While previous <application>libpq</application> releases - already supported threads, this release improves thread safety - by fixing some non-thread-safe code that was used during - database connection startup. The <command>configure</command> - option <option>--enable-thread-safety</option> must be used to - enable this feature. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - New version of full-text indexing - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - A new full-text indexing suite is available in - <filename>contrib/tsearch2</filename>. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - New autovacuum tool - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - The new autovacuum tool in - <filename>contrib/autovacuum</filename> monitors the database - statistics tables for - <command>INSERT</command>/<command>UPDATE</command>/<command>DELETE</command> - activity and automatically vacuums tables when needed. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Array handling has been improved and moved into the server core - </term> - - <listitem> - <para> - Many array limitations have been removed, and arrays behave - more like fully-supported data types. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - </variablelist> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.4</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore using <application>pg_dump</application> is - required for those wishing to migrate data from any previous - release. - </para> - - <para> - Observe the following incompatibilities: - </para> - - <itemizedlist> - <listitem> - <para> - The server-side autocommit setting was removed and - reimplemented in client applications and languages. - Server-side autocommit was causing too many problems with - languages and applications that wanted to control their own - autocommit behavior, so autocommit was removed from the server - and added to individual client APIs as appropriate. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Error message wording has changed substantially in this - release. Significant effort was invested to make the messages - more consistent and user-oriented. If your applications try to - detect different error conditions by parsing the error message, - you are strongly encouraged to use the new error code facility instead. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Inner joins using the explicit <literal>JOIN</literal> syntax - might behave differently because they are now better - optimized. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - A number of server configuration parameters have been renamed - for clarity, primarily those related to - logging. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <literal>FETCH 0</literal> or <literal>MOVE 0</literal> now - does nothing. In prior releases, <literal>FETCH 0</literal> - would fetch all remaining rows, and <literal>MOVE 0</literal> - would move to the end of the cursor. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <command>FETCH</command> and <command>MOVE</command> now return - the actual number of rows fetched/moved, or zero if at the - beginning/end of the cursor. Prior releases would return the - row count passed to the command, not the number of rows - actually fetched or moved. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <command>COPY</command> now can process files that use - carriage-return or carriage-return/line-feed end-of-line - sequences. Literal carriage-returns and line-feeds are no - longer accepted in data values; use <literal>\r</literal> and - <literal>\n</literal> instead. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Trailing spaces are now trimmed when converting from type - <type>char(<replaceable>n</>)</type> to - <type>varchar(<replaceable>n</>)</type> or <type>text</type>. - This is what most people always expected to happen anyway. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - The data type <type>float(<replaceable>p</>)</type> now - measures <replaceable>p</> in binary digits, not decimal - digits. The new behavior follows the SQL standard. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Ambiguous date values now must match the ordering specified by - the <varname>datestyle</varname> setting. In prior releases, a - date specification of <literal>10/20/03</> was interpreted as a - date in October even if <varname>datestyle</> specified that - the day should be first. 7.4 will throw an error if a date - specification is invalid for the current setting of - <varname>datestyle</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - The functions <function>oidrand</function>, - <function>oidsrand</function>, and - <function>userfntest</function> have been removed. These - functions were determined to be no longer useful. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - String literals specifying time-varying date/time values, such - as <literal>'now'</literal> or <literal>'today'</literal> will - no longer work as expected in column default expressions; they - now cause the time of the table creation to be the default, not - the time of the insertion. Functions such as - <function>now()</>, <function>current_timestamp</>, or - <function>current_date</function> should be used instead. - </para> - - <para> - In previous releases, there was special code so that strings - such as <literal>'now'</literal> were interpreted at - <command>INSERT</> time and not at table creation time, but - this work around didn't cover all cases. Release 7.4 now - requires that defaults be defined properly using functions such - as <function>now()</> or <function>current_timestamp</>. These - will work in all situations. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - The dollar sign (<literal>$</>) is no longer allowed in - operator names. It can instead be a non-first character in - identifiers. This was done to improve compatibility with other - database systems, and to avoid syntax problems when parameter - placeholders (<literal>$<replaceable>n</></>) are written - adjacent to operators. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <para> - Below you will find a detailed account of the changes between - release 7.4 and the previous major release. - </para> - - <sect3> - <title>Server Operation Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - <listitem> - <para> - Allow IPv6 server connections (Nigel Kukard, Johan Jordaan, - Bruce, Tom, Kurt Roeckx, Andrew Dunstan) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix SSL to handle errors cleanly (Nathan Mueller) - </para> - <para> - In prior releases, certain SSL API error reports were not - handled correctly. This release fixes those problems. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - SSL protocol security and performance improvements (Sean Chittenden) - </para> - <para> - SSL key renegotiation was happening too frequently, causing poor - SSL performance. Also, initial key handling was improved. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Print lock information when a deadlock is detected (Tom) - </para> - <para> - This allows easier debugging of deadlock situations. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Update <filename>/tmp</filename> socket modification times - regularly to avoid their removal (Tom) - </para> - <para> - This should help prevent <filename>/tmp</filename> directory - cleaner administration scripts from removing server socket - files. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem><para>Enable PAM for Mac OS X (Aaron Hillegass)</para></listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Make B-tree indexes fully WAL-safe (Tom)</para> - <para> - In prior releases, under certain rare cases, a server crash - could cause B-tree indexes to become corrupt. This release - removes those last few rare cases. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem><para>Allow B-tree index compaction and empty page reuse (Tom)</para></listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix inconsistent index lookups during split of first root page (Tom) - </para> - <para> - In prior releases, when a single-page index split into two - pages, there was a brief period when another database session - could miss seeing an index entry. This release fixes that rare - failure case. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem><para>Improve free space map allocation logic (Tom)</para></listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Preserve free space information between server restarts (Tom)</para> - <para> - In prior releases, the free space map was not saved when the - postmaster was stopped, so newly started servers had no free - space information. This release saves the free space map, and - reloads it when the server is restarted. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem><para>Add start time to <literal>pg_stat_activity</literal> (Neil)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>New code to detect corrupt disk pages; erase with <varname>zero_damaged_pages</varname> (Tom)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>New client/server protocol: faster, no username length limit, allow clean exit from <command>COPY</command> (Tom)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Add transaction status, table ID, column ID to client/server protocol (Tom)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Add binary I/O to client/server protocol (Tom)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Remove autocommit server setting; move to client applications (Tom)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>New error message wording, error codes, and three levels of error detail (Tom, Joe, Peter)</para></listitem> - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Performance Improvements</title> - - <itemizedlist> - <listitem><para>Add hashing for <literal>GROUP BY</literal> aggregates (Tom)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Make nested-loop joins be smarter about multicolumn indexes (Tom)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Allow multikey hash joins (Tom)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Improve constant folding (Tom)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Add ability to inline simple SQL functions (Tom)</para></listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Reduce memory usage for queries using complex functions (Tom)</para> - <para> - In prior releases, functions returning allocated memory would - not free it until the query completed. This release allows the - freeing of function-allocated memory when the function call - completes, reducing the total memory used by functions. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Improve GEQO optimizer performance (Tom)</para> - <para> - This release fixes several inefficiencies in the way the GEQO optimizer - manages potential query paths. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <literal>IN</>/<literal>NOT IN</> to be handled via hash - tables (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve <literal>NOT IN (<replaceable>subquery</>)</literal> - performance (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow most <literal>IN</literal> subqueries to be processed as - joins (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Pattern matching operations can use indexes regardless of - locale (Peter) - </para> - <para> - There is no way for non-ASCII locales to use the standard - indexes for <literal>LIKE</literal> comparisons. This release - adds a way to create a special index for - <literal>LIKE</literal>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Allow the postmaster to preload libraries using <varname>preload_libraries</varname> (Joe)</para> - <para> - For shared libraries that require a long time to load, this - option is available so the library can be preloaded in the - postmaster and inherited by all database sessions. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve optimizer cost computations, particularly for subqueries (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Avoid sort when subquery <literal>ORDER BY</literal> matches upper query (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Deduce that <literal>WHERE a.x = b.y AND b.y = 42</literal> also - means <literal>a.x = 42</literal> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow hash/merge joins on complex joins (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow hash joins for more data types (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow join optimization of explicit inner joins, disable with - <varname>join_collapse_limit</varname> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add parameter <varname>from_collapse_limit</varname> to control - conversion of subqueries to joins (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Use faster and more powerful regular expression code from Tcl - (Henry Spencer, Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Use bit-mapped relation sets in the optimizer (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Improve connection startup time (Tom)</para> - <para> - The new client/server protocol requires fewer network packets to - start a database session. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve trigger/constraint performance (Stephan) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve speed of <literal>col IN (const, const, const, ...)</literal> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix hash indexes which were broken in rare cases (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem><para>Improve hash index concurrency and speed (Tom)</para> - <para> - Prior releases suffered from poor hash index performance, - particularly for high concurrency situations. This release fixes - that, and the development group is interested in reports - comparing B-tree and hash index performance. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Align shared buffers on 32-byte boundary for copy speed improvement (Manfred Spraul)</para> - <para> - Certain CPU's perform faster data copies when addresses are - 32-byte aligned. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Data type <type>numeric</type> reimplemented for better performance (Tom)</para> - <para> - <type>numeric</type> used to be stored in base 100. The new code - uses base 10000, for significantly better performance. - </para> - </listitem> - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Server Configuration Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - <listitem> - <para>Rename server parameter <varname>server_min_messages</> to <varname>log_min_messages</> (Bruce)</para> - <para> - This was done so most parameters that control the server logs - begin with <literal>log_</>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem><para>Rename <varname>show_*_stats</> to <varname>log_*_stats</> (Bruce)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Rename <varname>show_source_port</> to <varname>log_source_port</> (Bruce)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Rename <varname>hostname_lookup</> to <varname>log_hostname</> (Bruce)</para></listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Add <varname>checkpoint_warning</> to warn of excessive checkpointing (Bruce)</para> - <para> - In prior releases, it was difficult to determine if checkpoint - was happening too frequently. This feature adds a warning to the - server logs when excessive checkpointing happens. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem><para>New read-only server parameters for localization (Tom)</para></listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Change debug server log messages to output as <literal>DEBUG</> - rather than <literal>LOG</> (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Prevent server log variables from being turned off by non-superusers (Bruce)</para> - <para> - This is a security feature so non-superusers cannot disable - logging that was enabled by the administrator. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <varname>log_min_messages</>/<varname>client_min_messages</> now - controls <varname>debug_*</> output (Bruce) - </para> - <para> - This centralizes client debug information so all debug output - can be sent to either the client or server logs. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Add Mac OS X Rendezvous server support (Chris Campbell)</para> - <para> - This allows Mac OS X hosts to query the network for available - <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> servers. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add ability to print only slow statements using - <varname>log_min_duration_statement</varname> - (Christopher) - </para> - <para> - This is an often requested debugging feature that allows - administrators to see only slow queries in their server logs. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Allow <filename>pg_hba.conf</filename> to accept netmasks in CIDR format (Andrew Dunstan)</para> - <para> - This allows administrators to merge the host IP address and - netmask fields into a single CIDR field in <filename>pg_hba.conf</filename>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem><para>New read-only parameter <varname>is_superuser</varname> (Tom)</para></listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>New parameter <varname>log_error_verbosity</varname> to control error detail (Tom)</para> - <para> - This works with the new error reporting feature to supply - additional error information like hints, file names and line - numbers. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para><literal>postgres --describe-config</literal> now dumps server config variables (Aizaz Ahmed, Peter)</para> - <para> - This option is useful for administration tools that need to know - the configuration variable names and their minimums, maximums, - defaults, and descriptions. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add new columns in <literal>pg_settings</literal>: - <literal>context</>, <literal>type</>, <literal>source</>, - <literal>min_val</>, <literal>max_val</> (Joe) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make default <varname>shared_buffers</> 1000 and - <varname>max_connections</> 100, if possible (Tom) - </para> - <para> - Prior versions defaulted to 64 shared buffers so <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> - would start on even very old systems. This release tests the - amount of shared memory allowed by the platform and selects more - reasonable default values if possible. Of course, users are - still encouraged to evaluate their resource load and size - <varname>shared_buffers</varname> accordingly. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - New <filename>pg_hba.conf</filename> record type - <literal>hostnossl</> to prevent SSL connections (Jon - Jensen) - </para> - <para> - In prior releases, there was no way to prevent SSL connections - if both the client and server supported SSL. This option allows - that capability. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove parameter <varname>geqo_random_seed</varname> - (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add server parameter <varname>regex_flavor</varname> to control regular expression processing (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>pg_ctl</command> better handle nonstandard ports (Greg) - </para> - </listitem> - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Query Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - <listitem><para>New SQL-standard information schema (Peter)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Add read-only transactions (Peter)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Print key name and value in foreign-key violation messages (Dmitry Tkach)</para></listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Allow users to see their own queries in <literal>pg_stat_activity</literal> (Kevin Brown)</para> - <para> - In prior releases, only the superuser could see query strings - using <literal>pg_stat_activity</literal>. Now ordinary users - can see their own query strings. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Fix aggregates in subqueries to match SQL standard (Tom)</para> - <para> - The SQL standard says that an aggregate function appearing - within a nested subquery belongs to the outer query if its - argument contains only outer-query variables. Prior - <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> releases did not handle - this fine point correctly. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Add option to prevent auto-addition of tables referenced in query (Nigel J. Andrews)</para> - <para> - By default, tables mentioned in the query are automatically - added to the <literal>FROM</> clause if they are not already - there. This is compatible with historic - <productname>POSTGRES</productname> behavior but is contrary to - the SQL standard. This option allows selecting - standard-compatible behavior. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Allow <literal>UPDATE ... SET col = DEFAULT</literal> (Rod)</para> - <para> - This allows <command>UPDATE</command> to set a column to its - declared default value. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Allow expressions to be used in <literal>LIMIT</>/<literal>OFFSET</> (Tom)</para> - <para> - In prior releases, <literal>LIMIT</>/<literal>OFFSET</> could - only use constants, not expressions. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Implement <literal>CREATE TABLE AS EXECUTE</literal> (Neil, Peter)</para> - </listitem> - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Object Manipulation Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - <listitem> - <para>Make <command>CREATE SEQUENCE</command> grammar more conforming to SQL:2003 (Neil)</para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Add statement-level triggers (Neil)</para> - <para> - While this allows a trigger to fire at the end of a statement, - it does not allow the trigger to access all rows modified by the - statement. This capability is planned for a future release. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Add check constraints for domains (Rod)</para> - <para> - This greatly increases the usefulness of domains by allowing - them to use check constraints. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Add <command>ALTER DOMAIN</command> (Rod)</para> - <para> - This allows manipulation of existing domains. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Fix several zero-column table bugs (Tom)</para> - <para> - <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> supports zero-column tables. This fixes various bugs - that occur when using such tables. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Have <literal>ALTER TABLE ... ADD PRIMARY KEY</literal> add not-null constraint (Rod)</para> - <para> - In prior releases, <literal>ALTER TABLE ... ADD - PRIMARY</literal> would add a unique index, but not a not-null - constraint. That is fixed in this release. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem><para>Add <literal>ALTER TABLE ... WITHOUT OIDS</literal> (Rod)</para> - <para> - This allows control over whether new and updated rows will have - an OID column. This is most useful for saving storage space. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>ALTER SEQUENCE</literal> to modify minimum, maximum, - increment, cache, cycle values (Rod) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Add <literal>ALTER TABLE ... CLUSTER ON</literal> (Alvaro Herrera)</para> - <para> - This command is used by <command>pg_dump</command> to record the - cluster column for each table previously clustered. This - information is used by database-wide cluster to cluster all - previously clustered tables. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem><para>Improve automatic type casting for domains (Rod, Tom)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Allow dollar signs in identifiers, except as first character (Tom)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Disallow dollar signs in operator names, so <literal>x=$1</> works (Tom)</para></listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow copying table schema using <literal>LIKE - <replaceable>subtable</replaceable></literal>, also SQL:2003 - feature <literal>INCLUDING DEFAULTS</literal> (Rod) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add <literal>WITH GRANT OPTION</literal> clause to - <command>GRANT</command> (Peter) - </para> - <para> - This enabled <command>GRANT</command> to give other users the - ability to grant privileges on a object. - </para> - </listitem> - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Utility Command Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - <listitem> - <para>Add <literal>ON COMMIT</literal> clause to <command>CREATE TABLE</command> for temporary tables (Gavin)</para> - <para> - This adds the ability for a table to be dropped or all rows - deleted on transaction commit. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Allow cursors outside transactions using <literal>WITH HOLD</literal> (Neil)</para> - <para> - In previous releases, cursors were removed at the end of the - transaction that created them. Cursors can now be created with - the <literal>WITH HOLD</literal> option, which allows them to - continue to be accessed after the creating transaction has - committed. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para><literal>FETCH 0</literal> and <literal>MOVE 0 </literal> now do nothing (Bruce)</para> - <para> - In previous releases, <literal>FETCH 0</literal> fetched all - remaining rows, and <literal>MOVE 0</literal> moved to the end - of the cursor. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Cause <command>FETCH</command> and <command>MOVE</command> to - return the number of rows fetched/moved, or zero if at the - beginning/end of cursor, per SQL standard (Bruce) - </para> - <para> - In prior releases, the row count returned by - <command>FETCH</command> and <command>MOVE</command> did not - accurately reflect the number of rows processed. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Properly handle <literal>SCROLL</literal> with cursors, or - report an error (Neil)</para> - <para> - Allowing random access (both forward and backward scrolling) to - some kinds of queries cannot be done without some additional - work. If <literal>SCROLL</literal> is specified when the cursor - is created, this additional work will be performed. Furthermore, - if the cursor has been created with <literal>NO SCROLL</literal>, - no random access is allowed. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Implement SQL-compatible options <literal>FIRST</>, - <literal>LAST</>, <literal>ABSOLUTE <replaceable>n</></>, - <literal>RELATIVE <replaceable>n</></> for - <command>FETCH</command> and <command>MOVE</command> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Allow <command>EXPLAIN</command> on <command>DECLARE CURSOR</command> (Tom)</para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Allow <command>CLUSTER</command> to use index marked as pre-clustered by default (Alvaro Herrera)</para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Allow <command>CLUSTER</command> to cluster all tables (Alvaro Herrera)</para> - <para> - This allows all previously clustered tables in a database to be - reclustered with a single command. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem><para>Prevent <command>CLUSTER</command> on partial indexes (Tom)</para></listitem> - - <listitem><para>Allow DOS and Mac line-endings in <command>COPY</> files (Bruce)</para></listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Disallow literal carriage return as a data value, - backslash-carriage-return and <literal>\r</> are still allowed - (Bruce) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para><command>COPY</> changes (binary, <literal>\.</>) (Tom)</para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Recover from <command>COPY</command> failure cleanly (Tom)</para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Prevent possible memory leaks in <command>COPY</command> (Tom)</para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Make <command>TRUNCATE</command> transaction-safe (Rod)</para> - <para> - <command>TRUNCATE</command> can now be used inside a - transaction. If the transaction aborts, the changes made by the - <command>TRUNCATE</command> are automatically rolled back. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow prepare/bind of utility commands like - <command>FETCH</command> and <command>EXPLAIN</command> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Add <command>EXPLAIN EXECUTE</command> (Neil)</para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Improve <command>VACUUM</command> performance on indexes by reducing WAL traffic (Tom)</para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Functional indexes have been generalized into indexes on expressions (Tom)</para> - <para> - In prior releases, functional indexes only supported a simple - function applied to one or more column names. This release - allows any type of scalar expression. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Have <command>SHOW TRANSACTION ISOLATION</command> match input - to <command>SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION</command> - (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Have <command>COMMENT ON DATABASE</command> on nonlocal - database generate a warning, rather than an error (Rod) - </para> - - <para> - Database comments are stored in database-local tables so - comments on a database have to be stored in each database. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve reliability of <command>LISTEN</>/<command>NOTIFY</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Allow <command>REINDEX</command> to reliably reindex nonshared system catalog indexes (Tom)</para> - <para> - This allows system tables to be reindexed without the - requirement of a standalone session, which was necessary in - previous releases. The only tables that now require a standalone - session for reindexing are the global system tables - <literal>pg_database</>, <literal>pg_shadow</>, and - <literal>pg_group</>. - </para> - </listitem> - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Data Type and Function Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - <listitem> - <para> - New server parameter <varname>extra_float_digits</varname> to - control precision display of floating-point numbers (Pedro - Ferreira, Tom) - </para> - <para> - This controls output precision which was causing regression - testing problems. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem><para>Allow <literal>+1300</literal> as a numeric time-zone specifier, for FJST (Tom)</para></listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove rarely used functions <function>oidrand</>, - <function>oidsrand</>, and <function>userfntest</> functions - (Neil) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Add <function>md5()</> function to main server, already in <filename>contrib/pgcrypto</filename> (Joe)</para> - <para> - An MD5 function was frequently requested. For more complex - encryption capabilities, use - <filename>contrib/pgcrypto</filename>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem><para>Increase date range of <type>timestamp</type> (John Cochran)</para></listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Change <literal>EXTRACT(EPOCH FROM timestamp)</literal> so - <type>timestamp without time zone</type> is assumed to be in - local time, not GMT (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem><para>Trap division by zero in case the operating system doesn't prevent it (Tom)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Change the <type>numeric</type> data type internally to base 10000 (Tom)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>New <function>hostmask()</function> function (Greg Wickham)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Fixes for <function>to_char()</function> and <function>to_timestamp()</function> (Karel)</para></listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow functions that can take any argument data type and return - any data type, using <type>anyelement</type> and - <type>anyarray</type> (Joe) - </para> - <para> - This allows the creation of functions that can work with any - data type. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Arrays can now be specified as <literal>ARRAY[1,2,3]</literal>, - <literal>ARRAY[['a','b'],['c','d']]</literal>, or - <literal>ARRAY[ARRAY[ARRAY[2]]]</literal> (Joe) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow proper comparisons for arrays, including <literal>ORDER - BY</literal> and <literal>DISTINCT</literal> support - (Joe) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem><para>Allow indexes on array columns (Joe)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Allow array concatenation with <literal>||</literal> (Joe)</para></listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow <literal>WHERE</literal> qualification - <literal><replaceable>expr</> <replaceable>op</> ANY/SOME/ALL - (<replaceable>array_expr</>)</literal> (Joe) - </para> - <para> - This allows arrays to behave like a list of values, for purposes - like <literal>SELECT * FROM tab WHERE col IN - (array_val)</literal>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - New array functions <function>array_append</>, - <function>array_cat</>, <function>array_lower</>, - <function>array_prepend</>, <function>array_to_string</>, - <function>array_upper</>, <function>string_to_array</> (Joe) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem><para>Allow user defined aggregates to use polymorphic functions (Joe)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Allow assignments to empty arrays (Joe)</para></listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow 60 in seconds fields of <type>time</type>, - <type>timestamp</type>, and <type>interval</type> input values - (Tom) - </para> - <para> - Sixty-second values are needed for leap seconds. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem><para>Allow <type>cidr</type> data type to be cast to <type>text</type> (Tom)</para></listitem> - - <listitem><para>Disallow invalid time zone names in SET TIMEZONE</para></listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Trim trailing spaces when <type>char</type> is cast to - <type>varchar</> or <type>text</> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <type>float(<replaceable>p</>)</> measure the precision - <replaceable>p</> in binary digits, not decimal digits - (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Add IPv6 support to the <type>inet</type> and <type>cidr</type> data types (Michael Graff)</para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Add <function>family()</function> function to report whether address is IPv4 or IPv6 (Michael Graff)</para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Have <literal>SHOW datestyle</literal> generate output similar - to that used by <literal>SET datestyle</literal> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <literal>EXTRACT(TIMEZONE)</literal> and <literal>SET/SHOW - TIME ZONE</literal> follow the SQL convention for the sign of - time zone offsets, i.e., positive is east from UTC (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Fix <literal>date_trunc('quarter', ...)</literal> (Böjthe Zoltán)</para> - <para> - Prior releases returned an incorrect value for this function call. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Make <function>initcap()</function> more compatible with Oracle (Mike Nolan)</para> - <para> - <function>initcap()</function> now uppercases a letter appearing - after any non-alphanumeric character, rather than only after - whitespace. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Allow only <varname>datestyle</varname> field order for date values not in ISO-8601 format (Greg)</para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add new <varname>datestyle</varname> values <literal>MDY</>, - <literal>DMY</>, and <literal>YMD</> to set input field order; - honor <literal>US</> and <literal>European</> for backward - compatibility (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - String literals like <literal>'now'</literal> or - <literal>'today'</literal> will no longer work as a column - default. Use functions such as <function>now()</function>, - <function>current_timestamp</function> instead. (change - required for prepared statements) (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Treat NaN as larger than any other value in <function>min()</>/<function>max()</> (Tom)</para> - <para> - NaN was already sorted after ordinary numeric values for most - purposes, but <function>min()</> and <function>max()</> didn't - get this right. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Prevent interval from suppressing <literal>:00</literal> - seconds display</para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - New functions <function>pg_get_triggerdef(prettyprint)</function> - and <function>pg_conversion_is_visible()</function> (Christopher) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Allow time to be specified as <literal>040506</> or <literal>0405</> (Tom)</para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Input date order must now be <literal>YYYY-MM-DD</literal> (with 4-digit year) or - match <varname>datestyle</varname> - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <function>pg_get_constraintdef</function> support - unique, primary-key, and check constraints (Christopher) - </para> - </listitem> - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Server-Side Language Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent PL/pgSQL crash when <literal>RETURN NEXT</literal> is - used on a zero-row record variable (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make PL/Python's <function>spi_execute</function> interface - handle null values properly (Andrew Bosma) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Allow PL/pgSQL to declare variables of composite types without <literal>%ROWTYPE</literal> (Tom)</para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Fix PL/Python's <function>_quote()</function> function to handle big integers</para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Make PL/Python an untrusted language, now called <literal>plpythonu</literal> (Kevin Jacobs, Tom)</para> - <para> - The Python language no longer supports a restricted execution - environment, so the trusted version of PL/Python was removed. If - this situation changes, a version of PL/Python that can be used - by non-superusers will be readded. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Allow polymorphic PL/pgSQL functions (Joe, Tom)</para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Allow polymorphic SQL functions (Joe)</para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improved compiled function caching mechanism in PL/pgSQL with - full support for polymorphism (Joe) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add new parameter <literal>$0</> in PL/pgSQL representing the - function's actual return type (Joe) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow PL/Tcl and PL/Python to use the same trigger on multiple tables (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fixed PL/Tcl's <function>spi_prepare</function> to accept fully - qualified type names in the parameter type list - (Jan) - </para> - </listitem> - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>psql Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - <listitem> - <para>Add <literal>\pset pager always</literal> to always use pager (Greg)</para> - <para> - This forces the pager to be used even if the number of rows is - less than the screen height. This is valuable for rows that - wrap across several screen rows. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem><para>Improve tab completion (Rod, Ross Reedstrom, Ian Barwick)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Reorder <literal>\?</> help into groupings (Harald Armin Massa, Bruce)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Add backslash commands for listing schemas, casts, and conversions (Christopher)</para></listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <command>\encoding</> now changes based on the server parameter - <varname>client_encoding</varname> (Tom) - </para> - <para> - In previous versions, <command>\encoding</command> was not aware - of encoding changes made using <literal>SET - client_encoding</literal>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Save editor buffer into readline history (Ross)</para> - <para> - When <command>\e</> is used to edit a query, the result is saved - in the readline history for retrieval using the up arrow. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem><para>Improve <command>\d</command> display (Christopher)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Enhance HTML mode to be more standards-conforming (Greg)</para></listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>New <command>\set AUTOCOMMIT off</command> capability (Tom)</para> - <para> - This takes the place of the removed server parameter <varname>autocommit</varname>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>New <command>\set VERBOSITY</command> to control error detail (Tom)</para> - <para> - This controls the new error reporting details. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem><para>New prompt escape sequence <literal>%x</literal> to show transaction status (Tom)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Long options for <application>psql</application> are now available on all platforms</para></listitem> - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>pg_dump Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - <listitem><para>Multiple pg_dump fixes, including tar format and large objects</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Allow pg_dump to dump specific schemas (Neil)</para></listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Make pg_dump preserve column storage characteristics (Christopher)</para> - <para> - This preserves <literal>ALTER TABLE ... SET STORAGE</literal> information. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem><para>Make pg_dump preserve <command>CLUSTER</command> characteristics (Christopher)</para></listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Have pg_dumpall use <command>GRANT</>/<command>REVOKE</> to dump database-level privileges (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow pg_dumpall to support the options <option>-a</>, - <option>-s</>, <option>-x</> of pg_dump (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem><para>Prevent pg_dump from lowercasing identifiers specified on the command line (Tom)</para></listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - pg_dump options <option>--use-set-session-authorization</option> - and <option>--no-reconnect</option> now do nothing, all dumps - use <command>SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION</command> - </para> - <para> - pg_dump no longer reconnects to switch users, but instead always - uses <command>SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION</command>. This will - reduce password prompting during restores. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Long options for <application>pg_dump</application> are now available on all platforms</para> - <para> - <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> now includes its own - long-option processing routines. - </para> - </listitem> - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>libpq Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - <listitem> - <para> - Add function <function>PQfreemem</function> for freeing memory on - Windows, suggested for <command>NOTIFY</command> (Bruce) - </para> - <para> - Windows requires that memory allocated in a library be freed by - a function in the same library, hence - <function>free()</function> doesn't work for freeing memory - allocated by libpq. <function>PQfreemem</function> is the proper - way to free libpq memory, especially on Windows, and is - recommended for other platforms as well. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Document service capability, and add sample file (Bruce)</para> - <para> - This allows clients to look up connection information in a - central file on the client machine. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <function>PQsetdbLogin</function> have the same defaults as - <function>PQconnectdb</function> (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem><para>Allow libpq to cleanly fail when result sets are too large (Tom)</para></listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve performance of function <function>PQunescapeBytea</function> (Ben Lamb) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow thread-safe libpq with <filename>configure</filename> - option <option>--enable-thread-safety</option> (Lee Kindness, - Philip Yarra) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow function <function>pqInternalNotice</function> to accept a - format string and arguments instead of just a preformatted - message (Tom, Sean Chittenden) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Control SSL negotiation with <literal>sslmode</literal> values - <literal>disable</literal>, <literal>allow</literal>, - <literal>prefer</literal>, and <literal>require</literal> (Jon - Jensen) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Allow new error codes and levels of text (Tom)</para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Allow access to the underlying table and column of a query result (Tom)</para> - <para> - This is helpful for query-builder applications that want to know - the underlying table and column names associated with a specific - result set. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem><para>Allow access to the current transaction status (Tom)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Add ability to pass binary data directly to the server (Tom)</para></listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Add function <function>PQexecPrepared</function> and - <function>PQsendQueryPrepared</function> functions which perform - bind/execute of previously prepared statements (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>JDBC Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - <listitem><para>Allow <function>setNull</function> on updateable result sets</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Allow <function>executeBatch</function> on a prepared statement (Barry)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Support SSL connections (Barry)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Handle schema names in result sets (Paul Sorenson)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Add refcursor support (Nic Ferrier)</para></listitem> - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Miscellaneous Interface Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - <listitem> - <para>Prevent possible memory leak or core dump during libpgtcl shutdown (Tom)</para> - </listitem> - <listitem> - <para>Add Informix compatibility to ECPG (Michael)</para> - <para> - This allows ECPG to process embedded C programs that were - written using certain Informix extensions. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Add type <type>decimal</type> to ECPG that is fixed length, for Informix (Michael)</para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Allow thread-safe embedded SQL programs with - <filename>configure</filename> option - <option>--enable-thread-safety</option> (Lee Kindness, Bruce) - </para> - <para> - This allows multiple threads to access the database at the same - time. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para>Moved Python client PyGreSQL to <ulink url="http://www.pygresql.org"></ulink> (Marc)</para> - </listitem> - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Source Code Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - <listitem><para>Prevent need for separate platform geometry regression result files (Tom)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Improved PPC locking primitive (Reinhard Max)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>New function <function>palloc0</function> to allocate and clear memory (Bruce)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Fix locking code for s390x CPU (64-bit) (Tom)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Allow OpenBSD to use local ident credentials (William Ahern)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Make query plan trees read-only to executor (Tom)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Add Darwin startup scripts (David Wheeler)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Allow libpq to compile with Borland C++ compiler (Lester Godwin, Karl Waclawek)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Use our own version of <function>getopt_long()</function> if needed (Peter)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Convert administration scripts to C (Peter)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para> Bison >= 1.85 is now required to build the <productname>PostgreSQL</> grammar, if building from CVS</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Merge documentation into one book (Peter)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Add Windows compatibility functions (Bruce)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Allow client interfaces to compile under MinGW (Bruce)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>New <function>ereport()</function> function for error reporting (Tom)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Support Intel compiler on Linux (Peter)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Improve Linux startup scripts (Slawomir Sudnik, Darko Prenosil)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Add support for AMD Opteron and Itanium (Jeffrey W. Baker, Bruce)</para></listitem> - <listitem> - <para>Remove <option>--enable-recode</option> option from <command>configure</command></para> - <para> - This was no longer needed now that we have <command>CREATE CONVERSION</command>. - </para> - </listitem> - <listitem> - <para>Generate a compile error if spinlock code is not found (Bruce)</para> - <para> - Platforms without spinlock code will now fail to compile, rather - than silently using semaphores. This failure can be disabled - with a new <command>configure</command> option. - </para> - </listitem> - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Contrib Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - <listitem><para>Change dbmirror license to BSD</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Improve earthdistance (Bruno Wolff III)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Portability improvements to pgcrypto (Marko Kreen)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Prevent crash in xml (John Gray, Michael Richards)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Update oracle</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Update mysql</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Update cube (Bruno Wolff III)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Update earthdistance to use cube (Bruno Wolff III)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Update btree_gist (Oleg)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>New tsearch2 full-text search module (Oleg, Teodor)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Add hash-based crosstab function to tablefuncs (Joe)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Add serial column to order <function>connectby()</> siblings in tablefuncs (Nabil Sayegh,Joe)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Add named persistent connections to dblink (Shridhar Daithanka)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>New pg_autovacuum allows automatic <command>VACUUM</command> (Matthew T. O'Connor)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Make pgbench honor environment variables <envar>PGHOST</>, <envar>PGPORT</>, <envar>PGUSER</> (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Improve intarray (Teodor Sigaev)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Improve pgstattuple (Rod)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Fix bug in <function>metaphone()</function> in fuzzystrmatch</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Improve adddepend (Rod)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Update spi/timetravel (Böjthe Zoltán)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Fix dbase <option>-s</> option and improve non-ASCII handling (Thomas Behr, Márcio Smiderle)</para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Remove array module because features now included by default (Joe)</para></listitem> - </itemizedlist> - </sect3> - </sect2> -</sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-3-21"> - <title>Release 7.3.21</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2008-01-07</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.3.20, - including fixes for significant security issues. - </para> - - <para> - This is expected to be the last <productname>PostgreSQL</> release - in the 7.3.X series. Users are encouraged to update to a newer - release branch soon. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.3.21</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.3.13, see the release - notes for 7.3.13. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent functions in indexes from executing with the privileges of - the user running <command>VACUUM</>, <command>ANALYZE</>, etc (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - Functions used in index expressions and partial-index - predicates are evaluated whenever a new table entry is made. It has - long been understood that this poses a risk of trojan-horse code - execution if one modifies a table owned by an untrustworthy user. - (Note that triggers, defaults, check constraints, etc. pose the - same type of risk.) But functions in indexes pose extra danger - because they will be executed by routine maintenance operations - such as <command>VACUUM FULL</>, which are commonly performed - automatically under a superuser account. For example, a nefarious user - can execute code with superuser privileges by setting up a - trojan-horse index definition and waiting for the next routine vacuum. - The fix arranges for standard maintenance operations - (including <command>VACUUM</>, <command>ANALYZE</>, <command>REINDEX</>, - and <command>CLUSTER</>) to execute as the table owner rather than - the calling user, using the same privilege-switching mechanism already - used for <literal>SECURITY DEFINER</> functions. To prevent bypassing - this security measure, execution of <command>SET SESSION - AUTHORIZATION</> and <command>SET ROLE</> is now forbidden within a - <literal>SECURITY DEFINER</> context. (CVE-2007-6600) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Require non-superusers who use <filename>/contrib/dblink</> to use only - password authentication, as a security measure (Joe) - </para> - - <para> - The fix that appeared for this in 7.3.20 was incomplete, as it plugged - the hole for only some <filename>dblink</> functions. (CVE-2007-6601, - CVE-2007-3278) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix potential crash in <function>translate()</> when using a multibyte - database encoding (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <filename>contrib/tablefunc</>'s <function>crosstab()</> handle - NULL rowid as a category in its own right, rather than crashing (Joe) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Require a specific version of <productname>Autoconf</> to be used - when re-generating the <command>configure</> script (Peter) - </para> - - <para> - This affects developers and packagers only. The change was made - to prevent accidental use of untested combinations of - <productname>Autoconf</> and <productname>PostgreSQL</> versions. - You can remove the version check if you really want to use a - different <productname>Autoconf</> version, but it's - your responsibility whether the result works or not. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-3-20"> - <title>Release 7.3.20</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2007-09-17</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains fixes from 7.3.19. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.3.20</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.3.13, see the release - notes for 7.3.13. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Prevent index corruption when a transaction inserts rows and - then aborts close to the end of a concurrent <command>VACUUM</> - on the same table (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Make <command>CREATE DOMAIN ... DEFAULT NULL</> work properly (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix crash when <varname>log_min_error_statement</> logging runs out - of memory (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Require non-superusers who use <filename>/contrib/dblink</> to use only - password authentication, as a security measure (Joe) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-3-19"> - <title>Release 7.3.19</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2007-04-23</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains fixes from 7.3.18, - including a security fix. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.3.19</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.3.13, see the release - notes for 7.3.13. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support explicit placement of the temporary-table schema within - <varname>search_path</>, and disable searching it for functions - and operators (Tom) - </para> - <para> - This is needed to allow a security-definer function to set a - truly secure value of <varname>search_path</>. Without it, - an unprivileged SQL user can use temporary objects to execute code - with the privileges of the security-definer function (CVE-2007-2138). - See <command>CREATE FUNCTION</> for more information. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix potential-data-corruption bug in how <command>VACUUM FULL</> handles - <command>UPDATE</> chains (Tom, Pavan Deolasee) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-3-18"> - <title>Release 7.3.18</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2007-02-05</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.3.17, including - a security fix. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.3.18</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.3.13, see the release - notes for 7.3.13. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - Remove security vulnerability that allowed connected users - to read backend memory (Tom) - </para> - <para> - The vulnerability involves changing the - data type of a table column used in a SQL function (CVE-2007-0555). - This error can easily be exploited to cause a backend crash, and in - principle might be used to read database content that the user - should not be able to access. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Fix rare bug wherein btree index page splits could fail - due to choosing an infeasible split point (Heikki Linnakangas) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Tighten security of multi-byte character processing for UTF8 sequences - over three bytes long (Tom) - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-3-17"> - <title>Release 7.3.17</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2007-01-08</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.3.16. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.3.17</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.3.13, see the release - notes for 7.3.13. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <itemizedlist> - - <listitem> - <para> - <function>to_number()</> and <function>to_char(numeric)</> - are now <literal>STABLE</>, not <literal>IMMUTABLE</>, for - new <application>initdb</> installs (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This is because <varname>lc_numeric</> can potentially - change the output of these functions. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Improve index usage of regular expressions that use parentheses (Tom) - </para> - - <para> - This improves <application>psql</> <literal>\d</> performance also. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-3-16"> - <title>Release 7.3.16</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2006-10-16</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.3.15. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.3.16</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.3.13, see the release - notes for 7.3.13. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Fix corner cases in pattern matching for - <application>psql</>'s <literal>\d</> commands</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix index-corrupting bugs in /contrib/ltree - (Teodor)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Back-port 7.4 spinlock code to improve performance and support -64-bit architectures better</para> </listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix SSL-related memory leak in libpq</para> </listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix backslash escaping in /contrib/dbmirror</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Adjust regression tests for recent changes in US DST laws -</para> </listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-3-15"> - <title>Release 7.3.15</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2006-05-23</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.3.14, - including patches for extremely serious security issues. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.3.15</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.3.13, see the release - notes for 7.3.13. - </para> - - <para> - Full security against the SQL-injection attacks described in - CVE-2006-2313 and CVE-2006-2314 might require changes in application - code. If you have applications that embed untrustworthy strings - into SQL commands, you should examine them as soon as possible to - ensure that they are using recommended escaping techniques. In - most cases, applications should be using subroutines provided by - libraries or drivers (such as <application>libpq</>'s - <function>PQescapeStringConn()</>) to perform string escaping, - rather than relying on <foreignphrase>ad hoc</> code to do it. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Change the server to reject invalidly-encoded multibyte -characters in all cases (Tatsuo, Tom)</para> -<para>While <productname>PostgreSQL</> has been moving in this direction for -some time, the checks are now applied uniformly to all encodings and all -textual input, and are now always errors not merely warnings. This change -defends against SQL-injection attacks of the type described in CVE-2006-2313. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Reject unsafe uses of <literal>\'</> in string literals</para> -<para>As a server-side defense against SQL-injection attacks of the type -described in CVE-2006-2314, the server now only accepts <literal>''</> and not -<literal>\'</> as a representation of ASCII single quote in SQL string -literals. By default, <literal>\'</> is rejected only when -<varname>client_encoding</> is set to a client-only encoding (SJIS, BIG5, GBK, -GB18030, or UHC), which is the scenario in which SQL injection is possible. -A new configuration parameter <varname>backslash_quote</> is available to -adjust this behavior when needed. Note that full security against -CVE-2006-2314 might require client-side changes; the purpose of -<varname>backslash_quote</> is in part to make it obvious that insecure -clients are insecure. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Modify <application>libpq</>'s string-escaping routines to be -aware of encoding considerations</para> -<para>This fixes <application>libpq</>-using applications for the security -issues described in CVE-2006-2313 and CVE-2006-2314. -Applications that use multiple <productname>PostgreSQL</> connections -concurrently should migrate to <function>PQescapeStringConn()</> and -<function>PQescapeByteaConn()</> to ensure that escaping is done correctly -for the settings in use in each database connection. Applications that -do string escaping <quote>by hand</> should be modified to rely on library -routines instead. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix some incorrect encoding conversion functions</para> -<para><function>win1251_to_iso</>, <function>alt_to_iso</>, -<function>euc_tw_to_big5</>, <function>euc_tw_to_mic</>, -<function>mic_to_euc_tw</> were all broken to varying -extents. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Clean up stray remaining uses of <literal>\'</> in strings -(Bruce, Jan)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix server to use custom DH SSL parameters correctly (Michael -Fuhr)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix various minor memory leaks</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-3-14"> - <title>Release 7.3.14</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2006-02-14</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.3.13. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.3.14</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.3.13, see the release - notes for 7.3.13. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> - -<listitem><para>Fix potential crash in <command>SET -SESSION AUTHORIZATION</> (CVE-2006-0553)</para> -<para>An unprivileged user could crash the server process, resulting in -momentary denial of service to other users, if the server has been compiled -with Asserts enabled (which is not the default). -Thanks to Akio Ishida for reporting this problem. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix bug with row visibility logic in self-inserted -rows (Tom)</para> -<para>Under rare circumstances a row inserted by the current command -could be seen as already valid, when it should not be. Repairs bug -created in 7.3.11 release. -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix race condition that could lead to <quote>file already -exists</> errors during pg_clog file creation -(Tom)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix to allow restoring dumps that have cross-schema -references to custom operators (Tom)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Portability fix for testing presence of <function>finite</> -and <function>isinf</> during configure (Tom)</para></listitem> - -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-3-13"> - <title>Release 7.3.13</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2006-01-09</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.3.12. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.3.13</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.3.10, see the release - notes for 7.3.10. - Also, you might need to <command>REINDEX</> indexes on textual - columns after updating, if you are affected by the locale or - <application>plperl</> issues described below. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> - -<listitem><para>Fix character string comparison for locales that consider -different character combinations as equal, such as Hungarian (Tom)</para> -<para>This might require <command>REINDEX</> to fix existing indexes on -textual columns.</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Set locale environment variables during postmaster startup -to ensure that <application>plperl</> won't change the locale later</para> -<para>This fixes a problem that occurred if the <application>postmaster</> was -started with environment variables specifying a different locale than what -<application>initdb</> had been told. Under these conditions, any use of -<application>plperl</> was likely to lead to corrupt indexes. You might need -<command>REINDEX</> to fix existing indexes on -textual columns if this has happened to you.</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix longstanding bug in strpos() and regular expression -handling in certain rarely used Asian multi-byte character sets (Tatsuo) -</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix bug in <filename>/contrib/pgcrypto</> gen_salt, -which caused it not to use all available salt space for MD5 and -XDES algorithms (Marko Kreen, Solar Designer)</para> -<para>Salts for Blowfish and standard DES are unaffected.</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix <filename>/contrib/dblink</> to throw an error, -rather than crashing, when the number of columns specified is different from -what's actually returned by the query (Joe)</para></listitem> - -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-3-12"> - <title>Release 7.3.12</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2005-12-12</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.3.11. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.3.12</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.3.10, see the release - notes for 7.3.10. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> - -<listitem><para>Fix race condition in transaction log management</para> -<para>There was a narrow window in which an I/O operation could be initiated -for the wrong page, leading to an Assert failure or data -corruption.</para> -</listitem> - -<listitem><para><filename>/contrib/ltree</> fixes (Teodor)</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Fix longstanding planning error for outer joins</para> -<para>This bug sometimes caused a bogus error <quote>RIGHT JOIN is -only supported with merge-joinable join conditions</>.</para></listitem> - -<listitem><para>Prevent core dump in <application>pg_autovacuum</> when a -table has been dropped</para></listitem> - -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-3-11"> - <title>Release 7.3.11</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2005-10-04</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.3.10. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.3.11</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. However, - if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 7.3.10, see the release - notes for 7.3.10. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Fix error that allowed <command>VACUUM</> to remove -<literal>ctid</> chains too soon, and add more checking in code that follows -<literal>ctid</> links</para> -<para>This fixes a long-standing problem that could cause crashes in very rare -circumstances.</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <type>CHAR()</> to properly pad spaces to the specified -length when using a multiple-byte character set (Yoshiyuki Asaba)</para> -<para>In prior releases, the padding of <type>CHAR()</> was incorrect -because it only padded to the specified number of bytes without -considering how many characters were stored.</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix missing rows in queries like <literal>UPDATE a=... WHERE -a...</> with GiST index on column <literal>a</></para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve checking for partially-written WAL -pages</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve robustness of signal handling when SSL is -enabled</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Various memory leakage fixes</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Various portability improvements</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix PL/PgSQL to handle <literal>var := var</> correctly when -the variable is of pass-by-reference type</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-3-10"> - <title>Release 7.3.10</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2005-05-09</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.3.9, including several - security-related issues. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.3.10</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. However, - it is one possible way of handling a significant security problem - that has been found in the initial contents of 7.3.X system - catalogs. A dump/initdb/reload sequence using 7.3.10's initdb will - automatically correct this problem. - </para> - - <para> - The security problem is that the built-in character set encoding - conversion functions can be invoked from SQL commands by unprivileged - users, but the functions were not designed for such use and are not - secure against malicious choices of arguments. The fix involves changing - the declared parameter list of these functions so that they can no longer - be invoked from SQL commands. (This does not affect their normal use - by the encoding conversion machinery.) - It is strongly recommended that all installations repair this error, - either by initdb or by following the manual repair procedure given - below. The error at least allows unprivileged database users to crash - their server process, and might allow unprivileged users to gain the - privileges of a database superuser. - </para> - - <para> - If you wish not to do an initdb, perform the following procedure instead. - As the database superuser, do: - -<programlisting> -BEGIN; -UPDATE pg_proc SET proargtypes[3] = 'internal'::regtype -WHERE pronamespace = 11 AND pronargs = 5 - AND proargtypes[2] = 'cstring'::regtype; --- The command should report having updated 90 rows; --- if not, rollback and investigate instead of committing! -COMMIT; -</programlisting> - </para> - - <para> - The above procedure must be carried out in <emphasis>each</> database - of an installation, including <literal>template1</>, and ideally - including <literal>template0</> as well. If you do not fix the - template databases then any subsequently created databases will contain - the same error. <literal>template1</> can be fixed in the same way - as any other database, but fixing <literal>template0</> requires - additional steps. First, from any database issue: -<programlisting> -UPDATE pg_database SET datallowconn = true WHERE datname = 'template0'; -</programlisting> - Next connect to <literal>template0</> and perform the above repair - procedure. Finally, do: -<programlisting> --- re-freeze template0: -VACUUM FREEZE; --- and protect it against future alterations: -UPDATE pg_database SET datallowconn = false WHERE datname = 'template0'; -</programlisting> - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Change encoding function signature to prevent -misuse</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Repair ancient race condition that allowed a transaction to be -seen as committed for some purposes (eg SELECT FOR UPDATE) slightly sooner -than for other purposes</para> -<para>This is an extremely serious bug since it could lead to apparent -data inconsistencies being briefly visible to applications.</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Repair race condition between relation extension and -VACUUM</para> -<para>This could theoretically have caused loss of a page's worth of -freshly-inserted data, although the scenario seems of very low probability. -There are no known cases of it having caused more than an Assert failure. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix comparisons of <type>TIME WITH TIME ZONE</> values</para> -<para> -The comparison code was wrong in the case where the -<literal>--enable-integer-datetimes</> configuration switch had been used. -NOTE: if you have an index on a <type>TIME WITH TIME ZONE</> column, -it will need to be <command>REINDEX</>ed after installing this update, because -the fix corrects the sort order of column values. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <function>EXTRACT(EPOCH)</> for -<type>TIME WITH TIME ZONE</> values</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix mis-display of negative fractional seconds in -<type>INTERVAL</> values</para> -<para> -This error only occurred when the -<literal>--enable-integer-datetimes</> configuration switch had been used. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Additional buffer overrun checks in plpgsql -(Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix pg_dump to dump trigger names containing <literal>%</> -correctly (Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent <function>to_char(interval)</> from dumping core for -month-related formats</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <filename>contrib/pgcrypto</> for newer OpenSSL builds -(Marko Kreen)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Still more 64-bit fixes for -<filename>contrib/intagg</></para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent incorrect optimization of functions returning -<type>RECORD</></para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> -</sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-3-9"> - <title>Release 7.3.9</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2005-01-31</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.3.8, including several - security-related issues. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.3.9</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Disallow <command>LOAD</> to non-superusers</para> -<para> -On platforms that will automatically execute initialization functions of a -shared library (this includes at least Windows and ELF-based Unixen), -<command>LOAD</> can be used to make the server execute arbitrary code. -Thanks to NGS Software for reporting this.</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Check that creator of an aggregate function has the right to -execute the specified transition functions</para> -<para> -This oversight made it possible to bypass denial of EXECUTE -permission on a function.</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix security and 64-bit issues in -contrib/intagg</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add needed STRICT marking to some contrib functions (Kris -Jurka)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Avoid buffer overrun when plpgsql cursor declaration has too -many parameters (Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix planning error for FULL and RIGHT outer joins</para> -<para> -The result of the join was mistakenly supposed to be sorted the same as the -left input. This could not only deliver mis-sorted output to the user, but -in case of nested merge joins could give outright wrong answers. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix plperl for quote marks in tuple fields</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix display of negative intervals in SQL and GERMAN -datestyles</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> -</sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-3-8"> - <title>Release 7.3.8</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2004-10-22</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.3.7. - </para> - - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.3.8</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Repair possible failure to update hint bits on disk</para> -<para> -Under rare circumstances this oversight could lead to -<quote>could not access transaction status</> failures, which qualifies -it as a potential-data-loss bug. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Ensure that hashed outer join does not miss tuples</para> -<para> -Very large left joins using a hash join plan could fail to output unmatched -left-side rows given just the right data distribution. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Disallow running pg_ctl as root</para> -<para> -This is to guard against any possible security issues. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Avoid using temp files in /tmp in make_oidjoins_check</para> -<para> -This has been reported as a security issue, though it's hardly worthy of -concern since there is no reason for non-developers to use this script anyway. -</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> -</sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-3-7"> - <title>Release 7.3.7</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2004-08-16</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains one critical fix over 7.3.6, and some minor items. - </para> - - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.3.7</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.3.X. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Prevent possible loss of committed transactions during crash</para> -<para> -Due to insufficient interlocking between transaction commit and checkpointing, -it was possible for transactions committed just before the most recent -checkpoint to be lost, in whole or in part, following a database crash and -restart. This is a serious bug that has existed -since <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> 7.1. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Remove asymmetrical word processing in tsearch (Teodor)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Properly schema-qualify function names when pg_dump'ing a CAST</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> -</sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-3-6"> - <title>Release 7.3.6</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2004-03-02</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.3.5. - </para> - - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.3.6</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those - running 7.3.*. - </para> - - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Revert erroneous changes in rule permissions checking</para> -<para>A patch applied in 7.3.3 to fix a corner case in rule permissions checks -turns out to have disabled rule-related permissions checks in many -not-so-corner cases. This would for example allow users to insert into views -they weren't supposed to have permission to insert into. We have therefore -reverted the 7.3.3 patch. The original bug will be fixed in 8.0. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Repair incorrect order of operations in -GetNewTransactionId()</para> -<para> -This bug could result in failure under out-of-disk-space conditions, including -inability to restart even after disk space is freed. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Ensure configure selects -fno-strict-aliasing even when -an external value for CFLAGS is supplied</para> -<para> -On some platforms, building with -fstrict-aliasing causes bugs. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make pg_restore handle 64-bit off_t correctly</para> -<para> -This bug prevented proper restoration from archive files exceeding 4 GB. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make contrib/dblink not assume that local and remote type OIDs -match (Joe)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Quote connectby()'s start_with argument properly (Joe)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Don't crash when a rowtype argument to a plpgsql function is -NULL</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Avoid generating invalid character encoding sequences in -corner cases when planning LIKE operations</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Ensure text_position() cannot scan past end of source string -in multibyte cases (Korea PostgreSQL Users' Group)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix index optimization and selectivity estimates for LIKE -operations on bytea columns (Joe)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> -</sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-3-5"> - <title>Release 7.3.5</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2003-12-03</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This has a variety of fixes from 7.3.4. - </para> - - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.3.5</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those - running 7.3.*. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Force zero_damaged_pages to be on during recovery from WAL</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent some obscure cases of <quote>variable not in subplan target lists</quote></para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Force stats processes to detach from shared memory, ensuring cleaner shutdown</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make PQescapeBytea and byteaout consistent with each other (Joe)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Added missing SPI_finish() calls to dblink's get_tuple_of_interest() (Joe)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for possible foreign key violation when rule rewrites INSERT (Jan)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Support qualified type names in PL/Tcl's spi_prepare command (Jan)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make pg_dump handle a procedural language handler located in pg_catalog</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make pg_dump handle cases where a custom opclass is in another schema</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make pg_dump dump binary-compatible casts correctly (Jan)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix insertion of expressions containing subqueries into rule bodies</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix incorrect argument processing in clusterdb script (Anand Ranganathan)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix problems with dropped columns in plpython triggers</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Repair problems with to_char() reading past end of its input string (Karel)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix GB18030 mapping errors (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix several problems with SSL error handling and asynchronous SSL I/O</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Remove ability to bind a list of values to a single parameter in JDBC -(prevents possible SQL-injection attacks)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix some errors in HAVE_INT64_TIMESTAMP code paths</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix corner case for btree search in parallel with first root page split</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> -</sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-3-4"> - <title>Release 7.3.4</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2003-07-24</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This has a variety of fixes from 7.3.3. - </para> - - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.3.4</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those - running 7.3.*. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Repair breakage in timestamp-to-date conversion for dates before 2000</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent rare possibility of server startup failure (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix bugs in interval-to-time conversion (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add constraint names in a few places in pg_dump (Rod)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve performance of functions with many parameters (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix to_ascii() buffer overruns (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent restore of database comments from throwing an error (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Work around buggy strxfrm() present in some Solaris releases (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Properly escape jdbc setObject() strings to improve security (Barry)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect2> - </sect1> - - -<sect1 id="release-7-3-3"> - <title>Release 7.3.3</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2003-05-22</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes for version 7.3.2. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.3.3</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those - running version 7.3.*. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Repair sometimes-incorrect computation of StartUpID after a crash</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Avoid slowness with lots of deferred triggers in one transaction (Stephan)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Don't lock referenced row when <command>UPDATE</command> doesn't change foreign key's value (Jan)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Use <command>-fPIC</command> not <command>-fpic</command> on Sparc (Tom Callaway)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Repair lack of schema-awareness in contrib/reindexdb</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix contrib/intarray error for zero-element result array (Teodor)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Ensure createuser script will exit on control-C (Oliver)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix errors when the type of a dropped column has itself been dropped</para></listitem> -<listitem><para><command>CHECKPOINT</command> does not cause database panic on failure in noncritical steps</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Accept 60 in seconds fields of timestamp, time, interval input values</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Issue notice, not error, if <type>TIMESTAMP</type>, -<type> TIME</type>, or <type>INTERVAL</type> precision too large</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <function>abstime-to-time</function> cast function (fix is - not applied unless you <application>initdb</application>)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <application>pg_proc</application> entry for - <type>timestampt_izone</type> (fix is not applied unless you - <application>initdb</application>)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make <function>EXTRACT(EPOCH FROM timestamp without time zone)</function> treat input as local time</para></listitem> -<listitem><para><command>'now'::timestamptz</command> gave wrong answer if timezone changed earlier in transaction</para></listitem> -<listitem><para><envar>HAVE_INT64_TIMESTAMP</envar> code for time with timezone overwrote its input</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Accept <command>GLOBAL TEMP/TEMPORARY</command> as a - synonym for <command>TEMPORARY</command></para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Avoid improper schema-privilege-check failure in foreign-key triggers</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix bugs in foreign-key triggers for <command>SET DEFAULT</command> action</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix incorrect time-qual check in row fetch for - <command>UPDATE</command> and <command>DELETE</command> triggers</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Foreign-key clauses were parsed but ignored in - <command>ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN</command></para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix createlang script breakage for case where handler function already exists</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix misbehavior on zero-column tables in <application>pg_dump</application>, COPY, ANALYZE, other places</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix misbehavior of <function>func_error()</function> on type names containing '%'</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix misbehavior of <function>replace()</function> on strings containing '%'</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Regular-expression patterns containing certain multibyte characters failed</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Account correctly for <command>NULL</command>s in more cases in join size estimation</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Avoid conflict with system definition of <function>isblank()</function> function or macro</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix failure to convert large code point values in EUC_TW conversions (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix error recovery for <function>SSL_read</function>/<function>SSL_write</function> calls</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Don't do early constant-folding of type coercion expressions</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Validate page header fields immediately after reading in any page</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Repair incorrect check for ungrouped variables in unnamed joins</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix buffer overrun in <function>to_ascii</function> (Guido Notari)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>contrib/ltree fixes (Teodor)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix core dump in deadlock detection on machines where char is unsigned</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Avoid running out of buffers in many-way indexscan (bug introduced in 7.3)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix planner's selectivity estimation functions to handle domains properly</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <application>dbmirror</application> memory-allocation bug (Steven Singer)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent infinite loop in <function>ln(numeric)</function> due to roundoff error</para></listitem> -<listitem><para><command>GROUP BY</command> got confused if there were multiple equal GROUP BY items</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix bad plan when inherited <command>UPDATE</command>/<command>DELETE</command> references another inherited table</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent clustering on incomplete (partial or non-NULL-storing) indexes</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Service shutdown request at proper time if it arrives while still starting up</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix left-links in temporary indexes (could make backwards scans miss entries)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix incorrect handling of client_encoding setting in postgresql.conf (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix failure to respond to <command>pg_ctl stop -m fast</command> after Async_NotifyHandler runs</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix SPI for case where rule contains multiple statements of the same type</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix problem with checking for wrong type of access privilege in rule query</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix problem with <command>EXCEPT</command> in <command>CREATE RULE</command></para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent problem with dropping temp tables having serial columns</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix replace_vars_with_subplan_refs failure in complex views</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix regexp slowness in single-byte encodings (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow qualified type names in <command>CREATE CAST</command> - and <command> DROP CAST</command></para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Accept <function>SETOF type[]</function>, which formerly had to - be written <function>SETOF _type</function></para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <application>pg_dump</application> core dump in some cases with procedural languages</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Force ISO datestyle in <application>pg_dump</application> output, for portability (Oliver)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para><application>pg_dump</application> failed to handle error return - from <function>lo_read</function> (Oleg Drokin)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para><application>pg_dumpall</application> failed with groups having no members (Nick Eskelinen)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para><application>pg_dumpall</application> failed to recognize --globals-only switch</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>pg_restore failed to restore blobs if -X disable-triggers is specified</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Repair intrafunction memory leak in plpgsql</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>pltcl's <command>elog</command> command dumped core if given wrong parameters (Ian Harding)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>plpython used wrong value of <envar>atttypmod</envar> (Brad McLean)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix improper quoting of boolean values in Python interface (D'Arcy)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Added <function>addDataType()</function> method to PGConnection interface for JDBC</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fixed various problems with updateable ResultSets for JDBC (Shawn Green)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fixed various problems with DatabaseMetaData for JDBC (Kris Jurka, Peter Royal)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fixed problem with parsing table ACLs in JDBC</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Better error message for character set conversion problems in JDBC</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect2> -</sect1> - - -<sect1 id="release-7-3-2"> - <title>Release 7.3.2</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2003-02-04</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes for version 7.3.1. - </para> - - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.3.2</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those - running version 7.3.*. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Restore creation of OID column in CREATE TABLE AS / SELECT INTO</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <application>pg_dump</> core dump when dumping views having comments</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Dump DEFERRABLE/INITIALLY DEFERRED constraints properly</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix UPDATE when child table's column numbering differs from parent</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Increase default value of max_fsm_relations</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix problem when fetching backwards in a cursor for a single-row query</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make backward fetch work properly with cursor on SELECT DISTINCT query</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix problems with loading <application>pg_dump</> files containing contrib/lo usage</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix problem with all-numeric user names</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix possible memory leak and core dump during disconnect in libpgtcl</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make plpython's spi_execute command handle nulls properly (Andrew Bosma)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Adjust plpython error reporting so that its regression test passes again</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Work with bison 1.875</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Handle mixed-case names properly in plpgsql's %type (Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix core dump in pltcl when executing a query rewritten by a rule</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Repair array subscript overruns (per report from Yichen Xie)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Reduce MAX_TIME_PRECISION from 13 to 10 in floating-point case</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Correctly case-fold variable names in per-database and per-user settings</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix coredump in plpgsql's RETURN NEXT when SELECT into record returns no rows</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix outdated use of pg_type.typprtlen in python client interface</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Correctly handle fractional seconds in timestamps in JDBC driver</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve performance of getImportedKeys() in JDBC</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make shared-library symlinks work standardly on HPUX (Giles)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Repair inconsistent rounding behavior for timestamp, time, interval</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>SSL negotiation fixes (Nathan Mueller)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make libpq's ~/.pgpass feature work when connecting with PQconnectDB</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Update my2pg, ora2pg</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Translation updates</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add casts between types lo and oid in contrib/lo</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>fastpath code now checks for privilege to call function</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect2> -</sect1> - - -<sect1 id="release-7-3-1"> - <title>Release 7.3.1</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2002-12-18</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes for version 7.3. - </para> - - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.3.1</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those - running version 7.3. However, it should be noted that the main - <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> interface library, libpq, - has a new major version number for this release, which might require - recompilation of client code in certain cases. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Fix a core dump of COPY TO when client/server encodings don't match (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow <application>pg_dump</> to work with pre-7.2 servers (Philip)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>contrib/adddepend fixes (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix problem with deletion of per-user/per-database config settings (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>contrib/vacuumlo fix (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow 'password' encryption even when pg_shadow contains MD5 passwords (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>contrib/dbmirror fix (Steven Singer)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Optimizer fixes (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>contrib/tsearch fixes (Teodor Sigaev, Magnus)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow locale names to be mixed case (Nicolai Tufar)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Increment libpq library's major version number (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>pg_hba.conf error reporting fixes (Bruce, Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add SCO Openserver 5.0.4 as a supported platform (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent EXPLAIN from crashing server (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>SSL fixes (Nathan Mueller)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent composite column creation via ALTER TABLE (Tom)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect2> -</sect1> - - -<sect1 id="release-7-3"> - <title>Release 7.3</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2002-11-27</simpara> - </note> - - <sect2> - <title>Overview</title> - - <para> - Major changes in this release: - </para> - - <variablelist> - <varlistentry> - <term>Schemas</term> - <listitem> - <para> - Schemas allow users to create objects in separate namespaces, - so two people or applications can have tables with the same - name. There is also a public schema for shared tables. - Table/index creation can be restricted by removing privileges - on the public schema. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term>Drop Column</term> - <listitem> - <para> - <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> now supports the - <literal>ALTER TABLE ... DROP COLUMN</literal> functionality. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term>Table Functions</term> - <listitem> - <para> - Functions returning multiple rows and/or multiple columns are - now much easier to use than before. You can call such a - <quote>table function</quote> in the <literal>SELECT</literal> - <literal>FROM</literal> clause, treating its output like a - table. Also, <application>PL/pgSQL</application> functions can - now return sets. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term>Prepared Queries</term> - <listitem> - <para> - <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> now supports prepared - queries, for improved performance. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term>Dependency Tracking</term> - <listitem> - <para> - <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> now records object - dependencies, which allows improvements in many areas. - <command>DROP</command> statements now take either - <literal>CASCADE</> or <literal>RESTRICT</> to control whether - dependent objects are also dropped. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term>Privileges</term> - <listitem> - <para> - Functions and procedural languages now have privileges, and - functions can be defined to run with the privileges of their - creator. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term>Internationalization</term> - <listitem> - <para> - Both multibyte and locale support are now always enabled. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term>Logging</term> - <listitem> - <para> - A variety of logging options have been enhanced. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term>Interfaces</term> - <listitem> - <para> - A large number of interfaces have been moved to <ulink - url="http://gborg.postgresql.org">http://gborg.postgresql.org</> - where they can be developed and released independently. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term>Functions/Identifiers</term> - <listitem> - <para> - By default, functions can now take up to 32 parameters, and - identifiers can be up to 63 bytes long. Also, <literal>OPAQUE</> - is now deprecated: there are specific <quote>pseudo-datatypes</> - to represent each of the former meanings of <literal>OPAQUE</> - in function argument and result types. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - </variablelist> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.3</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore using <application>pg_dump</> is required for those - wishing to migrate data from any previous release. If your - application examines the system catalogs, additional changes will - be required due to the introduction of schemas in 7.3; for more - information, see: <ulink - url="http://developer.postgresql.org/~momjian/upgrade_tips_7.3"></>. - </para> - - <para> - Observe the following incompatibilities: - </para> - - <itemizedlist> - <listitem> - <para> - Pre-6.3 clients are no longer supported. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <filename>pg_hba.conf</filename> now has a column for the user - name and additional features. Existing files need to be - adjusted. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Several <filename>postgresql.conf</filename> logging parameters - have been renamed. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <literal>LIMIT #,#</literal> has been disabled; use - <literal>LIMIT # OFFSET #</literal>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <command>INSERT</command> statements with column lists must - specify a value for each specified column. For example, - <literal>INSERT INTO tab (col1, col2) VALUES ('val1')</literal> - is now invalid. It's still allowed to supply fewer columns than - expected if the <command>INSERT</command> does not have a column list. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <type>serial</type> columns are no longer automatically - <literal>UNIQUE</>; thus, an index will not automatically be - created. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - A <command>SET</command> command inside an aborted transaction - is now rolled back. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - <command>COPY</command> no longer considers missing trailing - columns to be null. All columns need to be specified. - (However, one can achieve a similar effect by specifying a - column list in the <command>COPY</command> command.) - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - The data type <type>timestamp</type> is now equivalent to - <type>timestamp without time zone</type>, instead of - <type>timestamp with time zone</type>. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Pre-7.3 databases loaded into 7.3 will not have the new object - dependencies for <type>serial</type> columns, unique - constraints, and foreign keys. See the directory - <filename>contrib/adddepend/</filename> for a detailed - description and a script that will add such dependencies. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - An empty string (<literal>''</literal>) is no longer allowed as - the input into an integer field. Formerly, it was silently - interpreted as 0. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <sect3> - <title>Server Operation</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Add pg_locks view to show locks (Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Security fixes for password negotiation memory allocation (Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Remove support for version 0 FE/BE protocol (<productname>PostgreSQL</productname> 6.2 and earlier) (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Reserve the last few backend slots for superusers, add parameter superuser_reserved_connections to control this (Nigel J. Andrews)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Performance</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Improve startup by calling localtime() only once (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Cache system catalog information in flat files for faster startup (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve caching of index information (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Optimizer improvements (Tom, Fernando Nasser)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Catalog caches now store failed lookups (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Hash function improvements (Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve performance of query tokenization and network handling (Peter)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Speed improvement for large object restore (Mario Weilguni)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Mark expired index entries on first lookup, saving later heap fetches (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Avoid excessive NULL bitmap padding (Manfred Koizar)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add BSD-licensed qsort() for Solaris, for performance (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Reduce per-row overhead by four bytes (Manfred Koizar)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix GEQO optimizer bug (Neil Conway)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make WITHOUT OID actually save four bytes per row (Manfred Koizar)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add default_statistics_target variable to specify ANALYZE buckets (Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Use local buffer cache for temporary tables so no WAL overhead (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve free space map performance on large tables (Stephen Marshall, Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improved WAL write concurrency (Tom)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Privileges</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Add privileges on functions and procedural languages (Peter)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add OWNER to CREATE DATABASE so superusers can create databases on behalf of unprivileged users (Gavin Sherry, Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add new object privilege bits EXECUTE and USAGE (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION DEFAULT and RESET SESSION AUTHORIZATION (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow functions to be executed with the privilege of the function owner (Peter)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Server Configuration</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Server log messages now tagged with LOG, not DEBUG (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add user column to pg_hba.conf (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Have log_connections output two lines in log file (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Remove debug_level from postgresql.conf, now server_min_messages (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New ALTER DATABASE/USER ... SET command for per-user/database initialization (Peter)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New parameters server_min_messages and client_min_messages to control which messages are sent to the server logs or client applications (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow pg_hba.conf to specify lists of users/databases separated by commas, group names prepended with +, and file names prepended with @ (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Remove secondary password file capability and pg_password utility (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add variable db_user_namespace for database-local user names (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>SSL improvements (Bear Giles)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make encryption of stored passwords the default (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow pg_statistics to be reset by calling pg_stat_reset() (Christopher)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add log_duration parameter (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Rename debug_print_query to log_statement (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Rename show_query_stats to show_statement_stats (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add param log_min_error_statement to print commands to logs on error (Gavin)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Queries</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Make cursors insensitive, meaning their contents do not change (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Disable LIMIT #,# syntax; now only LIMIT # OFFSET # supported (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Increase identifier length to 63 (Neil, Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>UNION fixes for merging >= 3 columns of different lengths (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add DEFAULT key word to INSERT, e.g., INSERT ... (..., DEFAULT, ...) (Rod)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow views to have default values using ALTER COLUMN ... SET DEFAULT (Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fail on INSERTs with column lists that don't supply all column values, e.g., INSERT INTO tab (col1, col2) VALUES ('val1'); (Rod)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for join aliases (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for FULL OUTER JOINs (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve reporting of invalid identifier and location (Tom, Gavin)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix OPEN cursor(args) (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow 'ctid' to be used in a view and currtid(viewname) (Hiroshi)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for CREATE TABLE AS with UNION (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>SQL99 syntax improvements (Thomas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add statement_timeout variable to cancel queries (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow prepared queries with PREPARE/EXECUTE (Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow FOR UPDATE to appear after LIMIT/OFFSET (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add variable autocommit (Tom, David Van Wie)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Object Manipulation</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Make equals signs optional in CREATE DATABASE (Gavin Sherry)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make ALTER TABLE OWNER change index ownership too (Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New ALTER TABLE tabname ALTER COLUMN colname SET STORAGE controls TOAST storage, compression (John Gray)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add schema support, CREATE/DROP SCHEMA (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Create schema for temporary tables (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add variable search_path for schema search (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add ALTER TABLE SET/DROP NOT NULL (Christopher)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New CREATE FUNCTION volatility levels (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make rule names unique only per table (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add 'ON tablename' clause to DROP RULE and COMMENT ON RULE (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add ALTER TRIGGER RENAME (Joe)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New current_schema() and current_schemas() inquiry functions (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow functions to return multiple rows (table functions) (Joe)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make WITH optional in CREATE DATABASE, for consistency (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add object dependency tracking (Rod, Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add RESTRICT/CASCADE to DROP commands (Rod)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add ALTER TABLE DROP for non-CHECK CONSTRAINT (Rod)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Autodestroy sequence on DROP of table with SERIAL (Rod)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent column dropping if column is used by foreign key (Rod)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Automatically drop constraints/functions when object is dropped (Rod)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add CREATE/DROP OPERATOR CLASS (Bill Studenmund, Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add ALTER TABLE DROP COLUMN (Christopher, Tom, Hiroshi)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent inherited columns from being removed or renamed (Alvaro Herrera)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix foreign key constraints to not error on intermediate database states (Stephan)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Propagate column or table renaming to foreign key constraints</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW (Gavin, Neil, Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add CREATE OR REPLACE RULE (Gavin, Neil, Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Have rules execute alphabetically, returning more predictable values (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Triggers are now fired in alphabetical order (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add /contrib/adddepend to handle pre-7.3 object dependencies (Rod)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow better casting when inserting/updating values (Tom)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Utility Commands</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Have COPY TO output embedded carriage returns and newlines as \r and \n (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow DELIMITER in COPY FROM to be 8-bit clean (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make <application>pg_dump</> use ALTER TABLE ADD PRIMARY KEY, for performance (Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Disable brackets in multistatement rules (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Disable VACUUM from being called inside a function (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow dropdb and other scripts to use identifiers with spaces (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Restrict database comment changes to the current database</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow comments on operators, independent of the underlying function (Rod)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Rollback SET commands in aborted transactions (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>EXPLAIN now outputs as a query (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Display condition expressions and sort keys in EXPLAIN (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add 'SET LOCAL var = value' to set configuration variables for a single transaction (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow ANALYZE to run in a transaction (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve COPY syntax using new WITH clauses, keep backward compatibility (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <application>pg_dump</> to consistently output tags in non-ASCII dumps (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make foreign key constraints clearer in dump file (Rod)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add COMMENT ON CONSTRAINT (Rod)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow COPY TO/FROM to specify column names (Brent Verner)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Dump UNIQUE and PRIMARY KEY constraints as ALTER TABLE (Rod)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Have SHOW output a query result (Joe)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Generate failure on short COPY lines rather than pad NULLs (Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix CLUSTER to preserve all table attributes (Alvaro Herrera)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New pg_settings table to view/modify GUC settings (Joe)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add smart quoting, portability improvements to <application>pg_dump</> output (Peter)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Dump serial columns out as SERIAL (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Enable large file support, >2G for <application>pg_dump</> (Peter, Philip Warner, Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Disallow TRUNCATE on tables that are involved in referential constraints (Rod)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Have TRUNCATE also auto-truncate the toast table of the relation (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add clusterdb utility that will auto-cluster an entire database based on previous CLUSTER operations (Alvaro Herrera)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Overhaul pg_dumpall (Peter)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow REINDEX of TOAST tables (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Implemented START TRANSACTION, per SQL99 (Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix rare index corruption when a page split affects bulk delete (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix ALTER TABLE ... ADD COLUMN for inheritance (Alvaro Herrera)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Data Types and Functions</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Fix factorial(0) to return 1 (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Date/time/timezone improvements (Thomas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for array slice extraction (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix extract/date_part to report proper microseconds for timestamp (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow text_substr() and bytea_substr() to read TOAST values more efficiently (John Gray)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add domain support (Rod)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make WITHOUT TIME ZONE the default for TIMESTAMP and TIME data types (Thomas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow alternate storage scheme of 64-bit integers for date/time types using --enable-integer-datetimes in configure (Thomas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make timezone(timestamptz) return timestamp rather than a string (Thomas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow fractional seconds in date/time types for dates prior to 1BC (Thomas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Limit timestamp data types to 6 decimal places of precision (Thomas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Change timezone conversion functions from timetz() to timezone() (Thomas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add configuration variables datestyle and timezone (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add OVERLAY(), which allows substitution of a substring in a string (Thomas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add SIMILAR TO (Thomas, Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add regular expression SUBSTRING(string FROM pat FOR escape) (Thomas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add LOCALTIME and LOCALTIMESTAMP functions (Thomas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add named composite types using CREATE TYPE typename AS (column) (Joe)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow composite type definition in the table alias clause (Joe)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add new API to simplify creation of C language table functions (Joe)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Remove ODBC-compatible empty parentheses from calls to SQL99 functions for which these parentheses do not match the standard (Thomas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow macaddr data type to accept 12 hex digits with no separators (Mike Wyer)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add CREATE/DROP CAST (Peter)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add IS DISTINCT FROM operator (Thomas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add SQL99 TREAT() function, synonym for CAST() (Thomas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add pg_backend_pid() to output backend pid (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add IS OF / IS NOT OF type predicate (Thomas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow bit string constants without fully-specified length (Thomas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow conversion between 8-byte integers and bit strings (Thomas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Implement hex literal conversion to bit string literal (Thomas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow table functions to appear in the FROM clause (Joe)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Increase maximum number of function parameters to 32 (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>No longer automatically create index for SERIAL column (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add current_database() (Rod)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix cash_words() to not overflow buffer (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add functions replace(), split_part(), to_hex() (Joe)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix LIKE for bytea as a right-hand argument (Joe)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent crashes caused by SELECT cash_out(2) (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix to_char(1,'FM999.99') to return a period (Karel)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix trigger/type/language functions returning OPAQUE to return proper type (Tom)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Internationalization</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Add additional encodings: Korean (JOHAB), Thai (WIN874), Vietnamese (TCVN), Arabic (WIN1256), Simplified Chinese (GBK), Korean (UHC) (Eiji Tokuya)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Enable locale support by default (Peter)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add locale variables (Peter)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Escape byes >= 0x7f for multibyte in PQescapeBytea/PQunescapeBytea (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add locale awareness to regular expression character classes</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Enable multibyte support by default (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add GB18030 multibyte support (Bill Huang)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add CREATE/DROP CONVERSION, allowing loadable encodings (Tatsuo, Kaori)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add pg_conversion table (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add SQL99 CONVERT() function (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>pg_dumpall, pg_controldata, and pg_resetxlog now national-language aware (Peter)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New and updated translations</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Server-side Languages</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Allow recursive SQL function (Peter)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Change PL/Tcl build to use configured compiler and Makefile.shlib (Peter)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Overhaul the PL/pgSQL FOUND variable to be more Oracle-compatible (Neil, Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow PL/pgSQL to handle quoted identifiers (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow set-returning PL/pgSQL functions (Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make PL/pgSQL schema-aware (Joe)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Remove some memory leaks (Nigel J. Andrews, Tom)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>psql</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Don't lowercase psql \connect database name for 7.2.0 compatibility (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add psql \timing to time user queries (Greg Sabino Mullane)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Have psql \d show index information (Greg Sabino Mullane)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New psql \dD shows domains (Jonathan Eisler)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow psql to show rules on views (Paul ?)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for psql variable substitution (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow psql \d to show temporary table structure (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow psql \d to show foreign keys (Rod)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix \? to honor \pset pager (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Have psql reports its version number on startup (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow \copy to specify column names (Tom)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>libpq</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Add ~/.pgpass to store host/user password combinations (Alvaro Herrera)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add PQunescapeBytea() function to libpq (Patrick Welche)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for sending large queries over non-blocking connections (Bernhard Herzog)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for libpq using timers on Win9X (David Ford)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow libpq notify to handle servers with different-length identifiers (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add libpq PQescapeString() and PQescapeBytea() to Windows (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for SSL with non-blocking connections (Jack Bates)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add libpq connection timeout parameter (Denis A Ustimenko)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>JDBC</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Allow JDBC to compile with JDK 1.4 (Dave)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add JDBC 3 support (Barry)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allows JDBC to set loglevel by adding ?loglevel=X to the connection URL (Barry)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add Driver.info() message that prints out the version number (Barry)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add updateable result sets (Raghu Nidagal, Dave)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add support for callable statements (Paul Bethe)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add query cancel capability</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add refresh row (Dave)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix MD5 encryption handling for multibyte servers (Jun Kawai)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add support for prepared statements (Barry)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Miscellaneous Interfaces</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Fixed ECPG bug concerning octal numbers in single quotes (Michael)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Move src/interfaces/libpgeasy to http://gborg.postgresql.org (Marc, Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve Python interface (Elliot Lee, Andrew Johnson, Greg Copeland)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add libpgtcl connection close event (Gerhard Hintermayer)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Move src/interfaces/libpq++ to http://gborg.postgresql.org (Marc, Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Move src/interfaces/odbc to http://gborg.postgresql.org (Marc)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Move src/interfaces/libpgeasy to http://gborg.postgresql.org (Marc, Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Move src/interfaces/perl5 to http://gborg.postgresql.org (Marc, Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Remove src/bin/pgaccess from main tree, now at http://www.pgaccess.org (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add pg_on_connection_loss command to libpgtcl (Gerhard Hintermayer, Tom)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Source Code</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Fix for parallel make (Peter)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>AIX fixes for linking Tcl (Andreas Zeugswetter)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow PL/Perl to build under Cygwin (Jason Tishler)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve MIPS compiles (Peter, Oliver Elphick)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Require Autoconf version 2.53 (Peter)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Require readline and zlib by default in configure (Peter)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow Solaris to use Intimate Shared Memory (ISM), for performance (Scott Brunza, P.J. Josh Rovero)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Always enable syslog in compile, remove --enable-syslog option (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Always enable multibyte in compile, remove --enable-multibyte option (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Always enable locale in compile, remove --enable-locale option (Peter)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for Win9x DLL creation (Magnus Naeslund)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for link() usage by WAL code on Windows, BeOS (Jason Tishler)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add sys/types.h to c.h, remove from main files (Peter, Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix AIX hang on SMP machines (Tomoyuki Niijima)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>AIX SMP hang fix (Tomoyuki Niijima)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix pre-1970 date handling on newer glibc libraries (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix PowerPC SMP locking (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent gcc -ffast-math from being used (Peter, Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Bison >= 1.50 now required for developer builds</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Kerberos 5 support now builds with Heimdal (Peter)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add appendix in the User's Guide which lists SQL features (Thomas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve loadable module linking to use RTLD_NOW (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New error levels WARNING, INFO, LOG, DEBUG[1-5] (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New src/port directory holds replaced libc functions (Peter, Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New pg_namespace system catalog for schemas (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add pg_class.relnamespace for schemas (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add pg_type.typnamespace for schemas (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add pg_proc.pronamespace for schemas (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Restructure aggregates to have pg_proc entries (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>System relations now have their own namespace, pg_* test not required (Fernando Nasser)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Rename TOAST index names to be *_index rather than *_idx (Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add namespaces for operators, opclasses (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add additional checks to server control file (Thomas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New Polish FAQ (Marcin Mazurek)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add Posix semaphore support (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Document need for reindex (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Rename some internal identifiers to simplify Windows compile (Jan, Katherine Ward)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add documentation on computing disk space (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Remove KSQO from GUC (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix memory leak in rtree (Kenneth Been)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Modify a few error messages for consistency (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Remove unused system table columns (Peter)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make system columns NOT NULL where appropriate (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Clean up use of sprintf in favor of snprintf() (Neil, Jukka Holappa)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Remove OPAQUE and create specific subtypes (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Cleanups in array internal handling (Joe, Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Disallow pg_atoi('') (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Remove parameter wal_files because WAL files are now recycled (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add version numbers to heap pages (Tom)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Contrib</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Allow inet arrays in /contrib/array (Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>GiST fixes (Teodor Sigaev, Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Upgrade /contrib/mysql</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add /contrib/dbsize which shows table sizes without vacuum (Peter)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add /contrib/intagg, integer aggregator routines (mlw)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve /contrib/oid2name (Neil, Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve /contrib/tsearch (Oleg, Teodor Sigaev)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Cleanups of /contrib/rserver (Alexey V. Borzov)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Update /contrib/oracle conversion utility (Gilles Darold)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Update /contrib/dblink (Joe)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve options supported by /contrib/vacuumlo (Mario Weilguni)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improvements to /contrib/intarray (Oleg, Teodor Sigaev, Andrey Oktyabrski)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add /contrib/reindexdb utility (Shaun Thomas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add indexing to /contrib/isbn_issn (Dan Weston)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add /contrib/dbmirror (Steven Singer)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve /contrib/pgbench (Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add /contrib/tablefunc table function examples (Joe)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add /contrib/ltree data type for tree structures (Teodor Sigaev, Oleg Bartunov)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Move /contrib/pg_controldata, pg_resetxlog into main tree (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fixes to /contrib/cube (Bruno Wolff)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve /contrib/fulltextindex (Christopher)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - </sect2> -</sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-2-8"> - <title>Release 7.2.8</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2005-05-09</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.2.7, including one - security-related issue. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.2.8</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.2.X. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Repair ancient race condition that allowed a transaction to be -seen as committed for some purposes (eg SELECT FOR UPDATE) slightly sooner -than for other purposes</para> -<para>This is an extremely serious bug since it could lead to apparent -data inconsistencies being briefly visible to applications.</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Repair race condition between relation extension and -VACUUM</para> -<para>This could theoretically have caused loss of a page's worth of -freshly-inserted data, although the scenario seems of very low probability. -There are no known cases of it having caused more than an Assert failure. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <function>EXTRACT(EPOCH)</> for -<type>TIME WITH TIME ZONE</> values</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Additional buffer overrun checks in plpgsql -(Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix pg_dump to dump index names and trigger names containing -<literal>%</> correctly (Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent <function>to_char(interval)</> from dumping core for -month-related formats</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <filename>contrib/pgcrypto</> for newer OpenSSL builds -(Marko Kreen)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> -</sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-2-7"> - <title>Release 7.2.7</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2005-01-31</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.2.6, including several - security-related issues. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.2.7</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.2.X. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Disallow <command>LOAD</> to non-superusers</para> -<para> -On platforms that will automatically execute initialization functions of a -shared library (this includes at least Windows and ELF-based Unixen), -<command>LOAD</> can be used to make the server execute arbitrary code. -Thanks to NGS Software for reporting this.</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add needed STRICT marking to some contrib functions (Kris -Jurka)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Avoid buffer overrun when plpgsql cursor declaration has too -many parameters (Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix planning error for FULL and RIGHT outer joins</para> -<para> -The result of the join was mistakenly supposed to be sorted the same as the -left input. This could not only deliver mis-sorted output to the user, but -in case of nested merge joins could give outright wrong answers. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix display of negative intervals in SQL and GERMAN -datestyles</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> -</sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-2-6"> - <title>Release 7.2.6</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2004-10-22</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.2.5. - </para> - - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.2.6</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.2.X. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Repair possible failure to update hint bits on disk</para> -<para> -Under rare circumstances this oversight could lead to -<quote>could not access transaction status</> failures, which qualifies -it as a potential-data-loss bug. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Ensure that hashed outer join does not miss tuples</para> -<para> -Very large left joins using a hash join plan could fail to output unmatched -left-side rows given just the right data distribution. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Disallow running pg_ctl as root</para> -<para> -This is to guard against any possible security issues. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Avoid using temp files in /tmp in make_oidjoins_check</para> -<para> -This has been reported as a security issue, though it's hardly worthy of -concern since there is no reason for non-developers to use this script anyway. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Update to newer versions of Bison</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - - </sect2> -</sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-2-5"> - <title>Release 7.2.5</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2004-08-16</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes from 7.2.4. - </para> - - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.2.5</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is not required for those running 7.2.X. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Prevent possible loss of committed transactions during crash</para> -<para> -Due to insufficient interlocking between transaction commit and checkpointing, -it was possible for transactions committed just before the most recent -checkpoint to be lost, in whole or in part, following a database crash and -restart. This is a serious bug that has existed -since <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> 7.1. -</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix corner case for btree search in parallel with first root page split</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix buffer overrun in <function>to_ascii</function> (Guido Notari)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix core dump in deadlock detection on machines where char is unsigned</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix failure to respond to <command>pg_ctl stop -m fast</command> after Async_NotifyHandler runs</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Repair memory leaks in pg_dump</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Avoid conflict with system definition of <function>isblank()</function> function or macro</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect2> -</sect1> - -<sect1 id="release-7-2-4"> - <title>Release 7.2.4</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2003-01-30</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes for version 7.2.3, - including fixes to prevent possible data loss. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.2.4</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those - running version 7.2.*. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Fix some additional cases of VACUUM "No one parent tuple was found" error</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent VACUUM from being called inside a function (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Ensure pg_clog updates are sync'd to disk before marking checkpoint complete</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Avoid integer overflow during large hash joins</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make GROUP commands work when pg_group.grolist is large enough to be toasted</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix errors in datetime tables; some timezone names weren't being recognized</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix integer overflows in circle_poly(), path_encode(), path_add() (Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Repair long-standing logic errors in lseg_eq(), lseg_ne(), lseg_center()</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect2> -</sect1> - - -<sect1 id="release-7-2-3"> - <title>Release 7.2.3</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2002-10-01</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes for version 7.2.2, - including fixes to prevent possible data loss. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.2.3</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those - running version 7.2.*. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Prevent possible compressed transaction log loss (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent non-superuser from increasing most recent vacuum info (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Handle pre-1970 date values in newer versions of glibc (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix possible hang during server shutdown</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent spinlock hangs on SMP PPC machines (Tomoyuki Niijima)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix <application>pg_dump</> to properly dump FULL JOIN USING (Tom)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect2> -</sect1> - - -<sect1 id="release-7-2-2"> - <title>Release 7.2.2</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2002-08-23</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes for version 7.2.1. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.2.2</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those - running version 7.2.*. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Allow EXECUTE of "CREATE TABLE AS ... SELECT" in PL/pgSQL (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for compressed transaction log id wraparound (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix PQescapeBytea/PQunescapeBytea so that they handle bytes > 0x7f (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for psql and <application>pg_dump</> crashing when invoked with non-existent long options (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix crash when invoking geometric operators (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow OPEN cursor(args) (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for rtree_gist index build (Teodor)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for dumping user-defined aggregates (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>contrib/intarray fixes (Oleg)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for complex UNION/EXCEPT/INTERSECT queries using parens (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix to pg_convert (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for crash with long DATA strings (Thomas, Neil)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for repeat(), lpad(), rpad() and long strings (Neil)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect2> -</sect1> - - -<sect1 id="release-7-2-1"> - <title>Release 7.2.1</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2002-03-21</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains a variety of fixes for version 7.2. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.2.1</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those - running version 7.2. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Ensure that sequence counters do not go backwards after a crash (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix pgaccess kanji-conversion key binding (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Optimizer improvements (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Cash I/O improvements (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New Russian FAQ</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Compile fix for missing AuthBlockSig (Heiko)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Additional time zones and time zone fixes (Thomas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow psql \connect to handle mixed case database and user names (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Return proper OID on command completion even with ON INSERT rules (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow COPY FROM to use 8-bit DELIMITERS (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix bug in extract/date_part for milliseconds/microseconds (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve handling of multiple UNIONs with different lengths (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>contrib/btree_gist improvements (Teodor Sigaev)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>contrib/tsearch dictionary improvements, see README.tsearch for an additional installation step (Thomas T. Thai, Teodor Sigaev)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for array subscripts handling (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow EXECUTE of "CREATE TABLE AS ... SELECT" in PL/pgSQL (Tom)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect2> -</sect1> - - -<sect1 id="release-7-2"> - <title>Release 7.2</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2002-02-04</simpara> - </note> - - <sect2> - <title>Overview</title> - - <para> - This release improves <productname>PostgreSQL</> for use in - high-volume applications. - </para> - - <para> - Major changes in this release: - </para> - - <variablelist> - <varlistentry> - <term>VACUUM</term> - <listitem> - <para> - Vacuuming no longer locks tables, thus allowing normal user - access during the vacuum. A new <command>VACUUM FULL</> - command does old-style vacuum by locking the table and - shrinking the on-disk copy of the table. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term>Transactions</term> - <listitem> - <para> - There is no longer a problem with installations that exceed - four billion transactions. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term>OIDs</term> - <listitem> - <para> - OIDs are now optional. Users can now create tables without - OIDs for cases where OID usage is excessive. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term>Optimizer</term> - <listitem> - <para> - The system now computes histogram column statistics during - <command>ANALYZE</>, allowing much better optimizer choices. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term>Security</term> - <listitem> - <para> - A new MD5 encryption option allows more secure storage and - transfer of passwords. A new Unix-domain socket - authentication option is available on Linux and BSD systems. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term>Statistics</term> - <listitem> - <para> - Administrators can use the new table access statistics module - to get fine-grained information about table and index usage. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term>Internationalization</term> - <listitem> - <para> - Program and library messages can now be displayed in several - languages. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - </variablelist> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.2</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore using <command>pg_dump</command> is required for - those wishing to migrate data from any previous release. - </para> - - <para> - Observe the following incompatibilities: - </para> - - <itemizedlist> - <listitem> - <para> - The semantics of the <command>VACUUM</command> command have - changed in this release. You might wish to update your - maintenance procedures accordingly. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - In this release, comparisons using <literal>= NULL</literal> - will always return false (or NULL, more precisely). Previous - releases automatically transformed this syntax to <literal>IS - NULL</literal>. The old behavior can be re-enabled using a - <filename>postgresql.conf</filename> parameter. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - The <filename>pg_hba.conf</> and <filename>pg_ident.conf</> - configuration is now only reloaded after receiving a - <systemitem>SIGHUP</> signal, not with each connection. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - The function <filename>octet_length()</> now returns the uncompressed data length. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - The date/time value <literal>'current'</literal> is no longer - available. You will need to rewrite your applications. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - The <literal>timestamp()</literal>, <literal>time()</literal>, - and <literal>interval()</literal> functions are no longer - available. Instead of <literal>timestamp()</literal>, use - <literal>timestamp 'string'</literal> or <literal>CAST</literal>. - </para> - </listitem> - - </itemizedlist> - - <para> - The <literal>SELECT ... LIMIT #,#</literal> syntax will be removed - in the next release. You should change your queries to use - separate LIMIT and OFFSET clauses, e.g. <literal>LIMIT 10 OFFSET - 20</literal>. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <sect3> - <title>Server Operation</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Create temporary files in a separate directory (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Delete orphaned temporary files on postmaster startup (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Added unique indexes to some system tables (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>System table operator reorganization (Oleg Bartunov, Teodor Sigaev, Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Renamed pg_log to pg_clog (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Enable SIGTERM, SIGQUIT to kill backends (Jan)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Removed compile-time limit on number of backends (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Better cleanup for semaphore resource failure (Tatsuo, Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow safe transaction ID wraparound (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Removed OIDs from some system tables (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Removed "triggered data change violation" error check (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>SPI portal creation of prepared/saved plans (Jan)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow SPI column functions to work for system columns (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Long value compression improvement (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Statistics collector for table, index access (Jan)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Truncate extra-long sequence names to a reasonable value (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Measure transaction times in milliseconds (Thomas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix TID sequential scans (Hiroshi)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Superuser ID now fixed at 1 (Peter E)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New pg_ctl "reload" option (Tom)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Performance</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Optimizer improvements (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New histogram column statistics for optimizer (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Reuse write-ahead log files rather than discarding them (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Cache improvements (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>IS NULL, IS NOT NULL optimizer improvement (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve lock manager to reduce lock contention (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Keep relcache entries for index access support functions (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow better selectivity with NaN and infinities in NUMERIC (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>R-tree performance improvements (Kenneth Been)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>B-tree splits more efficient (Tom)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Privileges</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Change UPDATE, DELETE privileges to be distinct (Peter E)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New REFERENCES, TRIGGER privileges (Peter E)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow GRANT/REVOKE to/from more than one user at a time (Peter E)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New has_table_privilege() function (Joe Conway)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow non-superuser to vacuum database (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION command (Peter E)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix bug in privilege modifications on newly created tables (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Disallow access to pg_statistic for non-superuser, add user-accessible views (Tom)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Client Authentication</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Fork postmaster before doing authentication to prevent hangs (Peter E)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add ident authentication over Unix domain sockets on Linux, *BSD (Helge Bahmann, Oliver Elphick, Teodor Sigaev, Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add a password authentication method that uses MD5 encryption (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow encryption of stored passwords using MD5 (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>PAM authentication (Dominic J. Eidson)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Load pg_hba.conf and pg_ident.conf only on startup and SIGHUP (Bruce)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Server Configuration</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Interpretation of some time zone abbreviations as Australian rather than North American now settable at run time (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New parameter to set default transaction isolation level (Peter E)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New parameter to enable conversion of "expr = NULL" into "expr IS NULL", off by default (Peter E)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New parameter to control memory usage by VACUUM (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New parameter to set client authentication timeout (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New parameter to set maximum number of open files (Tom)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Queries</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Statements added by INSERT rules now execute after the INSERT (Jan)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent unadorned relation names in target list (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>NULLs now sort after all normal values in ORDER BY (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New IS UNKNOWN, IS NOT UNKNOWN Boolean tests (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New SHARE UPDATE EXCLUSIVE lock mode (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New EXPLAIN ANALYZE command that shows run times and row counts (Martijn van Oosterhout)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix problem with LIMIT and subqueries (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for LIMIT, DISTINCT ON pushed into subqueries (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix nested EXCEPT/INTERSECT (Tom)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Schema Manipulation</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Fix SERIAL in temporary tables (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow temporary sequences (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Sequences now use int8 internally (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New SERIAL8 creates int8 columns with sequences, default still SERIAL4 (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make OIDs optional using WITHOUT OIDS (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add %TYPE syntax to CREATE TYPE (Ian Lance Taylor)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add ALTER TABLE / DROP CONSTRAINT for CHECK constraints (Christopher Kings-Lynne)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION to alter existing function (preserving the function OID) (Gavin Sherry)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add ALTER TABLE / ADD [ UNIQUE | PRIMARY ] (Christopher Kings-Lynne)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow column renaming in views</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make ALTER TABLE / RENAME COLUMN update column names of indexes (Brent Verner)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for ALTER TABLE / ADD CONSTRAINT ... CHECK with inherited tables (Stephan Szabo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>ALTER TABLE RENAME update foreign-key trigger arguments correctly (Brent Verner)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>DROP AGGREGATE and COMMENT ON AGGREGATE now accept an aggtype (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add automatic return type data casting for SQL functions (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow GiST indexes to handle NULLs and multikey indexes (Oleg Bartunov, Teodor Sigaev, Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Enable partial indexes (Martijn van Oosterhout)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Utility Commands</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Add RESET ALL, SHOW ALL (Marko Kreen)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>CREATE/ALTER USER/GROUP now allow options in any order (Vince)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add LOCK A, B, C functionality (Neil Padgett)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New ENCRYPTED/UNENCRYPTED option to CREATE/ALTER USER (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New light-weight VACUUM does not lock table; old semantics are available as VACUUM FULL (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Disable COPY TO/FROM on views (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>COPY DELIMITERS string must be exactly one character (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>VACUUM warning about index tuples fewer than heap now only appears when appropriate (Martijn van Oosterhout)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix privilege checks for CREATE INDEX (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Disallow inappropriate use of CREATE/DROP INDEX/TRIGGER/VIEW (Tom)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Data Types and Functions</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>SUM(), AVG(), COUNT() now uses int8 internally for speed (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add convert(), convert2() (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New function bit_length() (Peter E)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make the "n" in CHAR(n)/VARCHAR(n) represents letters, not bytes (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>CHAR(), VARCHAR() now reject strings that are too long (Peter E)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>BIT VARYING now rejects bit strings that are too long (Peter E)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>BIT now rejects bit strings that do not match declared size (Peter E)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>INET, CIDR text conversion functions (Alex Pilosov)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>INET, CIDR operators << and <<= indexable (Alex Pilosov)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Bytea \### now requires valid three digit octal number</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Bytea comparison improvements, now supports =, <>, >, >=, <, and <=</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Bytea now supports B-tree indexes</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Bytea now supports LIKE, LIKE...ESCAPE, NOT LIKE, NOT LIKE...ESCAPE</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Bytea now supports concatenation</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New bytea functions: position, substring, trim, btrim, and length</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New encode() function mode, "escaped", converts minimally escaped bytea to/from text</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add pg_database_encoding_max_length() (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add pg_client_encoding() function (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>now() returns time with millisecond precision (Thomas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New TIMESTAMP WITHOUT TIMEZONE data type (Thomas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add ISO date/time specification with "T", yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss (Thomas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New xid/int comparison functions (Hiroshi)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add precision to TIME, TIMESTAMP, and INTERVAL data types (Thomas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Modify type coercion logic to attempt binary-compatible functions first (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New encode() function installed by default (Marko Kreen)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improved to_*() conversion functions (Karel Zak)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Optimize LIKE/ILIKE when using single-byte encodings (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New functions in contrib/pgcrypto: crypt(), hmac(), encrypt(), gen_salt() (Marko Kreen)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Correct description of translate() function (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add INTERVAL argument for SET TIME ZONE (Thomas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add INTERVAL YEAR TO MONTH (etc.) syntax (Thomas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Optimize length functions when using single-byte encodings (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix path_inter, path_distance, path_length, dist_ppath to handle closed paths (Curtis Barrett, Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>octet_length(text) now returns non-compressed length (Tatsuo, Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Handle "July" full name in date/time literals (Greg Sabino Mullane)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Some datatype() function calls now evaluated differently</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add support for Julian and ISO time specifications (Thomas)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Internationalization</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>National language support in psql, <application>pg_dump</>, libpq, and server (Peter E)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Message translations in Chinese (simplified, traditional), Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Russian, Swedish (Peter E, Serguei A. Mokhov, Karel Zak, Weiping He, Zhenbang Wei, Kovacs Zoltan)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make trim, ltrim, rtrim, btrim, lpad, rpad, translate multibyte aware (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add LATIN5,6,7,8,9,10 support (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add ISO 8859-5,6,7,8 support (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Correct LATIN5 to mean ISO-8859-9, not ISO-8859-5 (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make mic2ascii() non-ASCII aware (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Reject invalid multibyte character sequences (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title><application>PL/pgSQL</></title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Now uses portals for SELECT loops, allowing huge result sets (Jan)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>CURSOR and REFCURSOR support (Jan)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Can now return open cursors (Jan)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add ELSEIF (Klaus Reger)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve PL/pgSQL error reporting, including location of error (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow IS or FOR key words in cursor declaration, for compatibility (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for SELECT ... FOR UPDATE (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for PERFORM returning multiple rows (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make PL/pgSQL use the server's type coercion code (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Memory leak fix (Jan, Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Make trailing semicolon optional (Tom)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>PL/Perl</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>New untrusted PL/Perl (Alex Pilosov)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>PL/Perl is now built on some platforms even if libperl is not shared (Peter E)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>PL/Tcl</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Now reports errorInfo (Vsevolod Lobko)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add spi_lastoid function (bob@redivi.com)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>PL/Python</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>...is new (Andrew Bosma)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title><application>psql</></title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>\d displays indexes in unique, primary groupings (Christopher Kings-Lynne)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow trailing semicolons in backslash commands (Greg Sabino Mullane)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Read password from /dev/tty if possible</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Force new password prompt when changing user and database (Tatsuo, Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Format the correct number of columns for Unicode (Patrice)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title><application>libpq</></title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>New function PQescapeString() to escape quotes in command strings (Florian Weimer)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New function PQescapeBytea() escapes binary strings for use as SQL string literals</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>JDBC</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Return OID of INSERT (Ken K)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Handle more data types (Ken K)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Handle single quotes and newlines in strings (Ken K)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Handle NULL variables (Ken K)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for time zone handling (Barry Lind)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improved Druid support</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow eight-bit characters with non-multibyte server (Barry Lind)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Support BIT, BINARY types (Ned Wolpert)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Reduce memory usage (Michael Stephens, Dave Cramer)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Update DatabaseMetaData (Peter E)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add DatabaseMetaData.getCatalogs() (Peter E)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Encoding fixes (Anders Bengtsson)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Get/setCatalog methods (Jason Davies)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>DatabaseMetaData.getColumns() now returns column defaults (Jason Davies)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>DatabaseMetaData.getColumns() performance improvement (Jeroen van Vianen)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Some JDBC1 and JDBC2 merging (Anders Bengtsson)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Transaction performance improvements (Barry Lind)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Array fixes (Greg Zoller)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Serialize addition </para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix batch processing (Rene Pijlman)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>ExecSQL method reorganization (Anders Bengtsson)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>GetColumn() fixes (Jeroen van Vianen)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix isWriteable() function (Rene Pijlman)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improved passage of JDBC2 conformance tests (Rene Pijlman)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add bytea type capability (Barry Lind)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add isNullable() (Rene Pijlman)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>JDBC date/time test suite fixes (Liam Stewart)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for SELECT 'id' AS xxx FROM table (Dave Cramer)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix DatabaseMetaData to show precision properly (Mark Lillywhite)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New getImported/getExported keys (Jason Davies)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>MD5 password encryption support (Jeremy Wohl)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix to actually use type cache (Ned Wolpert)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>ODBC</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Remove query size limit (Hiroshi)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Remove text field size limit (Hiroshi)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for SQLPrimaryKeys in multibyte mode (Hiroshi)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow ODBC procedure calls (Hiroshi)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve boolean handing (Aidan Mountford)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Most configuration options now settable via DSN (Hiroshi)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Multibyte, performance fixes (Hiroshi)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Allow driver to be used with iODBC or unixODBC (Peter E)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>MD5 password encryption support (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add more compatibility functions to odbc.sql (Peter E)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title><application>ECPG</></title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>EXECUTE ... INTO implemented (Christof Petig)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Multiple row descriptor support (e.g. CARDINALITY) (Christof Petig)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for GRANT parameters (Lee Kindness)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix INITIALLY DEFERRED bug</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Various bug fixes (Michael, Christof Petig)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Auto allocation for indicator variable arrays (int *ind_p=NULL)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Auto allocation for string arrays (char **foo_pp=NULL)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>ECPGfree_auto_mem fixed</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>All function names with external linkage are now prefixed by ECPG</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fixes for arrays of structures (Michael)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Misc. Interfaces</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Python fix fetchone() (Gerhard Haring)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Use UTF, Unicode in Tcl where appropriate (Vsevolod Lobko, Reinhard Max)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add Tcl COPY TO/FROM (ljb)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Prevent output of default index op class in <application>pg_dump</> (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix libpgeasy memory leak (Bruce)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Build and Install</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Configure, dynamic loader, and shared library fixes (Peter E)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fixes in QNX 4 port (Bernd Tegge)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fixes in Cygwin and Windows ports (Jason Tishler, Gerhard Haring, Dmitry Yurtaev, Darko Prenosil, Mikhail Terekhov)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix for Windows socket communication failures (Magnus, Mikhail Terekhov)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Hurd compile fix (Oliver Elphick)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>BeOS fixes (Cyril Velter)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Remove configure --enable-unicode-conversion, now enabled by multibyte (Tatsuo)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>AIX fixes (Tatsuo, Andreas)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Fix parallel make (Peter E)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Install SQL language manual pages into OS-specific directories (Peter E)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Rename config.h to pg_config.h (Peter E)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Reorganize installation layout of header files (Peter E)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Source Code</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>Remove SEP_CHAR (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New GUC hooks (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Merge GUC and command line handling (Marko Kreen)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Remove EXTEND INDEX (Martijn van Oosterhout, Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New pgjindent utility to indent java code (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Remove define of true/false when compiling under C++ (Leandro Fanzone, Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>pgindent fixes (Bruce, Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Replace strcasecmp() with strcmp() where appropriate (Peter E)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Dynahash portability improvements (Tom)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add 'volatile' usage in spinlock structures</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Improve signal handling logic (Tom)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - - <sect3> - <title>Contrib</title> -<itemizedlist> -<listitem><para>New contrib/rtree_gist (Oleg Bartunov, Teodor Sigaev)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New contrib/tsearch full-text indexing (Oleg, Teodor Sigaev)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add contrib/dblink for remote database access (Joe Conway)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>contrib/ora2pg Oracle conversion utility (Gilles Darold)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>contrib/xml XML conversion utility (John Gray)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>contrib/fulltextindex fixes (Christopher Kings-Lynne)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New contrib/fuzzystrmatch with levenshtein and metaphone, soundex merged (Joe Conway)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add contrib/intarray boolean queries, binary search, fixes (Oleg Bartunov)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>New pg_upgrade utility (Bruce)</para></listitem> -<listitem><para>Add new pg_resetxlog options (Bruce, Tom)</para></listitem> -</itemizedlist> - </sect3> - </sect2> -</sect1> - - - <sect1 id="release-7-1-3"> - <title>Release 7.1.3</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2001-08-15</simpara> - </note> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.1.3</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those running - 7.1.X. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <para> - <programlisting> -Remove unused WAL segments of large transactions (Tom) -Multiaction rule fix (Tom) -PL/pgSQL memory allocation fix (Jan) -VACUUM buffer fix (Tom) -Regression test fixes (Tom) -pg_dump fixes for GRANT/REVOKE/comments on views, user-defined types (Tom) -Fix subselects with DISTINCT ON or LIMIT (Tom) -BeOS fix -Disable COPY TO/FROM a view (Tom) -Cygwin build (Jason Tishler) - </programlisting> - </para> - </sect2> - </sect1> - - - <sect1 id="release-7-1-2"> - <title>Release 7.1.2</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2001-05-11</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This has one fix from 7.1.1. - </para> - - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.1.2</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those running - 7.1.X. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <para> - <programlisting> -Fix PL/pgSQL SELECTs when returning no rows -Fix for psql backslash core dump -Referential integrity privilege fix -Optimizer fixes -pg_dump cleanups - </programlisting> - </para> - </sect2> - </sect1> - - - <sect1 id="release-7-1-1"> - <title>Release 7.1.1</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2001-05-05</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This has a variety of fixes from 7.1. - </para> - - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.1.1</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those running - 7.1. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <para> - <programlisting> -Fix for numeric MODULO operator (Tom) -pg_dump fixes (Philip) -pg_dump can dump 7.0 databases (Philip) -readline 4.2 fixes (Peter E) -JOIN fixes (Tom) -AIX, MSWIN, VAX, N32K fixes (Tom) -Multibytes fixes (Tom) -Unicode fixes (Tatsuo) -Optimizer improvements (Tom) -Fix for whole rows in functions (Tom) -Fix for pg_ctl and option strings with spaces (Peter E) -ODBC fixes (Hiroshi) -EXTRACT can now take string argument (Thomas) -Python fixes (Darcy) - </programlisting> - </para> - </sect2> - </sect1> - - - <sect1 id="release-7-1"> - <title>Release 7.1</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2001-04-13</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release focuses on removing limitations that have existed in the - <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> code for many years. - </para> - - <para> - Major changes in this release: - </para> - - <variablelist> - <varlistentry> - <term> - Write-ahead Log (WAL) - </term> - <listitem> - <para> -To maintain database consistency in case of an operating system crash, -previous releases of <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> have forced -all data modifications to disk before each transaction commit. With -WAL, only one log file must be flushed to disk, greatly improving -performance. If you have been using -F in previous releases to -disable disk flushes, you might want to consider discontinuing its use. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - TOAST - </term> - <listitem> - <para> - TOAST - Previous releases had a compiled-in row length limit, -typically 8k - 32k. This limit made storage of long text fields -difficult. With TOAST, long rows of any length can be stored with good -performance. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Outer Joins - </term> - <listitem> - <para> -We now support outer joins. The UNION/NOT IN -workaround for outer joins is no longer required. We use the SQL92 -outer join syntax. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Function Manager - </term> - <listitem> - <para> -The previous C function manager did not -handle null values properly, nor did it support 64-bit <acronym>CPU</acronym>'s (Alpha). The new -function manager does. You can continue using your old custom -functions, but you might want to rewrite them in the future to use the new -function manager call interface. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Complex Queries - </term> - <listitem> - <para> -A large number of complex queries that were -unsupported in previous releases now work. Many combinations of views, -aggregates, UNION, LIMIT, cursors, subqueries, and inherited tables -now work properly. Inherited tables are now accessed by default. -Subqueries in FROM are now supported. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - </variablelist> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.1</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore using pg_dump is required for those wishing to migrate - data from any previous release. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <para> - <programlisting> -Bug Fixes ---------- -Many multibyte/Unicode/locale fixes (Tatsuo and others) -More reliable ALTER TABLE RENAME (Tom) -Kerberos V fixes (David Wragg) -Fix for INSERT INTO...SELECT where targetlist has subqueries (Tom) -Prompt username/password on standard error (Bruce) -Large objects inv_read/inv_write fixes (Tom) -Fixes for to_char(), to_date(), to_ascii(), and to_timestamp() (Karel, - Daniel Baldoni) -Prevent query expressions from leaking memory (Tom) -Allow UPDATE of arrays elements (Tom) -Wake up lock waiters during cancel (Hiroshi) -Fix rare cursor crash when using hash join (Tom) -Fix for DROP TABLE/INDEX in rolled-back transaction (Hiroshi) -Fix psql crash from \l+ if MULTIBYTE enabled (Peter E) -Fix truncation of rule names during CREATE VIEW (Ross Reedstrom) -Fix PL/perl (Alex Kapranoff) -Disallow LOCK on views (Mark Hollomon) -Disallow INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE on views (Mark Hollomon) -Disallow DROP RULE, CREATE INDEX, TRUNCATE on views (Mark Hollomon) -Allow PL/pgSQL accept non-ASCII identifiers (Tatsuo) -Allow views to proper handle GROUP BY, aggregates, DISTINCT (Tom) -Fix rare failure with TRUNCATE command (Tom) -Allow UNION/INTERSECT/EXCEPT to be used with ALL, subqueries, views, - DISTINCT, ORDER BY, SELECT...INTO (Tom) -Fix parser failures during aborted transactions (Tom) -Allow temporary relations to properly clean up indexes (Bruce) -Fix VACUUM problem with moving rows in same page (Tom) -Modify pg_dump to better handle user-defined items in template1 (Philip) -Allow LIMIT in VIEW (Tom) -Require cursor FETCH to honor LIMIT (Tom) -Allow PRIMARY/FOREIGN Key definitions on inherited columns (Stephan) -Allow ORDER BY, LIMIT in subqueries (Tom) -Allow UNION in CREATE RULE (Tom) -Make ALTER/DROP TABLE rollback-able (Vadim, Tom) -Store initdb collation in pg_control so collation cannot be changed (Tom) -Fix INSERT...SELECT with rules (Tom) -Fix FOR UPDATE inside views and subselects (Tom) -Fix OVERLAPS operators conform to SQL92 spec regarding NULLs (Tom) -Fix lpad() and rpad() to handle length less than input string (Tom) -Fix use of NOTIFY in some rules (Tom) -Overhaul btree code (Tom) -Fix NOT NULL use in Pl/pgSQL variables (Tom) -Overhaul GIST code (Oleg) -Fix CLUSTER to preserve constraints and column default (Tom) -Improved deadlock detection handling (Tom) -Allow multiple SERIAL columns in a table (Tom) -Prevent occasional index corruption (Vadim) - -Enhancements ------------- -Add OUTER JOINs (Tom) -Function manager overhaul (Tom) -Allow ALTER TABLE RENAME on indexes (Tom) -Improve CLUSTER (Tom) -Improve ps status display for more platforms (Peter E, Marc) -Improve CREATE FUNCTION failure message (Ross) -JDBC improvements (Peter, Travis Bauer, Christopher Cain, William Webber, - Gunnar) -Grand Unified Configuration scheme/GUC. Many options can now be set in - data/postgresql.conf, postmaster/postgres flags, or SET commands (Peter E) -Improved handling of file descriptor cache (Tom) -New warning code about auto-created table alias entries (Bruce) -Overhaul initdb process (Tom, Peter E) -Overhaul of inherited tables; inherited tables now accessed by default; - new ONLY key word prevents it (Chris Bitmead, Tom) -ODBC cleanups/improvements (Nick Gorham, Stephan Szabo, Zoltan Kovacs, - Michael Fork) -Allow renaming of temp tables (Tom) -Overhaul memory manager contexts (Tom) -pg_dumpall uses CREATE USER or CREATE GROUP rather using COPY (Peter E) -Overhaul pg_dump (Philip Warner) -Allow pg_hba.conf secondary password file to specify only username (Peter E) -Allow TEMPORARY or TEMP key word when creating temporary tables (Bruce) -New memory leak checker (Karel) -New SET SESSION CHARACTERISTICS (Thomas) -Allow nested block comments (Thomas) -Add WITHOUT TIME ZONE type qualifier (Thomas) -New ALTER TABLE ADD CONSTRAINT (Stephan) -Use NUMERIC accumulators for INTEGER aggregates (Tom) -Overhaul aggregate code (Tom) -New VARIANCE and STDDEV() aggregates -Improve dependency ordering of pg_dump (Philip) -New pg_restore command (Philip) -New pg_dump tar output option (Philip) -New pg_dump of large objects (Philip) -New ESCAPE option to LIKE (Thomas) -New case-insensitive LIKE - ILIKE (Thomas) -Allow functional indexes to use binary-compatible type (Tom) -Allow SQL functions to be used in more contexts (Tom) -New pg_config utility (Peter E) -New PL/pgSQL EXECUTE command which allows dynamic SQL and utility statements - (Jan) -New PL/pgSQL GET DIAGNOSTICS statement for SPI value access (Jan) -New quote_identifiers() and quote_literal() functions (Jan) -New ALTER TABLE table OWNER TO user command (Mark Hollomon) -Allow subselects in FROM, i.e. FROM (SELECT ...) [AS] alias (Tom) -Update PyGreSQL to version 3.1 (D'Arcy) -Store tables as files named by OID (Vadim) -New SQL function setval(seq,val,bool) for use in pg_dump (Philip) -Require DROP VIEW to remove views, no DROP TABLE (Mark) -Allow DROP VIEW view1, view2 (Mark) -Allow multiple objects in DROP INDEX, DROP RULE, and DROP TYPE (Tom) -Allow automatic conversion to/from Unicode (Tatsuo, Eiji) -New /contrib/pgcrypto hashing functions (Marko Kreen) -New pg_dumpall --globals-only option (Peter E) -New CHECKPOINT command for WAL which creates new WAL log file (Vadim) -New AT TIME ZONE syntax (Thomas) -Allow location of Unix domain socket to be configurable (David J. MacKenzie) -Allow postmaster to listen on a specific IP address (David J. MacKenzie) -Allow socket path name to be specified in hostname by using leading slash - (David J. MacKenzie) -Allow CREATE DATABASE to specify template database (Tom) -New utility to convert MySQL schema dumps to SQL92 and PostgreSQL (Thomas) -New /contrib/rserv replication toolkit (Vadim) -New file format for COPY BINARY (Tom) -New /contrib/oid2name to map numeric files to table names (B Palmer) -New "idle in transaction" ps status message (Marc) -Update to pgaccess 0.98.7 (Constantin Teodorescu) -pg_ctl now defaults to -w (wait) on shutdown, new -l (log) option -Add rudimentary dependency checking to pg_dump (Philip) - -Types ------ -Fix INET/CIDR type ordering and add new functions (Tom) -Make OID behave as an unsigned type (Tom) -Allow BIGINT as synonym for INT8 (Peter E) -New int2 and int8 comparison operators (Tom) -New BIT and BIT VARYING types (Adriaan Joubert, Tom, Peter E) -CHAR() no longer faster than VARCHAR() because of TOAST (Tom) -New GIST seg/cube examples (Gene Selkov) -Improved round(numeric) handling (Tom) -Fix CIDR output formatting (Tom) -New CIDR abbrev() function (Tom) - -Performance ------------ -Write-Ahead Log (WAL) to provide crash recovery with less performance - overhead (Vadim) -ANALYZE stage of VACUUM no longer exclusively locks table (Bruce) -Reduced file seeks (Denis Perchine) -Improve BTREE code for duplicate keys (Tom) -Store all large objects in a single table (Denis Perchine, Tom) -Improve memory allocation performance (Karel, Tom) - -Source Code ------------ -New function manager call conventions (Tom) -SGI portability fixes (David Kaelbling) -New configure --enable-syslog option (Peter E) -New BSDI README (Bruce) -configure script moved to top level, not /src (Peter E) -Makefile/configuration/compilation overhaul (Peter E) -New configure --with-python option (Peter E) -Solaris cleanups (Peter E) -Overhaul /contrib Makefiles (Karel) -New OpenSSL configuration option (Magnus, Peter E) -AIX fixes (Andreas) -QNX fixes (Maurizio) -New heap_open(), heap_openr() API (Tom) -Remove colon and semi-colon operators (Thomas) -New pg_class.relkind value for views (Mark Hollomon) -Rename ichar() to chr() (Karel) -New documentation for btrim(), ascii(), chr(), repeat() (Karel) -Fixes for NT/Cygwin (Pete Forman) -AIX port fixes (Andreas) -New BeOS port (David Reid, Cyril Velter) -Add proofreader's changes to docs (Addison-Wesley, Bruce) -New Alpha spinlock code (Adriaan Joubert, Compaq) -UnixWare port overhaul (Peter E) -New Darwin/MacOS X port (Peter Bierman, Bruce Hartzler) -New FreeBSD Alpha port (Alfred) -Overhaul shared memory segments (Tom) -Add IBM S/390 support (Neale Ferguson) -Moved macmanuf to /contrib (Larry Rosenman) -Syslog improvements (Larry Rosenman) -New template0 database that contains no user additions (Tom) -New /contrib/cube and /contrib/seg GIST sample code (Gene Selkov) -Allow NetBSD's libedit instead of readline (Peter) -Improved assembly language source code format (Bruce) -New contrib/pg_logger -New --template option to createdb -New contrib/pg_control utility (Oliver) -New FreeBSD tools ipc_check, start-scripts/freebsd - </programlisting> - </para> - </sect2> - </sect1> - - - <sect1 id="release-7-0-3"> - <title>Release 7.0.3</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2000-11-11</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This has a variety of fixes from 7.0.2. - </para> - - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.0.3</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those running - 7.0.*. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <para> - <programlisting> -Jdbc fixes (Peter) -Large object fix (Tom) -Fix lean in COPY WITH OIDS leak (Tom) -Fix backwards-index-scan (Tom) -Fix SELECT ... FOR UPDATE so it checks for duplicate keys (Hiroshi) -Add --enable-syslog to configure (Marc) -Fix abort transaction at backend exit in rare cases (Tom) -Fix for psql \l+ when multibyte enabled (Tatsuo) -Allow PL/pgSQL to accept non ascii identifiers (Tatsuo) -Make vacuum always flush buffers (Tom) -Fix to allow cancel while waiting for a lock (Hiroshi) -Fix for memory allocation problem in user authentication code (Tom) -Remove bogus use of int4out() (Tom) -Fixes for multiple subqueries in COALESCE or BETWEEN (Tom) -Fix for failure of triggers on heap open in certain cases (Jeroen van - Vianen) -Fix for erroneous selectivity of not-equals (Tom) -Fix for erroneous use of strcmp() (Tom) -Fix for bug where storage manager accesses items beyond end of file - (Tom) -Fix to include kernel errno message in all smgr elog messages (Tom) -Fix for '.' not in PATH at build time (SL Baur) -Fix for out-of-file-descriptors error (Tom) -Fix to make pg_dump dump 'iscachable' flag for functions (Tom) -Fix for subselect in targetlist of Append node (Tom) -Fix for mergejoin plans (Tom) -Fix TRUNCATE failure on relations with indexes (Tom) -Avoid database-wide restart on write error (Hiroshi) -Fix nodeMaterial to honor chgParam by recomputing its output (Tom) -Fix VACUUM problem with moving chain of update row versions when source - and destination of a row version lie on the same page (Tom) -Fix user.c CommandCounterIncrement (Tom) -Fix for AM/PM boundary problem in to_char() (Karel Zak) -Fix TIME aggregate handling (Tom) -Fix to_char() to avoid coredump on NULL input (Tom) -Buffer fix (Tom) -Fix for inserting/copying longer multibyte strings into char() data - types (Tatsuo) -Fix for crash of backend, on abort (Tom) - </programlisting> - </para> - </sect2> - </sect1> - - - <sect1 id="release-7-0-2"> - <title>Release 7.0.2</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2000-06-05</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This is a repackaging of 7.0.1 with added documentation. - </para> - - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.0.2</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those running - 7.*. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <para> - <programlisting> -Added documentation to tarball. - </programlisting> - </para> - </sect2> - </sect1> - - - <sect1 id="release-7-0-1"> - <title>Release 7.0.1</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2000-06-01</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This is a cleanup release for 7.0. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.0.1</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those running - 7.0. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <para> - <programlisting> -Fix many CLUSTER failures (Tom) -Allow ALTER TABLE RENAME works on indexes (Tom) -Fix plpgsql to handle datetime->timestamp and timespan->interval (Bruce) -New configure --with-setproctitle switch to use setproctitle() (Marc, Bruce) -Fix the off by one errors in ResultSet from 6.5.3, and more. -jdbc ResultSet fixes (Joseph Shraibman) -optimizer tunings (Tom) -Fix create user for pgaccess -Fix for UNLISTEN failure -IRIX fixes (David Kaelbling) -QNX fixes (Andreas Kardos) -Reduce COPY IN lock level (Tom) -Change libpqeasy to use PQconnectdb() style parameters (Bruce) -Fix pg_dump to handle OID indexes (Tom) -Fix small memory leak (Tom) -Solaris fix for createdb/dropdb (Tatsuo) -Fix for non-blocking connections (Alfred Perlstein) -Fix improper recovery after RENAME TABLE failures (Tom) -Copy pg_ident.conf.sample into /lib directory in install (Bruce) -Add SJIS UDC (NEC selection IBM kanji) support (Eiji Tokuya) -Fix too long syslog message (Tatsuo) -Fix problem with quoted indexes that are too long (Tom) -JDBC ResultSet.getTimestamp() fix (Gregory Krasnow & Floyd Marinescu) -ecpg changes (Michael) - </programlisting> - </para> - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-7-0"> - <title>Release 7.0</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>2000-05-08</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release contains improvements in many areas, demonstrating - the continued growth of <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>. - There are more improvements and fixes in 7.0 than in any previous - release. The developers have confidence that this is the best - release yet; we do our best to put out only solid releases, and - this one is no exception. - </para> - - <para> - Major changes in this release: - </para> - - <variablelist> - <varlistentry> - <term> - Foreign Keys - </term> - <listitem> - <para> - Foreign keys are now implemented, with the exception of PARTIAL MATCH - foreign keys. Many users have been asking for this feature, and we are - pleased to offer it. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Optimizer Overhaul - </term> - <listitem> - <para> - Continuing on work started a year ago, the optimizer has been - improved, allowing better query plan selection and faster performance - with less memory usage. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Updated <application>psql</application> - </term> - <listitem> - <para> - <application>psql</application>, our interactive terminal monitor, has been - updated with a variety of new features. See the <application>psql</application> manual page for details. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Join Syntax - </term> - <listitem> - <para> - SQL92 join syntax is now supported, though only as - <literal>INNER JOIN</> for this release. <literal>JOIN</>, - <literal>NATURAL JOIN</>, <literal>JOIN</>/<literal>USING</>, - and <literal>JOIN</>/<literal>ON</> are available, as are - column correlation names. - </para> - </listitem> - - </varlistentry> - </variablelist> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 7.0</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore using <application>pg_dump</application> - is required for those wishing to migrate data from any - previous release of <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>. - For those upgrading from 6.5.*, you can instead use - <application>pg_upgrade</application> to upgrade to this - release; however, a full dump/reload installation is always the - most robust method for upgrades. - </para> - - <para> - Interface and compatibility issues to consider for the new - release include: - </para> - - <itemizedlist> - <listitem> - <para> - The date/time types <type>datetime</type> and - <type>timespan</type> have been superseded by the - SQL92-defined types <type>timestamp</type> and - <type>interval</type>. Although there has been some effort to - ease the transition by allowing - <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> to recognize - the deprecated type names and translate them to the new type - names, this mechanism cannot be completely transparent to - your existing application. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - The optimizer has been substantially improved in the area of - query cost estimation. In some cases, this will result in - decreased query times as the optimizer makes a better choice - for the preferred plan. However, in a small number of cases, - usually involving pathological distributions of data, your - query times might go up. If you are dealing with large amounts - of data, you might want to check your queries to verify - performance. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - The <acronym>JDBC</acronym> and <acronym>ODBC</acronym> - interfaces have been upgraded and extended. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - The string function <function>CHAR_LENGTH</function> is now a - native function. Previous versions translated this into a call - to <function>LENGTH</function>, which could result in - ambiguity with other types implementing - <function>LENGTH</function> such as the geometric types. - </para> - </listitem> - </itemizedlist> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <para> - <programlisting> -Bug Fixes ---------- -Prevent function calls exceeding maximum number of arguments (Tom) -Improve CASE construct (Tom) -Fix SELECT coalesce(f1,0) FROM int4_tbl GROUP BY f1 (Tom) -Fix SELECT sentence.words[0] FROM sentence GROUP BY sentence.words[0] (Tom) -Fix GROUP BY scan bug (Tom) -Improvements in SQL grammar processing (Tom) -Fix for views involved in INSERT ... SELECT ... (Tom) -Fix for SELECT a/2, a/2 FROM test_missing_target GROUP BY a/2 (Tom) -Fix for subselects in INSERT ... SELECT (Tom) -Prevent INSERT ... SELECT ... ORDER BY (Tom) -Fixes for relations greater than 2GB, including vacuum -Improve propagating system table changes to other backends (Tom) -Improve propagating user table changes to other backends (Tom) -Fix handling of temp tables in complex situations (Bruce, Tom) -Allow table locking at table open, improving concurrent reliability (Tom) -Properly quote sequence names in pg_dump (Ross J. Reedstrom) -Prevent DROP DATABASE while others accessing -Prevent any rows from being returned by GROUP BY if no rows processed (Tom) -Fix SELECT COUNT(1) FROM table WHERE ...' if no rows matching WHERE (Tom) -Fix pg_upgrade so it works for MVCC (Tom) -Fix for SELECT ... WHERE x IN (SELECT ... HAVING SUM(x) > 1) (Tom) -Fix for "f1 datetime DEFAULT 'now'" (Tom) -Fix problems with CURRENT_DATE used in DEFAULT (Tom) -Allow comment-only lines, and ;;; lines too. (Tom) -Improve recovery after failed disk writes, disk full (Hiroshi) -Fix cases where table is mentioned in FROM but not joined (Tom) -Allow HAVING clause without aggregate functions (Tom) -Fix for "--" comment and no trailing newline, as seen in perl interface -Improve pg_dump failure error reports (Bruce) -Allow sorts and hashes to exceed 2GB file sizes (Tom) -Fix for pg_dump dumping of inherited rules (Tom) -Fix for NULL handling comparisons (Tom) -Fix inconsistent state caused by failed CREATE/DROP commands (Hiroshi) -Fix for dbname with dash -Prevent DROP INDEX from interfering with other backends (Tom) -Fix file descriptor leak in verify_password() -Fix for "Unable to identify an operator =$" problem -Fix ODBC so no segfault if CommLog and Debug enabled (Dirk Niggemann) -Fix for recursive exit call (Massimo) -Fix for extra-long timezones (Jeroen van Vianen) -Make pg_dump preserve primary key information (Peter E) -Prevent databases with single quotes (Peter E) -Prevent DROP DATABASE inside transaction (Peter E) -ecpg memory leak fixes (Stephen Birch) -Fix for SELECT null::text, SELECT int4fac(null) and SELECT 2 + (null) (Tom) -Y2K timestamp fix (Massimo) -Fix for VACUUM 'HEAP_MOVED_IN was not expected' errors (Tom) -Fix for views with tables/columns containing spaces (Tom) -Prevent privileges on indexes (Peter E) -Fix for spinlock stuck problem when error is generated (Hiroshi) -Fix ipcclean on Linux -Fix handling of NULL constraint conditions (Tom) -Fix memory leak in odbc driver (Nick Gorham) -Fix for privilege check on UNION tables (Tom) -Fix to allow SELECT 'a' LIKE 'a' (Tom) -Fix for SELECT 1 + NULL (Tom) -Fixes to CHAR -Fix log() on numeric type (Tom) -Deprecate ':' and ';' operators -Allow vacuum of temporary tables -Disallow inherited columns with the same name as new columns -Recover or force failure when disk space is exhausted (Hiroshi) -Fix INSERT INTO ... SELECT with AS columns matching result columns -Fix INSERT ... SELECT ... GROUP BY groups by target columns not source columns (Tom) -Fix CREATE TABLE test (a char(5) DEFAULT text '', b int4) with INSERT (Tom) -Fix UNION with LIMIT -Fix CREATE TABLE x AS SELECT 1 UNION SELECT 2 -Fix CREATE TABLE test(col char(2) DEFAULT user) -Fix mismatched types in CREATE TABLE ... DEFAULT -Fix SELECT * FROM pg_class where oid in (0,-1) -Fix SELECT COUNT('asdf') FROM pg_class WHERE oid=12 -Prevent user who can create databases can modifying pg_database table (Peter E) -Fix btree to give a useful elog when key > 1/2 (page - overhead) (Tom) -Fix INSERT of 0.0 into DECIMAL(4,4) field (Tom) - -Enhancements ------------- -New CLI interface include file sqlcli.h, based on SQL3/SQL98 -Remove all limits on query length, row length limit still exists (Tom) -Update jdbc protocol to 2.0 (Jens Glaser <email>jens@jens.de</email>) -Add TRUNCATE command to quickly truncate relation (Mike Mascari) -Fix to give super user and createdb user proper update catalog rights (Peter E) -Allow ecpg bool variables to have NULL values (Christof) -Issue ecpg error if NULL value for variable with no NULL indicator (Christof) -Allow ^C to cancel COPY command (Massimo) -Add SET FSYNC and SHOW PG_OPTIONS commands(Massimo) -Function name overloading for dynamically-loaded C functions (Frankpitt) -Add CmdTuples() to libpq++(Vince) -New CREATE CONSTRAINT TRIGGER and SET CONSTRAINTS commands(Jan) -Allow CREATE FUNCTION/WITH clause to be used for all language types -configure --enable-debug adds -g (Peter E) -configure --disable-debug removes -g (Peter E) -Allow more complex default expressions (Tom) -First real FOREIGN KEY constraint trigger functionality (Jan) -Add FOREIGN KEY ... MATCH FULL ... ON DELETE CASCADE (Jan) -Add FOREIGN KEY ... MATCH <unspecified> referential actions (Don Baccus) -Allow WHERE restriction on ctid (physical heap location) (Hiroshi) -Move pginterface from contrib to interface directory, rename to pgeasy (Bruce) -Change pgeasy connectdb() parameter ordering (Bruce) -Require SELECT DISTINCT target list to have all ORDER BY columns (Tom) -Add Oracle's COMMENT ON command (Mike Mascari <email>mascarim@yahoo.com</email>) -libpq's PQsetNoticeProcessor function now returns previous hook(Peter E) -Prevent PQsetNoticeProcessor from being set to NULL (Peter E) -Make USING in COPY optional (Bruce) -Allow subselects in the target list (Tom) -Allow subselects on the left side of comparison operators (Tom) -New parallel regression test (Jan) -Change backend-side COPY to write files with permissions 644 not 666 (Tom) -Force permissions on PGDATA directory to be secure, even if it exists (Tom) -Added psql LASTOID variable to return last inserted oid (Peter E) -Allow concurrent vacuum and remove pg_vlock vacuum lock file (Tom) -Add privilege check for vacuum (Peter E) -New libpq functions to allow asynchronous connections: PQconnectStart(), - PQconnectPoll(), PQresetStart(), PQresetPoll(), PQsetenvStart(), - PQsetenvPoll(), PQsetenvAbort (Ewan Mellor) -New libpq PQsetenv() function (Ewan Mellor) -create/alter user extension (Peter E) -New postmaster.pid and postmaster.opts under $PGDATA (Tatsuo) -New scripts for create/drop user/db (Peter E) -Major psql overhaul (Peter E) -Add const to libpq interface (Peter E) -New libpq function PQoidValue (Peter E) -Show specific non-aggregate causing problem with GROUP BY (Tom) -Make changes to pg_shadow recreate pg_pwd file (Peter E) -Add aggregate(DISTINCT ...) (Tom) -Allow flag to control COPY input/output of NULLs (Peter E) -Make postgres user have a password by default (Peter E) -Add CREATE/ALTER/DROP GROUP (Peter E) -All administration scripts now support --long options (Peter E, Karel) -Vacuumdb script now supports --all option (Peter E) -ecpg new portable FETCH syntax -Add ecpg EXEC SQL IFDEF, EXEC SQL IFNDEF, EXEC SQL ELSE, EXEC SQL ELIF - and EXEC SQL ENDIF directives -Add pg_ctl script to control backend start-up (Tatsuo) -Add postmaster.opts.default file to store start-up flags (Tatsuo) -Allow --with-mb=SQL_ASCII -Increase maximum number of index keys to 16 (Bruce) -Increase maximum number of function arguments to 16 (Bruce) -Allow configuration of maximum number of index keys and arguments (Bruce) -Allow unprivileged users to change their passwords (Peter E) -Password authentication enabled; required for new users (Peter E) -Disallow dropping a user who owns a database (Peter E) -Change initdb option --with-mb to --enable-multibyte -Add option for initdb to prompts for superuser password (Peter E) -Allow complex type casts like col::numeric(9,2) and col::int2::float8 (Tom) -Updated user interfaces on initdb, initlocation, pg_dump, ipcclean (Peter E) -New pg_char_to_encoding() and pg_encoding_to_char() functions (Tatsuo) -libpq non-blocking mode (Alfred Perlstein) -Improve conversion of types in casts that don't specify a length -New plperl internal programming language (Mark Hollomon) -Allow COPY IN to read file that do not end with a newline (Tom) -Indicate when long identifiers are truncated (Tom) -Allow aggregates to use type equivalency (Peter E) -Add Oracle's to_char(), to_date(), to_datetime(), to_timestamp(), to_number() - conversion functions (Karel Zak <zakkr@zf.jcu.cz>) -Add SELECT DISTINCT ON (expr [, expr ...]) targetlist ... (Tom) -Check to be sure ORDER BY is compatible with the DISTINCT operation (Tom) -Add NUMERIC and int8 types to ODBC -Improve EXPLAIN results for Append, Group, Agg, Unique (Tom) -Add ALTER TABLE ... ADD FOREIGN KEY (Stephan Szabo) -Allow SELECT .. FOR UPDATE in PL/pgSQL (Hiroshi) -Enable backward sequential scan even after reaching EOF (Hiroshi) -Add btree indexing of boolean values, >= and <= (Don Baccus) -Print current line number when COPY FROM fails (Massimo) -Recognize POSIX time zone e.g. "PST+8" and "GMT-8" (Thomas) -Add DEC as synonym for DECIMAL (Thomas) -Add SESSION_USER as SQL92 key word, same as CURRENT_USER (Thomas) -Implement SQL92 column aliases (aka correlation names) (Thomas) -Implement SQL92 join syntax (Thomas) -Make INTERVAL reserved word allowed as a column identifier (Thomas) -Implement REINDEX command (Hiroshi) -Accept ALL in aggregate function SUM(ALL col) (Tom) -Prevent GROUP BY from using column aliases (Tom) -New psql \encoding option (Tatsuo) -Allow PQrequestCancel() to terminate when in waiting-for-lock state (Hiroshi) -Allow negation of a negative number in all cases -Add ecpg descriptors (Christof, Michael) -Allow CREATE VIEW v AS SELECT f1::char(8) FROM tbl -Allow casts with length, like foo::char(8) -New libpq functions PQsetClientEncoding(), PQclientEncoding() (Tatsuo) -Add support for SJIS user defined characters (Tatsuo) -Larger views/rules supported -Make libpq's PQconndefaults() thread-safe (Tom) -Disable // as comment to be ANSI conforming, should use -- (Tom) -Allow column aliases on views CREATE VIEW name (collist) -Fixes for views with subqueries (Tom) -Allow UPDATE table SET fld = (SELECT ...) (Tom) -SET command options no longer require quotes -Update pgaccess to 0.98.6 -New SET SEED command -New pg_options.sample file -New SET FSYNC command (Massimo) -Allow pg_descriptions when creating tables -Allow pg_descriptions when creating types, columns, and functions -Allow psql \copy to allow delimiters (Peter E) -Allow psql to print nulls as distinct from "" [null] (Peter E) - -Types ------ -Many array fixes (Tom) -Allow bare column names to be subscripted as arrays (Tom) -Improve type casting of int and float constants (Tom) -Cleanups for int8 inputs, range checking, and type conversion (Tom) -Fix for SELECT timespan('21:11:26'::time) (Tom) -netmask('x.x.x.x/0') is 255.255.255.255 instead of 0.0.0.0 (Oleg Sharoiko) -Add btree index on NUMERIC (Jan) -Perl fix for large objects containing NUL characters (Douglas Thomson) -ODBC fix for large objects (free) -Fix indexing of cidr data type -Fix for Ethernet MAC addresses (macaddr type) comparisons -Fix for date/time types when overflows happened in computations (Tom) -Allow array on int8 (Peter E) -Fix for rounding/overflow of NUMERIC type, like NUMERIC(4,4) (Tom) -Allow NUMERIC arrays -Fix bugs in NUMERIC ceil() and floor() functions (Tom) -Make char_length()/octet_length including trailing blanks (Tom) -Made abstime/reltime use int4 instead of time_t (Peter E) -New lztext data type for compressed text fields -Revise code to handle coercion of int and float constants (Tom) -Start at new code to implement a BIT and BIT VARYING type (Adriaan Joubert) -NUMERIC now accepts scientific notation (Tom) -NUMERIC to int4 rounds (Tom) -Convert float4/8 to NUMERIC properly (Tom) -Allow type conversion with NUMERIC (Thomas) -Make ISO date style (2000-02-16 09:33) the default (Thomas) -Add NATIONAL CHAR [ VARYING ] (Thomas) -Allow NUMERIC round and trunc to accept negative scales (Tom) -New TIME WITH TIME ZONE type (Thomas) -Add MAX()/MIN() on time type (Thomas) -Add abs(), mod(), fac() for int8 (Thomas) -Rename functions to round(), sqrt(), cbrt(), pow() for float8 (Thomas) -Add transcendental math functions (e.g. sin(), acos()) for float8 (Thomas) -Add exp() and ln() for NUMERIC type -Rename NUMERIC power() to pow() (Thomas) -Improved TRANSLATE() function (Edwin Ramirez, Tom) -Allow X=-Y operators (Tom) -Allow SELECT float8(COUNT(*))/(SELECT COUNT(*) FROM t) FROM t GROUP BY f1; (Tom) -Allow LOCALE to use indexes in regular expression searches (Tom) -Allow creation of functional indexes to use default types - -Performance ------------ -Prevent exponential space consumption with many AND's and OR's (Tom) -Collect attribute selectivity values for system columns (Tom) -Reduce memory usage of aggregates (Tom) -Fix for LIKE optimization to use indexes with multibyte encodings (Tom) -Fix r-tree index optimizer selectivity (Thomas) -Improve optimizer selectivity computations and functions (Tom) -Optimize btree searching for cases where many equal keys exist (Tom) -Enable fast LIKE index processing only if index present (Tom) -Re-use free space on index pages with duplicates (Tom) -Improve hash join processing (Tom) -Prevent descending sort if result is already sorted(Hiroshi) -Allow commuting of index scan query qualifications (Tom) -Prefer index scans in cases where ORDER BY/GROUP BY is required (Tom) -Allocate large memory requests in fix-sized chunks for performance (Tom) -Fix vacuum's performance by reducing memory allocation requests (Tom) -Implement constant-expression simplification (Bernard Frankpitt, Tom) -Use secondary columns to be used to determine start of index scan (Hiroshi) -Prevent quadruple use of disk space when doing internal sorting (Tom) -Faster sorting by calling fewer functions (Tom) -Create system indexes to match all system caches (Bruce, Hiroshi) -Make system caches use system indexes (Bruce) -Make all system indexes unique (Bruce) -Improve pg_statistics management for VACUUM speed improvement (Tom) -Flush backend cache less frequently (Tom, Hiroshi) -COPY now reuses previous memory allocation, improving performance (Tom) -Improve optimization cost estimation (Tom) -Improve optimizer estimate of range queries x > lowbound AND x < highbound (Tom) -Use DNF instead of CNF where appropriate (Tom, Taral) -Further cleanup for OR-of-AND WHERE-clauses (Tom) -Make use of index in OR clauses (x = 1 AND y = 2) OR (x = 2 AND y = 4) (Tom) -Smarter optimizer computations for random index page access (Tom) -New SET variable to control optimizer costs (Tom) -Optimizer queries based on LIMIT, OFFSET, and EXISTS qualifications (Tom) -Reduce optimizer internal housekeeping of join paths for speedup (Tom) -Major subquery speedup (Tom) -Fewer fsync writes when fsync is not disabled (Tom) -Improved LIKE optimizer estimates (Tom) -Prevent fsync in SELECT-only queries (Vadim) -Make index creation use psort code, because it is now faster (Tom) -Allow creation of sort temp tables > 1 Gig - -Source Tree Changes -------------------- -Fix for linux PPC compile -New generic expression-tree-walker subroutine (Tom) -Change form() to varargform() to prevent portability problems -Improved range checking for large integers on Alphas -Clean up #include in /include directory (Bruce) -Add scripts for checking includes (Bruce) -Remove un-needed #include's from *.c files (Bruce) -Change #include's to use <> and "" as appropriate (Bruce) -Enable Windows compilation of libpq -Alpha spinlock fix from Uncle George <email>gatgul@voicenet.com</email> -Overhaul of optimizer data structures (Tom) -Fix to cygipc library (Yutaka Tanida) -Allow pgsql to work on newer Cygwin snapshots (Dan) -New catalog version number (Tom) -Add Linux ARM -Rename heap_replace to heap_update -Update for QNX (Dr. Andreas Kardos) -New platform-specific regression handling (Tom) -Rename oid8 -> oidvector and int28 -> int2vector (Bruce) -Included all yacc and lex files into the distribution (Peter E.) -Remove lextest, no longer needed (Peter E) -Fix for libpq and psql on Windows (Magnus) -Internally change datetime and timespan into timestamp and interval (Thomas) -Fix for plpgsql on BSD/OS -Add SQL_ASCII test case to the regression test (Tatsuo) -configure --with-mb now deprecated (Tatsuo) -NT fixes -NetBSD fixes (Johnny C. Lam <email>lamj@stat.cmu.edu</email>) -Fixes for Alpha compiles -New multibyte encodings - </programlisting> - </para> - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-6-5-3"> - <title>Release 6.5.3</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>1999-10-13</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This is basically a cleanup release for 6.5.2. We have added a new - <application>PgAccess</> that was missing in 6.5.2, and installed an NT-specific fix. - </para> - - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 6.5.3</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those running - 6.5.*. - </para> - </sect2> - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <para> - <programlisting> -Updated version of pgaccess 0.98 -NT-specific patch -Fix dumping rules on inherited tables - </programlisting> - </para> - </sect2> - </sect1> - - - <sect1 id="release-6-5-2"> - <title>Release 6.5.2</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>1999-09-15</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This is basically a cleanup release for 6.5.1. We have fixed a variety of - problems reported by 6.5.1 users. - </para> - - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 6.5.2</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those running - 6.5.*. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <para> - <programlisting> -subselect+CASE fixes(Tom) -Add SHLIB_LINK setting for solaris_i386 and solaris_sparc ports(Daren Sefcik) -Fixes for CASE in WHERE join clauses(Tom) -Fix BTScan abort(Tom) -Repair the check for redundant UNIQUE and PRIMARY KEY indexes(Thomas) -Improve it so that it checks for multicolumn constraints(Thomas) -Fix for Windows making problem with MB enabled(Hiroki Kataoka) -Allow BSD yacc and bison to compile pl code(Bruce) -Fix SET NAMES working -int8 fixes(Thomas) -Fix vacuum's memory consumption(Hiroshi,Tatsuo) -Reduce the total memory consumption of vacuum(Tom) -Fix for timestamp(datetime) -Rule deparsing bugfixes(Tom) -Fix quoting problems in mkMakefile.tcldefs.sh.in and mkMakefile.tkdefs.sh.in(Tom) -This is to re-use space on index pages freed by vacuum(Vadim) -document -x for pg_dump(Bruce) -Fix for unary operators in rule deparser(Tom) -Comment out FileUnlink of excess segments during mdtruncate()(Tom) -IRIX linking fix from Yu Cao >yucao@falcon.kla-tencor.com< -Repair logic error in LIKE: should not return LIKE_ABORT - when reach end of pattern before end of text(Tom) -Repair incorrect cleanup of heap memory allocation during transaction abort(Tom) -Updated version of pgaccess 0.98 - </programlisting> - </para> - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-6-5-1"> - <title>Release 6.5.1</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>1999-07-15</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This is basically a cleanup release for 6.5. We have fixed a variety of - problems reported by 6.5 users. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 6.5.1</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those running - 6.5. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <para> - <programlisting> -Add NT README file -Portability fixes for linux_ppc, IRIX, linux_alpha, OpenBSD, alpha -Remove QUERY_LIMIT, use SELECT...LIMIT -Fix for EXPLAIN on inheritance(Tom) -Patch to allow vacuum on multisegment tables(Hiroshi) -R-Tree optimizer selectivity fix(Tom) -ACL file descriptor leak fix(Atsushi Ogawa) -New expression subtree code(Tom) -Avoid disk writes for read-only transactions(Vadim) -Fix for removal of temp tables if last transaction was aborted(Bruce) -Fix to prevent too large row from being created(Bruce) -plpgsql fixes -Allow port numbers 32k - 64k(Bruce) -Add ^ precedence(Bruce) -Rename sort files called pg_temp to pg_sorttemp(Bruce) -Fix for microseconds in time values(Tom) -Tutorial source cleanup -New linux_m68k port -Fix for sorting of NULL's in some cases(Tom) -Shared library dependencies fixed (Tom) -Fixed glitches affecting GROUP BY in subselects(Tom) -Fix some compiler warnings (Tomoaki Nishiyama) -Add Win1250 (Czech) support (Pavel Behal) - </programlisting> - </para> - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-6-5"> - <title>Release 6.5</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>1999-06-09</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - This release marks a major step in the development team's mastery of the source - code we inherited from Berkeley. You will see we are now easily adding - major features, thanks to the increasing size and experience of our - world-wide development team. - </para> - - <para> - Here is a brief summary of the more notable changes: - - <variablelist> - <varlistentry> - <term> - Multiversion concurrency control(MVCC) - </term> - <listitem> - <para> - This removes our old table-level locking, and replaces it with - a locking system that is superior to most commercial database - systems. In a traditional system, each row that is modified - is locked until committed, preventing reads by other users. - MVCC uses the natural multiversion nature of - <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> to allow readers to - continue reading consistent data during writer activity. - Writers continue to use the compact pg_log transaction system. - This is all performed without having to allocate a lock for - every row like traditional database systems. So, basically, - we no longer are restricted by simple table-level locking; we - have something better than row-level locking. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Hot backups from <application>pg_dump</application> - </term> - <listitem> - <para> - <application>pg_dump</application> takes advantage of the new - MVCC features to give a consistent database dump/backup while - the database stays online and available for queries. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Numeric data type - </term> - <listitem> - <para> - We now have a true numeric data type, with - user-specified precision. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Temporary tables - </term> - <listitem> - <para> - Temporary tables are guaranteed to have unique names - within a database session, and are destroyed on session exit. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - New SQL features - </term> - <listitem> - <para> - We now have CASE, INTERSECT, and EXCEPT statement - support. We have new LIMIT/OFFSET, SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL, - SELECT ... FOR UPDATE, and an improved LOCK TABLE command. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Speedups - </term> - <listitem> - <para> - We continue to speed up <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>, - thanks to the variety of talents within our team. We have - sped up memory allocation, optimization, table joins, and row - transfer routines. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Ports - </term> - <listitem> - <para> - We continue to expand our port list, this time including - <systemitem class="osname">Windows NT</>/<systemitem>ix86</> and <systemitem class="osname">NetBSD</>/<systemitem>arm32</>. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Interfaces - </term> - <listitem> - <para> - Most interfaces have new versions, and existing functionality - has been improved. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - - <varlistentry> - <term> - Documentation - </term> - <listitem> - <para> - New and updated material is present throughout the - documentation. New <acronym>FAQ</acronym>s have been - contributed for <systemitem class="osname">SGI</> and <systemitem class="osname">AIX</> platforms. - The <citetitle>Tutorial</citetitle> has introductory information - on <acronym>SQL</acronym> from Stefan Simkovics. - For the <citetitle>User's Guide</citetitle>, there are - reference pages covering the postmaster and more utility - programs, and a new appendix - contains details on date/time behavior. - The <citetitle>Administrator's Guide</citetitle> has a new - chapter on troubleshooting from Tom Lane. - And the <citetitle>Programmer's Guide</citetitle> has a - description of query processing, also from Stefan, and details - on obtaining the <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> source - tree via anonymous <productname>CVS</productname> and - <productname>CVSup</productname>. - </para> - </listitem> - </varlistentry> - </variablelist> - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 6.5</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore using <application>pg_dump</application> - is required for those wishing to migrate data from any - previous release of <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>. - <application>pg_upgrade</application> can <emphasis>not</emphasis> - be used to upgrade to this release because the on-disk structure - of the tables has changed compared to previous releases. - </para> - - <para> - The new Multiversion Concurrency Control (MVCC) features can - give somewhat different behaviors in multiuser - environments. <emphasis>Read and understand the following section - to ensure that your existing applications will give you the - behavior you need.</emphasis> - </para> - - <sect3> - <title>Multiversion Concurrency Control</title> - - <para> - Because readers in 6.5 don't lock data, regardless of transaction - isolation level, data read by one transaction can be overwritten by - another. In other words, if a row is returned by - <command>SELECT</command> it doesn't mean that this row really exists - at the time it is returned (i.e. sometime after the statement or - transaction began) nor that the row is protected from being deleted or - updated by concurrent transactions before the current transaction does - a commit or rollback. - </para> - - <para> - To ensure the actual existence of a row and protect it against - concurrent updates one must use <command>SELECT FOR UPDATE</command> or - an appropriate <command>LOCK TABLE</command> statement. This should be - taken into account when porting applications from previous releases of - <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> and other environments. - </para> - - <para> - Keep the above in mind if you are using - <filename>contrib/refint.*</filename> triggers for - referential integrity. Additional techniques are required now. One way is - to use <command>LOCK parent_table IN SHARE ROW EXCLUSIVE MODE</command> - command if a transaction is going to update/delete a primary key and - use <command>LOCK parent_table IN SHARE MODE</command> command if a - transaction is going to update/insert a foreign key. - - <note> - <para> - Note that if you run a transaction in SERIALIZABLE mode then you must - execute the <command>LOCK</command> commands above before execution of any - <acronym>DML</acronym> statement - (<command>SELECT/INSERT/DELETE/UPDATE/FETCH/COPY_TO</command>) in the - transaction. - </para> - </note> - </para> - - <para> - These inconveniences will disappear in the future - when the ability to read dirty - (uncommitted) data (regardless of isolation level) and true referential - integrity will be implemented. - </para> - </sect3> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <para> - <programlisting> -Bug Fixes ---------- -Fix text<->float8 and text<->float4 conversion functions(Thomas) -Fix for creating tables with mixed-case constraints(Billy) -Change exp()/pow() behavior to generate error on underflow/overflow(Jan) -Fix bug in pg_dump -z -Memory overrun cleanups(Tatsuo) -Fix for lo_import crash(Tatsuo) -Adjust handling of data type names to suppress double quotes(Thomas) -Use type coercion for matching columns and DEFAULT(Thomas) -Fix deadlock so it only checks once after one second of sleep(Bruce) -Fixes for aggregates and PL/pgsql(Hiroshi) -Fix for subquery crash(Vadim) -Fix for libpq function PQfnumber and case-insensitive names(Bahman Rafatjoo) -Fix for large object write-in-middle, no extra block, memory consumption(Tatsuo) -Fix for pg_dump -d or -D and quote special characters in INSERT -Repair serious problems with dynahash(Tom) -Fix INET/CIDR portability problems -Fix problem with selectivity error in ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN(Bruce) -Fix executor so mergejoin of different column types works(Tom) -Fix for Alpha OR selectivity bug -Fix OR index selectivity problem(Bruce) -Fix so \d shows proper length for char()/varchar()(Ryan) -Fix tutorial code(Clark) -Improve destroyuser checking(Oliver) -Fix for Kerberos(Rodney McDuff) -Fix for dropping database while dirty buffers(Bruce) -Fix so sequence nextval() can be case-sensitive(Bruce) -Fix !!= operator -Drop buffers before destroying database files(Bruce) -Fix case where executor evaluates functions twice(Tatsuo) -Allow sequence nextval actions to be case-sensitive(Bruce) -Fix optimizer indexing not working for negative numbers(Bruce) -Fix for memory leak in executor with fjIsNull -Fix for aggregate memory leaks(Erik Riedel) -Allow user name containing a dash to grant privileges -Cleanup of NULL in inet types -Clean up system table bugs(Tom) -Fix problems of PAGER and \? command(Masaaki Sakaida) -Reduce default multisegment file size limit to 1GB(Peter) -Fix for dumping of CREATE OPERATOR(Tom) -Fix for backward scanning of cursors(Hiroshi Inoue) -Fix for COPY FROM STDIN when using \i(Tom) -Fix for subselect is compared inside an expression(Jan) -Fix handling of error reporting while returning rows(Tom) -Fix problems with reference to array types(Tom,Jan) -Prevent UPDATE SET oid(Jan) -Fix pg_dump so -t option can handle case-sensitive tablenames -Fixes for GROUP BY in special cases(Tom, Jan) -Fix for memory leak in failed queries(Tom) -DEFAULT now supports mixed-case identifiers(Tom) -Fix for multisegment uses of DROP/RENAME table, indexes(Ole Gjerde) -Disable use of pg_dump with both -o and -d options(Bruce) -Allow pg_dump to properly dump group privileges(Bruce) -Fix GROUP BY in INSERT INTO table SELECT * FROM table2(Jan) -Fix for computations in views(Jan) -Fix for aggregates on array indexes(Tom) -Fix for DEFAULT handles single quotes in value requiring too many quotes -Fix security problem with non-super users importing/exporting large objects(Tom) -Rollback of transaction that creates table cleaned up properly(Tom) -Fix to allow long table and column names to generate proper serial names(Tom) - -Enhancements ------------- -Add "vacuumdb" utility -Speed up libpq by allocating memory better(Tom) -EXPLAIN all indexes used(Tom) -Implement CASE, COALESCE, NULLIF expression(Thomas) -New pg_dump table output format(Constantin) -Add string min()/max() functions(Thomas) -Extend new type coercion techniques to aggregates(Thomas) -New moddatetime contrib(Terry) -Update to pgaccess 0.96(Constantin) -Add routines for single-byte "char" type(Thomas) -Improved substr() function(Thomas) -Improved multibyte handling(Tatsuo) -Multiversion concurrency control/MVCC(Vadim) -New Serialized mode(Vadim) -Fix for tables over 2gigs(Peter) -New SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL(Vadim) -New LOCK TABLE IN ... MODE(Vadim) -Update ODBC driver(Byron) -New NUMERIC data type(Jan) -New SELECT FOR UPDATE(Vadim) -Handle "NaN" and "Infinity" for input values(Jan) -Improved date/year handling(Thomas) -Improved handling of backend connections(Magnus) -New options ELOG_TIMESTAMPS and USE_SYSLOG options for log files(Massimo) -New TCL_ARRAYS option(Massimo) -New INTERSECT and EXCEPT(Stefan) -New pg_index.indisprimary for primary key tracking(D'Arcy) -New pg_dump option to allow dropping of tables before creation(Brook) -Speedup of row output routines(Tom) -New READ COMMITTED isolation level(Vadim) -New TEMP tables/indexes(Bruce) -Prevent sorting if result is already sorted(Jan) -New memory allocation optimization(Jan) -Allow psql to do \p\g(Bruce) -Allow multiple rule actions(Jan) -Added LIMIT/OFFSET functionality(Jan) -Improve optimizer when joining a large number of tables(Bruce) -New intro to SQL from S. Simkovics' Master's Thesis (Stefan, Thomas) -New intro to backend processing from S. Simkovics' Master's Thesis (Stefan) -Improved int8 support(Ryan Bradetich, Thomas, Tom) -New routines to convert between int8 and text/varchar types(Thomas) -New bushy plans, where meta-tables are joined(Bruce) -Enable right-hand queries by default(Bruce) -Allow reliable maximum number of backends to be set at configure time - (--with-maxbackends and postmaster switch (-N backends))(Tom) -GEQO default now 10 tables because of optimizer speedups(Tom) -Allow NULL=Var for MS-SQL portability(Michael, Bruce) -Modify contrib check_primary_key() so either "automatic" or "dependent"(Anand) -Allow psql \d on a view show query(Ryan) -Speedup for LIKE(Bruce) -Ecpg fixes/features, see src/interfaces/ecpg/ChangeLog file(Michael) -JDBC fixes/features, see src/interfaces/jdbc/CHANGELOG(Peter) -Make % operator have precedence like /(Bruce) -Add new postgres -O option to allow system table structure changes(Bruce) -Update contrib/pginterface/findoidjoins script(Tom) -Major speedup in vacuum of deleted rows with indexes(Vadim) -Allow non-SQL functions to run different versions based on arguments(Tom) -Add -E option that shows actual queries sent by \dt and friends(Masaaki Sakaida) -Add version number in start-up banners for psql(Masaaki Sakaida) -New contrib/vacuumlo removes large objects not referenced(Peter) -New initialization for table sizes so non-vacuumed tables perform better(Tom) -Improve error messages when a connection is rejected(Tom) -Support for arrays of char() and varchar() fields(Massimo) -Overhaul of hash code to increase reliability and performance(Tom) -Update to PyGreSQL 2.4(D'Arcy) -Changed debug options so -d4 and -d5 produce different node displays(Jan) -New pg_options: pretty_plan, pretty_parse, pretty_rewritten(Jan) -Better optimization statistics for system table access(Tom) -Better handling of non-default block sizes(Massimo) -Improve GEQO optimizer memory consumption(Tom) -UNION now supports ORDER BY of columns not in target list(Jan) -Major libpq++ improvements(Vince Vielhaber) -pg_dump now uses -z(ACL's) as default(Bruce) -backend cache, memory speedups(Tom) -have pg_dump do everything in one snapshot transaction(Vadim) -fix for large object memory leakage, fix for pg_dumping(Tom) -INET type now respects netmask for comparisons -Make VACUUM ANALYZE only use a readlock(Vadim) -Allow VIEWs on UNIONS(Jan) -pg_dump now can generate consistent snapshots on active databases(Vadim) - -Source Tree Changes -------------------- -Improve port matching(Tom) -Portability fixes for SunOS -Add Windows NT backend port and enable dynamic loading(Magnus and Daniel Horak) -New port to Cobalt Qube(Mips) running Linux(Tatsuo) -Port to NetBSD/m68k(Mr. Mutsuki Nakajima) -Port to NetBSD/sun3(Mr. Mutsuki Nakajima) -Port to NetBSD/macppc(Toshimi Aoki) -Fix for tcl/tk configuration(Vince) -Removed CURRENT key word for rule queries(Jan) -NT dynamic loading now works(Daniel Horak) -Add ARM32 support(Andrew McMurry) -Better support for HP-UX 11 and UnixWare -Improve file handling to be more uniform, prevent file descriptor leak(Tom) -New install commands for plpgsql(Jan) - </programlisting> - </para> - </sect2> - </sect1> - - -<sect1 id="release-6-4-2"> -<title>Release 6.4.2</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>1998-12-20</simpara> - </note> - -<para> -The 6.4.1 release was improperly packaged. This also has one additional -bug fix. -</para> - - -<sect2> -<title>Migration to Version 6.4.2</title> - -<para> -A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those running -6.4.*. -</para> -</sect2> -<sect2> -<title>Changes</title> - -<para> -<programlisting> -Fix for datetime constant problem on some platforms(Thomas) -</programlisting> -</para> -</sect2> -</sect1> - - - -<sect1 id="release-6-4-1"> -<title>Release 6.4.1</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>1998-12-18</simpara> - </note> - -<para> -This is basically a cleanup release for 6.4. We have fixed a variety of -problems reported by 6.4 users. -</para> - - -<sect2> -<title>Migration to Version 6.4.1</title> - -<para> -A dump/restore is <emphasis>not</emphasis> required for those running -6.4. -</para> -</sect2> -<sect2> -<title>Changes</title> - -<para> -<programlisting> -Add pg_dump -N flag to force double quotes around identifiers. This is - the default(Thomas) -Fix for NOT in where clause causing crash(Bruce) -EXPLAIN VERBOSE coredump fix(Vadim) -Fix shared-library problems on Linux -Fix test for table existence to allow mixed-case and whitespace in - the table name(Thomas) -Fix a couple of pg_dump bugs -Configure matches template/.similar entries better(Tom) -Change builtin function names from SPI_* to spi_* -OR WHERE clause fix(Vadim) -Fixes for mixed-case table names(Billy) -contrib/linux/postgres.init.csh/sh fix(Thomas) -libpq memory overrun fix -SunOS fixes(Tom) -Change exp() behavior to generate error on underflow(Thomas) -pg_dump fixes for memory leak, inheritance constraints, layout change -update pgaccess to 0.93 -Fix prototype for 64-bit platforms -Multibyte fixes(Tatsuo) -New ecpg man page -Fix memory overruns(Tatsuo) -Fix for lo_import() crash(Bruce) -Better search for install program(Tom) -Timezone fixes(Tom) -HP-UX fixes(Tom) -Use implicit type coercion for matching DEFAULT values(Thomas) -Add routines to help with single-byte (internal) character type(Thomas) -Compilation of libpq for Windows fixes(Magnus) -Upgrade to PyGreSQL 2.2(D'Arcy) -</programlisting> -</para> -</sect2> -</sect1> - - - -<sect1 id="release-6-4"> -<title>Release 6.4</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>1998-10-30</simpara> - </note> - -<para> -There are <emphasis>many</emphasis> new features and improvements in this release. -Thanks to our developers and maintainers, nearly every aspect of the system -has received some attention since the previous release. -Here is a brief, incomplete summary: - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem> -<para> -Views and rules are now functional thanks to extensive new code in the -rewrite rules system from Jan Wieck. He also wrote a chapter on it -for the <citetitle>Programmer's Guide</citetitle>. -</para> -</listitem> -<listitem> -<para> -Jan also contributed a second procedural language, <application>PL/pgSQL</application>, to go with the -original <application>PL/pgTCL</application> procedural language he contributed last release. -</para> -</listitem> - -<listitem> -<para> -We have optional multiple-byte character set support from Tatsuo Ishii -to complement our existing locale support. -</para> -</listitem> - -<listitem> -<para> -Client/server communications has been cleaned up, with better support for -asynchronous messages and interrupts thanks to Tom Lane. -</para> -</listitem> - -<listitem> -<para> -The parser will now perform automatic type coercion to match arguments -to available operators and functions, and to match columns and expressions -with target columns. This uses a generic mechanism which supports -the type extensibility features of <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>. -There is a new chapter in the <citetitle>User's Guide</citetitle> -which covers this topic. -</para> -</listitem> - -<listitem> -<para> -Three new data types have been added. -Two types, <type>inet</type> and <type>cidr</type>, support various forms -of IP network, subnet, and machine addressing. There is now an 8-byte integer -type available on some platforms. See the chapter on data types -in the <citetitle>User's Guide</citetitle> for details. -A fourth type, <type>serial</type>, is now supported by the parser as an -amalgam of the <type>int4</type> type, a sequence, and a unique index. -</para> -</listitem> - -<listitem> -<para> -Several more <acronym>SQL92</acronym>-compatible syntax features have been -added, including <command>INSERT DEFAULT VALUES</command> -</para> -</listitem> - -<listitem> -<para> -The automatic configuration and installation system has received some -attention, and should be more robust for more platforms than it has ever -been. -</para> -</listitem> - -</itemizedlist> -</para> - -<sect2> -<title>Migration to Version 6.4</title> - -<para> -A dump/restore using <application>pg_dump</application> -or <application>pg_dumpall</application> -is required for those wishing to migrate data from any -previous release of <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>. -</para> -</sect2> - - <sect2> -<title>Changes</title> - - <para> - <programlisting> -Bug Fixes ---------- -Fix for a tiny memory leak in PQsetdb/PQfinish(Bryan) -Remove char2-16 data types, use char/varchar(Darren) -Pqfn not handles a NOTICE message(Anders) -Reduced busywaiting overhead for spinlocks with many backends (dg) -Stuck spinlock detection (dg) -Fix up "ISO-style" timespan decoding and encoding(Thomas) -Fix problem with table drop after rollback of transaction(Vadim) -Change error message and remove non-functional update message(Vadim) -Fix for COPY array checking -Fix for SELECT 1 UNION SELECT NULL -Fix for buffer leaks in large object calls(Pascal) -Change owner from oid to int4 type(Bruce) -Fix a bug in the oracle compatibility functions btrim() ltrim() and rtrim() -Fix for shared invalidation cache overflow(Massimo) -Prevent file descriptor leaks in failed COPY's(Bruce) -Fix memory leak in libpgtcl's pg_select(Constantin) -Fix problems with username/passwords over 8 characters(Tom) -Fix problems with handling of asynchronous NOTIFY in backend(Tom) -Fix of many bad system table entries(Tom) - -Enhancements ------------- -Upgrade ecpg and ecpglib,see src/interfaces/ecpc/ChangeLog(Michael) -Show the index used in an EXPLAIN(Zeugswetter) -EXPLAIN invokes rule system and shows plan(s) for rewritten queries(Jan) -Multibyte awareness of many data types and functions, via configure(Tatsuo) -New configure --with-mb option(Tatsuo) -New initdb --pgencoding option(Tatsuo) -New createdb -E multibyte option(Tatsuo) -Select version(); now returns PostgreSQL version(Jeroen) -libpq now allows asynchronous clients(Tom) -Allow cancel from client of backend query(Tom) -psql now cancels query with Control-C(Tom) -libpq users need not issue dummy queries to get NOTIFY messages(Tom) -NOTIFY now sends sender's PID, so you can tell whether it was your own(Tom) -PGresult struct now includes associated error message, if any(Tom) -Define "tz_hour" and "tz_minute" arguments to date_part()(Thomas) -Add routines to convert between varchar and bpchar(Thomas) -Add routines to allow sizing of varchar and bpchar into target columns(Thomas) -Add bit flags to support timezonehour and minute in data retrieval(Thomas) -Allow more variations on valid floating point numbers (e.g. ".1", "1e6")(Thomas) -Fixes for unary minus parsing with leading spaces(Thomas) -Implement TIMEZONE_HOUR, TIMEZONE_MINUTE per SQL92 specs(Thomas) -Check for and properly ignore FOREIGN KEY column constraints(Thomas) -Define USER as synonym for CURRENT_USER per SQL92 specs(Thomas) -Enable HAVING clause but no fixes elsewhere yet. -Make "char" type a synonym for "char(1)" (actually implemented as bpchar)(Thomas) -Save string type if specified for DEFAULT clause handling(Thomas) -Coerce operations involving different data types(Thomas) -Allow some index use for columns of different types(Thomas) -Add capabilities for automatic type conversion(Thomas) -Cleanups for large objects, so file is truncated on open(Peter) -Readline cleanups(Tom) -Allow psql \f \ to make spaces as delimiter(Bruce) -Pass pg_attribute.atttypmod to the frontend for column field lengths(Tom,Bruce) -Msql compatibility library in /contrib(Aldrin) -Remove the requirement that ORDER/GROUP BY clause identifiers be -included in the target list(David) -Convert columns to match columns in UNION clauses(Thomas) -Remove fork()/exec() and only do fork()(Bruce) -Jdbc cleanups(Peter) -Show backend status on ps command line(only works on some platforms)(Bruce) -Pg_hba.conf now has a sameuser option in the database field -Make lo_unlink take oid param, not int4 -New DISABLE_COMPLEX_MACRO for compilers that cannot handle our macros(Bruce) -Libpgtcl now handles NOTIFY as a Tcl event, need not send dummy queries(Tom) -libpgtcl cleanups(Tom) -Add -error option to libpgtcl's pg_result command(Tom) -New locale patch, see docs/README/locale(Oleg) -Fix for pg_dump so CONSTRAINT and CHECK syntax is correct(ccb) -New contrib/lo code for large object orphan removal(Peter) -New psql command "SET CLIENT_ENCODING TO 'encoding'" for multibytes -feature, see /doc/README.mb(Tatsuo) -contrib/noupdate code to revoke update permission on a column -libpq can now be compiled on Windows(Magnus) -Add PQsetdbLogin() in libpq -New 8-byte integer type, checked by configure for OS support(Thomas) -Better support for quoted table/column names(Thomas) -Surround table and column names with double-quotes in pg_dump(Thomas) -PQreset() now works with passwords(Tom) -Handle case of GROUP BY target list column number out of range(David) -Allow UNION in subselects -Add auto-size to screen to \d? commands(Bruce) -Use UNION to show all \d? results in one query(Bruce) -Add \d? field search feature(Bruce) -Pg_dump issues fewer \connect requests(Tom) -Make pg_dump -z flag work better, document it in manual page(Tom) -Add HAVING clause with full support for subselects and unions(Stephan) -Full text indexing routines in contrib/fulltextindex(Maarten) -Transaction ids now stored in shared memory(Vadim) -New PGCLIENTENCODING when issuing COPY command(Tatsuo) -Support for SQL92 syntax "SET NAMES"(Tatsuo) -Support for LATIN2-5(Tatsuo) -Add UNICODE regression test case(Tatsuo) -Lock manager cleanup, new locking modes for LLL(Vadim) -Allow index use with OR clauses(Bruce) -Allows "SELECT NULL ORDER BY 1;" -Explain VERBOSE prints the plan, and now pretty-prints the plan to -the postmaster log file(Bruce) -Add indexes display to \d command(Bruce) -Allow GROUP BY on functions(David) -New pg_class.relkind for large objects(Bruce) -New way to send libpq NOTICE messages to a different location(Tom) -New \w write command to psql(Bruce) -New /contrib/findoidjoins scans oid columns to find join relationships(Bruce) -Allow binary-compatible indexes to be considered when checking for valid -Indexes for restriction clauses containing a constant(Thomas) -New ISBN/ISSN code in /contrib/isbn_issn -Allow NOT LIKE, IN, NOT IN, BETWEEN, and NOT BETWEEN constraint(Thomas) -New rewrite system fixes many problems with rules and views(Jan) - * Rules on relations work - * Event qualifications on insert/update/delete work - * New OLD variable to reference CURRENT, CURRENT will be remove in future - * Update rules can reference NEW and OLD in rule qualifications/actions - * Insert/update/delete rules on views work - * Multiple rule actions are now supported, surrounded by parentheses - * Regular users can create views/rules on tables they have RULE permits - * Rules and views inherit the privileges of the creator - * No rules at the column level - * No UPDATE NEW/OLD rules - * New pg_tables, pg_indexes, pg_rules and pg_views system views - * Only a single action on SELECT rules - * Total rewrite overhaul, perhaps for 6.5 - * handle subselects - * handle aggregates on views - * handle insert into select from view works -System indexes are now multikey(Bruce) -Oidint2, oidint4, and oidname types are removed(Bruce) -Use system cache for more system table lookups(Bruce) -New backend programming language PL/pgSQL in backend/pl(Jan) -New SERIAL data type, auto-creates sequence/index(Thomas) -Enable assert checking without a recompile(Massimo) -User lock enhancements(Massimo) -New setval() command to set sequence value(Massimo) -Auto-remove unix socket file on start-up if no postmaster running(Massimo) -Conditional trace package(Massimo) -New UNLISTEN command(Massimo) -psql and libpq now compile under Windows using win32.mak(Magnus) -Lo_read no longer stores trailing NULL(Bruce) -Identifiers are now truncated to 31 characters internally(Bruce) -Createuser options now available on the command line -Code for 64-bit integer supported added, configure tested, int8 type(Thomas) -Prevent file descriptor leaf from failed COPY(Bruce) -New pg_upgrade command(Bruce) -Updated /contrib directories(Massimo) -New CREATE TABLE DEFAULT VALUES statement available(Thomas) -New INSERT INTO TABLE DEFAULT VALUES statement available(Thomas) -New DECLARE and FETCH feature(Thomas) -libpq's internal structures now not exported(Tom) -Allow up to 8 key indexes(Bruce) -Remove ARCHIVE key word, that is no longer used(Thomas) -pg_dump -n flag to suppress quotes around indentifiers -disable system columns for views(Jan) -new INET and CIDR types for network addresses(TomH, Paul) -no more double quotes in psql output -pg_dump now dumps views(Terry) -new SET QUERY_LIMIT(Tatsuo,Jan) - -Source Tree Changes -------------------- -/contrib cleanup(Jun) -Inline some small functions called for every row(Bruce) -Alpha/linux fixes -HP-UX cleanups(Tom) -Multibyte regression tests(Soonmyung.) -Remove --disabled options from configure -Define PGDOC to use POSTGRESDIR by default -Make regression optional -Remove extra braces code to pgindent(Bruce) -Add bsdi shared library support(Bruce) -New --without-CXX support configure option(Brook) -New FAQ_CVS -Update backend flowchart in tools/backend(Bruce) -Change atttypmod from int16 to int32(Bruce, Tom) -Getrusage() fix for platforms that do not have it(Tom) -Add PQconnectdb, PGUSER, PGPASSWORD to libpq man page -NS32K platform fixes(Phil Nelson, John Buller) -SCO 7/UnixWare 2.x fixes(Billy,others) -Sparc/Solaris 2.5 fixes(Ryan) -Pgbuiltin.3 is obsolete, move to doc files(Thomas) -Even more documentation(Thomas) -Nextstep support(Jacek) -Aix support(David) -pginterface manual page(Bruce) -shared libraries all have version numbers -merged all OS-specific shared library defines into one file -smarter TCL/TK configuration checking(Billy) -smarter perl configuration(Brook) -configure uses supplied install-sh if no install script found(Tom) -new Makefile.shlib for shared library configuration(Tom) -</programlisting> -</para> -</sect2> -</sect1> - -<sect1 id="release-6-3-2"> -<title>Release 6.3.2</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>1998-04-07</simpara> - </note> - -<para> -This is a bug-fix release for 6.3.x. -Refer to the release notes for version 6.3 for a more complete summary of new features. -</para> -<para> -Summary: - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem> -<para> -Repairs automatic configuration support for some platforms, including Linux, -from breakage inadvertently introduced in version 6.3.1. -</para> -</listitem> - -<listitem> -<para> -Correctly handles function calls on the left side of BETWEEN and LIKE clauses. -</para> -</listitem> - -</itemizedlist> -</para> -<para> -A dump/restore is NOT required for those running 6.3 or 6.3.1. A -<literal>make distclean</>, <literal>make</>, and <literal>make install</> is all that is required. -This last step should be performed while the postmaster is not running. -You should re-link any custom applications that use <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> libraries. -</para> -<para> -For upgrades from pre-6.3 installations, -refer to the installation and migration instructions for version 6.3. -</para> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <para> - <programlisting> -Configure detection improvements for tcl/tk(Brook Milligan, Alvin) -Manual page improvements(Bruce) -BETWEEN and LIKE fix(Thomas) -fix for psql \connect used by pg_dump(Oliver Elphick) -New odbc driver -pgaccess, version 0.86 -qsort removed, now uses libc version, cleanups(Jeroen) -fix for buffer over-runs detected(Maurice Gittens) -fix for buffer overrun in libpgtcl(Randy Kunkee) -fix for UNION with DISTINCT or ORDER BY(Bruce) -gettimeofday configure check(Doug Winterburn) -Fix "indexes not used" bug(Vadim) -docs additions(Thomas) -Fix for backend memory leak(Bruce) -libreadline cleanup(Erwan MAS) -Remove DISTDIR(Bruce) -Makefile dependency cleanup(Jeroen van Vianen) -ASSERT fixes(Bruce) - </programlisting> - </para> - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-6-3-1"> - <title>Release 6.3.1</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>1998-03-23</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - Summary: - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem> -<para> -Additional support for multibyte character sets. -</para> -</listitem> - -<listitem> -<para> -Repair byte ordering for mixed-endian clients and servers. -</para> -</listitem> - -<listitem> -<para> -Minor updates to allowed SQL syntax. -</para> -</listitem> - -<listitem> -<para> -Improvements to the configuration autodetection for installation. -</para> -</listitem> - -</itemizedlist> -</para> -<para> -A dump/restore is NOT required for those running 6.3. A -<literal>make distclean</>, <literal>make</>, and <literal>make install</> is all that is required. -This last step should be performed while the postmaster is not running. -You should re-link any custom applications that use <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> libraries. -</para> -<para> -For upgrades from pre-6.3 installations, -refer to the installation and migration instructions for version 6.3. -</para> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <para> - <programlisting> -ecpg cleanup/fixes, now version 1.1(Michael Meskes) -pg_user cleanup(Bruce) -large object fix for pg_dump and tclsh (alvin) -LIKE fix for multiple adjacent underscores -fix for redefining builtin functions(Thomas) -ultrix4 cleanup -upgrade to pg_access 0.83 -updated CLUSTER manual page -multibyte character set support, see doc/README.mb(Tatsuo) -configure --with-pgport fix -pg_ident fix -big-endian fix for backend communications(Kataoka) -SUBSTR() and substring() fix(Jan) -several jdbc fixes(Peter) -libpgtcl improvements, see libptcl/README(Randy Kunkee) -Fix for "Datasize = 0" error(Vadim) -Prevent \do from wrapping(Bruce) -Remove duplicate Russian character set entries -Sunos4 cleanup -Allow optional TABLE key word in LOCK and SELECT INTO(Thomas) -CREATE SEQUENCE options to allow a negative integer(Thomas) -Add "PASSWORD" as an allowed column identifier(Thomas) -Add checks for UNION target fields(Bruce) -Fix Alpha port(Dwayne Bailey) -Fix for text arrays containing quotes(Doug Gibson) -Solaris compile fix(Albert Chin-A-Young) -Better identify tcl and tk libs and includes(Bruce) - </programlisting> - </para> - </sect2> - </sect1> - - <sect1 id="release-6-3"> - <title>Release 6.3</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>1998-03-01</simpara> - </note> - - <para> - There are <emphasis>many</emphasis> new features and improvements in this release. - Here is a brief, incomplete summary: - - <itemizedlist> - <listitem> - <para> - Many new SQL features, including - full <acronym>SQL92</acronym> subselect capability - (everything is here but target-list subselects). - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Support for client-side environment variables to specify time zone and date style. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Socket interface for client/server connection. This is the default now - so you might need to start <application>postmaster</application> with the - <option>-i</option> flag. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Better password authorization mechanisms. Default table privileges have changed. - </para> - </listitem> - - <listitem> - <para> - Old-style <firstterm>time travel</firstterm> - has been removed. Performance has been improved. - </para> - </listitem> - </itemizedlist> - </para> - - <note> - <para> - Bruce Momjian wrote the following notes to introduce the new release. - </para> - </note> - - <para> - There are some general 6.3 issues that I want to mention. These are - only the big items that cannot be described in one sentence. A review - of the detailed changes list is still needed. - </para> - <para> - First, we now have subselects. Now that we have them, I would like to - mention that without subselects, SQL is a very limited language. - Subselects are a major feature, and you should review your code for - places where subselects provide a better solution for your queries. I - think you will find that there are more uses for subselects than you might - think. Vadim has put us on the big SQL map with subselects, and fully - functional ones too. The only thing you cannot do with subselects is to - use them in the target list. - </para> - <para> - Second, 6.3 uses Unix domain sockets rather than TCP/IP by default. To - enable connections from other machines, you have to use the new - postmaster -i option, and of course edit <filename>pg_hba.conf</filename>. Also, for this - reason, the format of <filename>pg_hba.conf</filename> has changed. - </para> - <para> - Third, <type>char()</type> fields will now allow faster access than <type>varchar()</type> or - <type>text</type>. Specifically, the <type>text</> and <type>varchar()</type> have a penalty for access to - any columns after the first column of this type. <type>char()</type> used to also - have this access penalty, but it no longer does. This might suggest that - you redesign some of your tables, especially if you have short character - columns that you have defined as <type>varchar()</type> or <type>text</type>. This and other - changes make 6.3 even faster than earlier releases. - </para> - <para> - We now have passwords definable independent of any Unix file. There are - new SQL USER commands. - See the <citetitle>Administrator's Guide</citetitle> for more - information. There is a new table, pg_shadow, which is used to store - user information and user passwords, and it by default only SELECT-able - by the <systemitem>postgres</systemitem> super-user. pg_user is now a view of pg_shadow, and is - SELECT-able by PUBLIC. You should keep using pg_user in your - application without changes. - </para> - <para> - User-created tables now no longer have SELECT privilege to PUBLIC by - default. This was done because the ANSI standard requires it. You can - of course GRANT any privileges you want after the table is created. - System tables continue to be SELECT-able by PUBLIC. - </para> - <para> - We also have real deadlock detection code. No more sixty-second - timeouts. And the new locking code implements a <acronym>FIFO</acronym> better, so there - should be less resource starvation during heavy use. - </para> - <para> - Many complaints have been made about inadequate documentation in previous - releases. Thomas has put much effort into many new manuals for this - release. Check out the doc/ directory. - </para> - <para> - For performance reasons, time travel is gone, but can be implemented - using triggers (see <filename>pgsql/contrib/spi/README</filename>). Please check out the new - \d command for types, operators, etc. Also, views have their own - privileges now, not based on the underlying tables, so privileges on - them have to be set separately. Check <filename>/pgsql/interfaces</filename> for some new - ways to talk to <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>. - </para> - <para> - This is the first release that really required an explanation for - existing users. In many ways, this was necessary because the new - release removes many limitations, and the work-arounds people were using - are no longer needed. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Migration to Version 6.3</title> - - <para> - A dump/restore using <application>pg_dump</application> - or <application>pg_dumpall</application> - is required for those wishing to migrate data from any - previous release of <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>. - </para> - </sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <para> - <programlisting> -Bug Fixes ---------- -Fix binary cursors broken by MOVE implementation(Vadim) -Fix for tcl library crash(Jan) -Fix for array handling, from Gerhard Hintermayer -Fix acl error, and remove duplicate pqtrace(Bruce) -Fix psql \e for empty file(Bruce) -Fix for textcat on varchar() fields(Bruce) -Fix for DBT Sendproc (Zeugswetter Andres) -Fix vacuum analyze syntax problem(Bruce) -Fix for international identifiers(Tatsuo) -Fix aggregates on inherited tables(Bruce) -Fix substr() for out-of-bounds data -Fix for select 1=1 or 2=2, select 1=1 and 2=2, and select sum(2+2)(Bruce) -Fix notty output to show status result. -q option still turns it off(Bruce) -Fix for count(*), aggs with views and multiple tables and sum(3)(Bruce) -Fix cluster(Bruce) -Fix for PQtrace start/stop several times(Bruce) -Fix a variety of locking problems like newer lock waiters getting - lock before older waiters, and having readlock people not share - locks if a writer is waiting for a lock, and waiting writers not - getting priority over waiting readers(Bruce) -Fix crashes in psql when executing queries from external files(James) -Fix problem with multiple order by columns, with the first one having - NULL values(Jeroen) -Use correct hash table support functions for float8 and int4(Thomas) -Re-enable JOIN= option in CREATE OPERATOR statement (Thomas) -Change precedence for boolean operators to match expected behavior(Thomas) -Generate elog(ERROR) on over-large integer(Bruce) -Allow multiple-argument functions in constraint clauses(Thomas) -Check boolean input literals for 'true','false','yes','no','1','0' - and throw elog(ERROR) if unrecognized(Thomas) -Major large objects fix -Fix for GROUP BY showing duplicates(Vadim) -Fix for index scans in MergeJoin(Vadim) - -Enhancements ------------- -Subselects with EXISTS, IN, ALL, ANY key words (Vadim, Bruce, Thomas) -New User Manual(Thomas, others) -Speedup by inlining some frequently-called functions -Real deadlock detection, no more timeouts(Bruce) -Add SQL92 "constants" CURRENT_DATE, CURRENT_TIME, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, - CURRENT_USER(Thomas) -Modify constraint syntax to be SQL92-compliant(Thomas) -Implement SQL92 PRIMARY KEY and UNIQUE clauses using indexes(Thomas) -Recognize SQL92 syntax for FOREIGN KEY. Throw elog notice(Thomas) -Allow NOT NULL UNIQUE constraint clause (each allowed separately before)(Thomas) -Allow PostgreSQL-style casting ("::") of non-constants(Thomas) -Add support for SQL3 TRUE and FALSE boolean constants(Thomas) -Support SQL92 syntax for IS TRUE/IS FALSE/IS NOT TRUE/IS NOT FALSE(Thomas) -Allow shorter strings for boolean literals (e.g. "t", "tr", "tru")(Thomas) -Allow SQL92 delimited identifiers(Thomas) -Implement SQL92 binary and hexadecimal string decoding (b'10' and x'1F')(Thomas) -Support SQL92 syntax for type coercion of literal strings - (e.g. "DATETIME 'now'")(Thomas) -Add conversions for int2, int4, and OID types to and from text(Thomas) -Use shared lock when building indexes(Vadim) -Free memory allocated for an user query inside transaction block after - this query is done, was turned off in <= 6.2.1(Vadim) -New SQL statement CREATE PROCEDURAL LANGUAGE(Jan) -New <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> Procedural Language (PL) backend interface(Jan) -Rename pg_dump -H option to -h(Bruce) -Add Java support for passwords, European dates(Peter) -Use indexes for LIKE and ~, !~ operations(Bruce) -Add hash functions for datetime and timespan(Thomas) -Time Travel removed(Vadim, Bruce) -Add paging for \d and \z, and fix \i(Bruce) -Add Unix domain socket support to backend and to frontend library(Goran) -Implement CREATE DATABASE/WITH LOCATION and initlocation utility(Thomas) -Allow more SQL92 and/or <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> reserved words as column identifiers(Thomas) -Augment support for SQL92 SET TIME ZONE...(Thomas) -SET/SHOW/RESET TIME ZONE uses TZ backend environment variable(Thomas) -Implement SET keyword = DEFAULT and SET TIME ZONE DEFAULT(Thomas) -Enable SET TIME ZONE using TZ environment variable(Thomas) -Add PGDATESTYLE environment variable to frontend and backend initialization(Thomas) -Add PGTZ, PGCOSTHEAP, PGCOSTINDEX, PGRPLANS, PGGEQO - frontend library initialization environment variables(Thomas) -Regression tests time zone automatically set with "setenv PGTZ PST8PDT"(Thomas) -Add pg_description table for info on tables, columns, operators, types, and - aggregates(Bruce) -Increase 16 char limit on system table/index names to 32 characters(Bruce) -Rename system indexes(Bruce) -Add 'GERMAN' option to SET DATESTYLE(Thomas) -Define an "ISO-style" timespan output format with "hh:mm:ss" fields(Thomas) -Allow fractional values for delta times (e.g. '2.5 days')(Thomas) -Validate numeric input more carefully for delta times(Thomas) -Implement day of year as possible input to date_part()(Thomas) -Define timespan_finite() and text_timespan() functions(Thomas) -Remove archive stuff(Bruce) -Allow for a pg_password authentication database that is separate from - the system password file(Todd) -Dump ACLs, GRANT, REVOKE privileges(Matt) -Define text, varchar, and bpchar string length functions(Thomas) -Fix Query handling for inheritance, and cost computations(Bruce) -Implement CREATE TABLE/AS SELECT (alternative to SELECT/INTO)(Thomas) -Allow NOT, IS NULL, IS NOT NULL in constraints(Thomas) -Implement UNIONs for SELECT(Bruce) -Add UNION, GROUP, DISTINCT to INSERT(Bruce) -varchar() stores only necessary bytes on disk(Bruce) -Fix for BLOBs(Peter) -Mega-Patch for JDBC...see README_6.3 for list of changes(Peter) -Remove unused "option" from PQconnectdb() -New LOCK command and lock manual page describing deadlocks(Bruce) -Add new psql \da, \dd, \df, \do, \dS, and \dT commands(Bruce) -Enhance psql \z to show sequences(Bruce) -Show NOT NULL and DEFAULT in psql \d table(Bruce) -New psql .psqlrc file start-up(Andrew) -Modify sample start-up script in contrib/linux to show syslog(Thomas) -New types for IP and MAC addresses in contrib/ip_and_mac(TomH) -Unix system time conversions with date/time types in contrib/unixdate(Thomas) -Update of contrib stuff(Massimo) -Add Unix socket support to DBD::Pg(Goran) -New python interface (PyGreSQL 2.0)(D'Arcy) -New frontend/backend protocol has a version number, network byte order(Phil) -Security features in pg_hba.conf enhanced and documented, many cleanups(Phil) -CHAR() now faster access than VARCHAR() or TEXT -ecpg embedded SQL preprocessor -Reduce system column overhead(Vadmin) -Remove pg_time table(Vadim) -Add pg_type attribute to identify types that need length (bpchar, varchar) -Add report of offending line when COPY command fails -Allow VIEW privileges to be set separately from the underlying tables. - For security, use GRANT/REVOKE on views as appropriate(Jan) -Tables now have no default GRANT SELECT TO PUBLIC. You must - explicitly grant such privileges. -Clean up tutorial examples(Darren) - -Source Tree Changes -------------------- -Add new html development tools, and flow chart in /tools/backend -Fix for SCO compiles -Stratus computer port Robert Gillies -Added support for shlib for BSD44_derived & i386_solaris -Make configure more automated(Brook) -Add script to check regression test results -Break parser functions into smaller files, group together(Bruce) -Rename heap_create to heap_create_and_catalog, rename heap_creatr - to heap_create()(Bruce) -Sparc/Linux patch for locking(TomS) -Remove PORTNAME and reorganize port-specific stuff(Marc) -Add optimizer README file(Bruce) -Remove some recursion in optimizer and clean up some code there(Bruce) -Fix for NetBSD locking(Henry) -Fix for libptcl make(Tatsuo) -AIX patch(Darren) -Change IS TRUE, IS FALSE, ... to expressions using "=" rather than - function calls to istrue() or isfalse() to allow optimization(Thomas) -Various fixes NetBSD/Sparc related(TomH) -Alpha linux locking(Travis,Ryan) -Change elog(WARN) to elog(ERROR)(Bruce) -FAQ for FreeBSD(Marc) -Bring in the PostODBC source tree as part of our standard distribution(Marc) -A minor patch for HP/UX 10 vs 9(Stan) -New pg_attribute.atttypmod for type-specific info like varchar length(Bruce) -UnixWare patches(Billy) -New i386 'lock' for spinlock asm(Billy) -Support for multiplexed backends is removed -Start an OpenBSD port -Start an AUX port -Start a Cygnus port -Add string functions to regression suite(Thomas) -Expand a few function names formerly truncated to 16 characters(Thomas) -Remove un-needed malloc() calls and replace with palloc()(Bruce) -</programlisting> -</para> -</sect2> -</sect1> - -<sect1 id="release-6-2-1"> -<title>Release 6.2.1</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>1997-10-17</simpara> - </note> - -<para> -6.2.1 is a bug-fix and usability release on 6.2. -</para> -<para> -Summary: - -<itemizedlist> -<listitem> -<para> -Allow strings to span lines, per <acronym>SQL92</acronym>. -</para> -</listitem> - -<listitem> -<para> -Include example trigger function for inserting user names on table updates. -</para> -</listitem> - -</itemizedlist> -</para> -<para> -This is a minor bug-fix release on 6.2. -For upgrades from pre-6.2 systems, a full dump/reload is required. -Refer to the 6.2 release notes for instructions. -</para> - -<sect2> -<title>Migration from version 6.2 to version 6.2.1</title> - -<para> -This is a minor bug-fix release. A dump/reload is not required from version 6.2, -but is required from any release prior to 6.2. -</para> -<para> -In upgrading from version 6.2, if you choose to dump/reload you will find that -avg(money) is now calculated correctly. All other bug fixes take effect -upon updating the executables. -</para> -<para> -Another way to avoid dump/reload is to use the following SQL command -from <command>psql</command> to update the existing system table: - -<programlisting> - update pg_aggregate set aggfinalfn = 'cash_div_flt8' - where aggname = 'avg' and aggbasetype = 790; -</programlisting> -</para> -<para> -This will need to be done to every existing database, including template1. -</para> -</sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <para> - <programlisting> -Allow TIME and TYPE column names(Thomas) -Allow larger range of true/false as boolean values(Thomas) -Support output of "now" and "current"(Thomas) -Handle DEFAULT with INSERT of NULL properly(Vadim) -Fix for relation reference counts problem in buffer manager(Vadim) -Allow strings to span lines, like ANSI(Thomas) -Fix for backward cursor with ORDER BY(Vadim) -Fix avg(cash) computation(Thomas) -Fix for specifying a column twice in ORDER/GROUP BY(Vadim) -Documented new libpq function to return affected rows, PQcmdTuples(Bruce) -Trigger function for inserting user names for INSERT/UPDATE(Brook Milligan) - </programlisting> - </para> - </sect2> - </sect1> - -<sect1 id="release-6-2"> -<title>Release 6.2</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>1997-10-02</simpara> - </note> - -<para> -A dump/restore is required for those wishing to migrate data from -previous releases of <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>. -</para> - -<sect2> -<title>Migration from version 6.1 to version 6.2</title> - -<para> -This migration requires a complete dump of the 6.1 database and a -restore of the database in 6.2. -</para> -<para> -Note that the <command>pg_dump</command> and <command>pg_dumpall</command> utility from 6.2 should be used -to dump the 6.1 database. -</para> -</sect2> - -<sect2> -<title>Migration from version 1.<replaceable>x</> to version 6.2</title> - -<para> -Those migrating from earlier 1.* releases should first upgrade to 1.09 -because the COPY output format was improved from the 1.02 release. -</para> -</sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <para> - <programlisting> -Bug Fixes ---------- -Fix problems with pg_dump for inheritance, sequences, archive tables(Bruce) -Fix compile errors on overflow due to shifts, unsigned, and bad prototypes - from Solaris(Diab Jerius) -Fix bugs in geometric line arithmetic (bad intersection calculations)(Thomas) -Check for geometric intersections at endpoints to avoid rounding ugliness(Thomas) -Catch non-functional delete attempts(Vadim) -Change time function names to be more consistent(Michael Reifenberg) -Check for zero divides(Michael Reifenberg) -Fix very old bug which made rows changed/inserted by a command - visible to the command itself (so we had multiple update of - updated rows, etc.)(Vadim) -Fix for SELECT null, 'fail' FROM pg_am (Patrick) -SELECT NULL as EMPTY_FIELD now allowed(Patrick) -Remove un-needed signal stuff from contrib/pginterface -Fix OR (where x != 1 or x isnull didn't return rows with x NULL) (Vadim) -Fix time_cmp function (Vadim) -Fix handling of functions with non-attribute first argument in - WHERE clauses (Vadim) -Fix GROUP BY when order of entries is different from order - in target list (Vadim) -Fix pg_dump for aggregates without sfunc1 (Vadim) - -Enhancements ------------- -Default genetic optimizer GEQO parameter is now 8(Bruce) -Allow use parameters in target list having aggregates in functions(Vadim) -Added JDBC driver as an interface(Adrian & Peter) -pg_password utility -Return number of rows inserted/affected by INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE etc.(Vadim) -Triggers implemented with CREATE TRIGGER (SQL3)(Vadim) -SPI (Server Programming Interface) allows execution of queries inside - C-functions (Vadim) -NOT NULL implemented (SQL92)(Robson Paniago de Miranda) -Include reserved words for string handling, outer joins, and unions(Thomas) -Implement extended comments ("/* ... */") using exclusive states(Thomas) -Add "//" single-line comments(Bruce) -Remove some restrictions on characters in operator names(Thomas) -DEFAULT and CONSTRAINT for tables implemented (SQL92)(Vadim & Thomas) -Add text concatenation operator and function (SQL92)(Thomas) -Support WITH TIME ZONE syntax (SQL92)(Thomas) -Support INTERVAL unit TO unit syntax (SQL92)(Thomas) -Define types DOUBLE PRECISION, INTERVAL, CHARACTER, - and CHARACTER VARYING (SQL92)(Thomas) -Define type FLOAT(p) and rudimentary DECIMAL(p,s), NUMERIC(p,s) (SQL92)(Thomas) -Define EXTRACT(), POSITION(), SUBSTRING(), and TRIM() (SQL92)(Thomas) -Define CURRENT_DATE, CURRENT_TIME, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP (SQL92)(Thomas) -Add syntax and warnings for UNION, HAVING, INNER and OUTER JOIN (SQL92)(Thomas) -Add more reserved words, mostly for SQL92 compliance(Thomas) -Allow hh:mm:ss time entry for timespan/reltime types(Thomas) -Add center() routines for lseg, path, polygon(Thomas) -Add distance() routines for circle-polygon, polygon-polygon(Thomas) -Check explicitly for points and polygons contained within polygons - using an axis-crossing algorithm(Thomas) -Add routine to convert circle-box(Thomas) -Merge conflicting operators for different geometric data types(Thomas) -Replace distance operator "<===>" with "<->"(Thomas) -Replace "above" operator "!^" with ">^" and "below" operator "!|" with "<^"(Thomas) -Add routines for text trimming on both ends, substring, and string position(Thomas) -Added conversion routines circle(box) and poly(circle)(Thomas) -Allow internal sorts to be stored in memory rather than in files(Bruce & Vadim) -Allow functions and operators on internally-identical types to succeed(Bruce) -Speed up backend start-up after profiling analysis(Bruce) -Inline frequently called functions for performance(Bruce) -Reduce open() calls(Bruce) -psql: Add PAGER for \h and \?,\C fix -Fix for psql pager when no tty(Bruce) -New entab utility(Bruce) -General trigger functions for referential integrity (Vadim) -General trigger functions for time travel (Vadim) -General trigger functions for AUTOINCREMENT/IDENTITY feature (Vadim) -MOVE implementation (Vadim) - -Source Tree Changes -------------------- -HP-UX 10 patches (Vladimir Turin) -Added SCO support, (Daniel Harris) -MkLinux patches (Tatsuo Ishii) -Change geometric box terminology from "length" to "width"(Thomas) -Deprecate temporary unstored slope fields in geometric code(Thomas) -Remove restart instructions from INSTALL(Bruce) -Look in /usr/ucb first for install(Bruce) -Fix c++ copy example code(Thomas) -Add -o to psql manual page(Bruce) -Prevent relname unallocated string length from being copied into database(Bruce) -Cleanup for NAMEDATALEN use(Bruce) -Fix pg_proc names over 15 chars in output(Bruce) -Add strNcpy() function(Bruce) -remove some (void) casts that are unnecessary(Bruce) -new interfaces directory(Marc) -Replace fopen() calls with calls to fd.c functions(Bruce) -Make functions static where possible(Bruce) -enclose unused functions in #ifdef NOT_USED(Bruce) -Remove call to difftime() in timestamp support to fix SunOS(Bruce & Thomas) -Changes for Digital Unix -Portability fix for pg_dumpall(Bruce) -Rename pg_attribute.attnvals to attdispersion(Bruce) -"intro/unix" manual page now "pgintro"(Bruce) -"built-in" manual page now "pgbuiltin"(Bruce) -"drop" manual page now "drop_table"(Bruce) -Add "create_trigger", "drop_trigger" manual pages(Thomas) -Add constraints regression test(Vadim & Thomas) -Add comments syntax regression test(Thomas) -Add PGINDENT and support program(Bruce) -Massive commit to run PGINDENT on all *.c and *.h files(Bruce) -Files moved to /src/tools directory(Bruce) -SPI and Trigger programming guides (Vadim & D'Arcy) -</programlisting> -</para> -</sect2> -</sect1> - -<sect1 id="release-6-1-1"> -<title>Release 6.1.1</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>1997-07-22</simpara> - </note> - -<sect2> -<title>Migration from version 6.1 to version 6.1.1</title> - -<para> -This is a minor bug-fix release. A dump/reload is not required from version 6.1, -but is required from any release prior to 6.1. -Refer to the release notes for 6.1 for more details. -</para> -</sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <para> - <programlisting> -fix for SET with options (Thomas) -allow pg_dump/pg_dumpall to preserve ownership of all tables/objects(Bruce) -new psql \connect option allows changing usernames without changing databases -fix for initdb --debug option(Yoshihiko Ichikawa)) -lextest cleanup(Bruce) -hash fixes(Vadim) -fix date/time month boundary arithmetic(Thomas) -fix timezone daylight handling for some ports(Thomas, Bruce, Tatsuo) -timestamp overhauled to use standard functions(Thomas) -other code cleanup in date/time routines(Thomas) -psql's \d now case-insensitive(Bruce) -psql's backslash commands can now have trailing semicolon(Bruce) -fix memory leak in psql when using \g(Bruce) -major fix for endian handling of communication to server(Thomas, Tatsuo) -Fix for Solaris assembler and include files(Yoshihiko Ichikawa) -allow underscores in usernames(Bruce) -pg_dumpall now returns proper status, portability fix(Bruce) - </programlisting> - </para> - </sect2> - </sect1> - -<sect1 id="release-6-1"> -<title>Release 6.1</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>1997-06-08</simpara> - </note> - -<para> - The regression tests have been adapted and extensively modified for the - 6.1 release of <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>. -</para> - -<para> - Three new data types (<type>datetime</type>, <type>timespan</type>, and <type>circle</type>) have been added to - the native set of <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> types. Points, boxes, paths, and polygons - have had their output formats made consistent across the data types. - The polygon output in misc.out has only been spot-checked for correctness - relative to the original regression output. -</para> - -<para> - <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> 6.1 introduces a new, alternate -optimizer which uses <firstterm>genetic</firstterm> - algorithms. These algorithms introduce a random behavior in the ordering - of query results when the query contains multiple qualifiers or multiple - tables (giving the optimizer a choice on order of evaluation). Several - regression tests have been modified to explicitly order the results, and - hence are insensitive to optimizer choices. A few regression tests are - for data types which are inherently unordered (e.g. points and time - intervals) and tests involving those types are explicitly bracketed with - <command>set geqo to 'off'</command> and <command>reset geqo</command>. -</para> - -<para> - The interpretation of array specifiers (the curly braces around atomic - values) appears to have changed sometime after the original regression - tests were generated. The current <filename>./expected/*.out</filename> files reflect this - new interpretation, which might not be correct! -</para> - -<para> - The float8 regression test fails on at least some platforms. This is due - to differences in implementations of <function>pow()</function> and <function>exp()</function> and the signaling - mechanisms used for overflow and underflow conditions. -</para> - -<para> - The <quote>random</> results in the random test should cause the - <quote>random</quote> test to be <quote>failed</quote>, since the - regression tests are evaluated using a simple diff. However, - <quote>random</> does not seem to produce random results on my test - machine (Linux/<application>gcc</>/i686). -</para> - -<sect2> -<title>Migration to Version 6.1</title> - -<para> -This migration requires a complete dump of the 6.0 database and a -restore of the database in 6.1. -</para> -<para> -Those migrating from earlier 1.* releases should first upgrade to 1.09 -because the COPY output format was improved from the 1.02 release. -</para> -</sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <para> - <programlisting> -Bug Fixes ---------- -packet length checking in library routines -lock manager priority patch -check for under/over flow of float8(Bruce) -multitable join fix(Vadim) -SIGPIPE crash fix(Darren) -large object fixes(Sven) -allow btree indexes to handle NULLs(Vadim) -timezone fixes(D'Arcy) -select SUM(x) can return NULL on no rows(Thomas) -internal optimizer, executor bug fixes(Vadim) -fix problem where inner loop in < or <= has no rows(Vadim) -prevent re-commuting join index clauses(Vadim) -fix join clauses for multiple tables(Vadim) -fix hash, hashjoin for arrays(Vadim) -fix btree for abstime type(Vadim) -large object fixes(Raymond) -fix buffer leak in hash indexes (Vadim) -fix rtree for use in inner scan (Vadim) -fix gist for use in inner scan, cleanups (Vadim, Andrea) -avoid unnecessary local buffers allocation (Vadim, Massimo) -fix local buffers leak in transaction aborts (Vadim) -fix file manager memmory leaks, cleanups (Vadim, Massimo) -fix storage manager memmory leaks (Vadim) -fix btree duplicates handling (Vadim) -fix deleted rows reincarnation caused by vacuum (Vadim) -fix SELECT varchar()/char() INTO TABLE made zero-length fields(Bruce) -many psql, pg_dump, and libpq memory leaks fixed using Purify (Igor) - -Enhancements ------------- -attribute optimization statistics(Bruce) -much faster new btree bulk load code(Paul) -BTREE UNIQUE added to bulk load code(Vadim) -new lock debug code(Massimo) -massive changes to libpg++(Leo) -new GEQO optimizer speeds table multitable optimization(Martin) -new WARN message for non-unique insert into unique key(Marc) -update x=-3, no spaces, now valid(Bruce) -remove case-sensitive identifier handling(Bruce,Thomas,Dan) -debug backend now pretty-prints tree(Darren) -new Oracle character functions(Edmund) -new plaintext password functions(Dan) -no such class or insufficient privilege changed to distinct messages(Dan) -new ANSI timestamp function(Dan) -new ANSI Time and Date types (Thomas) -move large chunks of data in backend(Martin) -multicolumn btree indexes(Vadim) -new SET var TO value command(Martin) -update transaction status on reads(Dan) -new locale settings for character types(Oleg) -new SEQUENCE serial number generator(Vadim) -GROUP BY function now possible(Vadim) -re-organize regression test(Thomas,Marc) -new optimizer operation weights(Vadim) -new psql \z grant/permit option(Marc) -new MONEY data type(D'Arcy,Thomas) -tcp socket communication speed improved(Vadim) -new VACUUM option for attribute statistics, and for certain columns (Vadim) -many geometric type improvements(Thomas,Keith) -additional regression tests(Thomas) -new datestyle variable(Thomas,Vadim,Martin) -more comparison operators for sorting types(Thomas) -new conversion functions(Thomas) -new more compact btree format(Vadim) -allow pg_dumpall to preserve database ownership(Bruce) -new SET GEQO=# and R_PLANS variable(Vadim) -old (!GEQO) optimizer can use right-sided plans (Vadim) -typechecking improvement in SQL parser(Bruce) -new SET, SHOW, RESET commands(Thomas,Vadim) -new \connect database USER option -new destroydb -i option (Igor) -new \dt and \di psql commands (Darren) -SELECT "\n" now escapes newline (A. Duursma) -new geometry conversion functions from old format (Thomas) - -Source tree changes -------------------- -new configuration script(Marc) -readline configuration option added(Marc) -OS-specific configuration options removed(Marc) -new OS-specific template files(Marc) -no more need to edit Makefile.global(Marc) -re-arrange include files(Marc) -nextstep patches (Gregor Hoffleit) -removed Windows-specific code(Bruce) -removed postmaster -e option, now only postgres -e option (Bruce) -merge duplicate library code in front/backends(Martin) -now works with eBones, international Kerberos(Jun) -more shared library support -c++ include file cleanup(Bruce) -warn about buggy flex(Bruce) -DG/UX, Ultrix, IRIX, AIX portability fixes -</programlisting> -</para> -</sect2> -</sect1> - -<sect1 id="release-6-0"> -<title>Release 6.0</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>1997-01-29</simpara> - </note> - -<para> -A dump/restore is required for those wishing to migrate data from -previous releases of <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>. -</para> - -<sect2> -<title>Migration from version 1.09 to version 6.0</title> - -<para> -This migration requires a complete dump of the 1.09 database and a -restore of the database in 6.0. -</para> -</sect2> - -<sect2> -<title>Migration from pre-1.09 to version 6.0</title> - -<para> -Those migrating from earlier 1.* releases should first upgrade to 1.09 -because the COPY output format was improved from the 1.02 release. -</para> -</sect2> - - <sect2> - <title>Changes</title> - - <para> - <programlisting> -Bug Fixes ---------- -ALTER TABLE bug - running postgres process needs to re-read table definition -Allow vacuum to be run on one table or entire database(Bruce) -Array fixes -Fix array over-runs of memory writes(Kurt) -Fix elusive btree range/non-range bug(Dan) -Fix for hash indexes on some types like time and date -Fix for pg_log size explosion -Fix permissions on lo_export()(Bruce) -Fix uninitialized reads of memory(Kurt) -Fixed ALTER TABLE ... char(3) bug(Bruce) -Fixed a few small memory leaks -Fixed EXPLAIN handling of options and changed full_path option name -Fixed output of group acl privileges -Memory leaks (hunt and destroy with tools like Purify(Kurt) -Minor improvements to rules system -NOTIFY fixes -New asserts for run-checking -Overhauled parser/analyze code to properly report errors and increase speed -Pg_dump -d now handles NULL's properly(Bruce) -Prevent SELECT NULL from crashing server (Bruce) -Properly report errors when INSERT ... SELECT columns did not match -Properly report errors when insert column names were not correct -psql \g filename now works(Bruce) -psql fixed problem with multiple statements on one line with multiple outputs -Removed duplicate system OIDs -SELECT * INTO TABLE . GROUP/ORDER BY gives unlink error if table exists(Bruce) -Several fixes for queries that crashed the backend -Starting quote in insert string errors(Bruce) -Submitting an empty query now returns empty status, not just " " query(Bruce) - -Enhancements ------------- -Add EXPLAIN manual page(Bruce) -Add UNIQUE index capability(Dan) -Add hostname/user level access control rather than just hostname and user -Add synonym of != for <>(Bruce) -Allow "select oid,* from table" -Allow BY,ORDER BY to specify columns by number, or by non-alias table.column(Bruce) -Allow COPY from the frontend(Bryan) -Allow GROUP BY to use alias column name(Bruce) -Allow actual compression, not just reuse on the same page(Vadim) -Allow installation-configuration option to auto-add all local users(Bryan) -Allow libpq to distinguish between text value '' and null(Bruce) -Allow non-postgres users with createdb privs to destroydb's -Allow restriction on who can create C functions(Bryan) -Allow restriction on who can do backend COPY(Bryan) -Can shrink tables, pg_time and pg_log(Vadim & Erich) -Change debug level 2 to print queries only, changed debug heading layout(Bruce) -Change default decimal constant representation from float4 to float8(Bruce) -European date format now set when postmaster is started -Execute lowercase function names if not found with exact case -Fixes for aggregate/GROUP processing, allow 'select sum(func(x),sum(x+y) from z' -Gist now included in the distribution(Marc) -Idend authentication of local users(Bryan) -Implement BETWEEN qualifier(Bruce) -Implement IN qualifier(Bruce) -libpq has PQgetisnull()(Bruce) -libpq++ improvements -New options to initdb(Bryan) -Pg_dump allow dump of OIDs(Bruce) -Pg_dump create indexes after tables are loaded for speed(Bruce) -Pg_dumpall dumps all databases, and the user table -Pginterface additions for NULL values(Bruce) -Prevent postmaster from being run as root -psql \h and \? is now readable(Bruce) -psql allow backslashed, semicolons anywhere on the line(Bruce) -psql changed command prompt for lines in query or in quotes(Bruce) -psql char(3) now displays as (bp)char in \d output(Bruce) -psql return code now more accurate(Bryan?) -psql updated help syntax(Bruce) -Re-visit and fix vacuum(Vadim) -Reduce size of regression diffs, remove timezone name difference(Bruce) -Remove compile-time parameters to enable binary distributions(Bryan) -Reverse meaning of HBA masks(Bryan) -Secure Authentication of local users(Bryan) -Speed up vacuum(Vadim) -Vacuum now had VERBOSE option(Bruce) - -Source tree changes -------------------- -All functions now have prototypes that are compared against the calls -Allow asserts to be disabled easily from Makefile.global(Bruce) -Change oid constants used in code to #define names -Decoupled sparc and solaris defines(Kurt) -Gcc -Wall compiles cleanly with warnings only from unfixable constructs -Major include file reorganization/reduction(Marc) -Make now stops on compile failure(Bryan) -Makefile restructuring(Bryan, Marc) -Merge bsdi_2_1 to bsdi(Bruce) -Monitor program removed -Name change from Postgres95 to PostgreSQL -New config.h file(Marc, Bryan) -PG_VERSION now set to 6.0 and used by postmaster -Portability additions, including Ultrix, DG/UX, AIX, and Solaris -Reduced the number of #define's, centralized #define's -Remove duplicate OIDS in system tables(Dan) -Remove duplicate system catalog info or report mismatches(Dan) -Removed many os-specific #define's -Restructured object file generation/location(Bryan, Marc) -Restructured port-specific file locations(Bryan, Marc) -Unused/uninitialized variables corrected -</programlisting> -</para> -</sect2> -</sect1> - -<sect1 id="release-1-09"> -<title>Release 1.09</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>1996-11-04</simpara> - </note> - -<para> -Sorry, we didn't keep track of changes from 1.02 to 1.09. Some of -the changes listed in 6.0 were actually included in the 1.02.1 to 1.09 -releases. -</para> -</sect1> - -<sect1 id="release-1-02"> -<title>Release 1.02</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>1996-08-01</simpara> - </note> - -<sect2> -<title>Migration from version 1.02 to version 1.02.1</title> - -<para> -Here is a new migration file for 1.02.1. It includes the 'copy' change -and a script to convert old <acronym>ASCII</acronym> files. -</para> -<note> -<para> -The following notes are for the benefit of users who want to migrate -databases from <productname>Postgres95</> 1.01 and 1.02 to <productname>Postgres95</> 1.02.1. -</para> -<para> -If you are starting afresh with <productname>Postgres95</> 1.02.1 and do not need -to migrate old databases, you do not need to read any further. -</para> -</note> - -<para> -In order to upgrade older <productname>Postgres95</> version 1.01 or 1.02 databases to -version 1.02.1, the following steps are required: -</para> -<procedure> -<step> -<para> -Start up a new 1.02.1 postmaster -</para> -</step> -<step> -<para> -Add the new built-in functions and operators of 1.02.1 to 1.01 or 1.02 - databases. This is done by running the new 1.02.1 server against - your own 1.01 or 1.02 database and applying the queries attached at - the end of the file. This can be done easily through <command>psql</>. If your - 1.01 or 1.02 database is named <literal>testdb</literal> and you have cut the commands - from the end of this file and saved them in <filename>addfunc.sql</filename>: -<programlisting> - % psql testdb -f addfunc.sql -</programlisting> - -Those upgrading 1.02 databases will get a warning when executing the -last two statements in the file because they are already present in 1.02. This is -not a cause for concern. -</para> -</step> -</procedure> -</sect2> - -<sect2> -<title>Dump/Reload Procedure</title> - -<para> -If you are trying to reload a pg_dump or text-mode, <literal>copy tablename to -stdout</literal> generated with a previous version, you will need to run the -attached <command>sed</command> script on the ASCII file before loading it into the -database. The old format used '.' as end-of-data, while '\.' is now the -end-of-data marker. Also, empty strings are now loaded in as '' rather -than NULL. See the copy manual page for full details. - -<programlisting> - sed 's/^\.$/\\./g' <in_file >out_file -</programlisting> -</para> -<para> -If you are loading an older binary copy or non-<systemitem>stdout</> copy, there is no -end-of-data character, and hence no conversion necessary. - -<programlisting> --- following lines added by agc to reflect the case-insensitive --- regexp searching for varchar (in 1.02), and bpchar (in 1.02.1) -create operator ~* (leftarg = bpchar, rightarg = text, procedure = texticregexeq); -create operator !~* (leftarg = bpchar, rightarg = text, procedure = texticregexne); -create operator ~* (leftarg = varchar, rightarg = text, procedure = texticregexeq); -create operator !~* (leftarg = varchar, rightarg = text, procedure = texticregexne); -</programlisting> -</para> -</sect2> - -<sect2> -<title>Changes</title> - -<para> -<programlisting> -Source code maintenance and development - * worldwide team of volunteers - * the source tree now in CVS at ftp.ki.net - -Enhancements - * psql (and underlying libpq library) now has many more options for - formatting output, including HTML - * pg_dump now output the schema and/or the data, with many fixes to - enhance completeness. - * psql used in place of monitor in administration shell scripts. - monitor to be deprecated in next release. - * date/time functions enhanced - * NULL insert/update/comparison fixed/enhanced - * TCL/TK lib and shell fixed to work with both tck7.4/tk4.0 and tcl7.5/tk4.1 - -Bug Fixes (almost too numerous to mention) - * indexes - * storage management - * check for NULL pointer before dereferencing - * Makefile fixes - -New Ports - * added SolarisX86 port - * added BSD/OS 2.1 port - * added DG/UX port -</programlisting> -</para> <!-- -Contributors (apologies to any missed) - * Kurt J. Lidl <lidl@va.pubnix.com> - (missed in first run, but no less important) - * Erich Stamberger <eberger@gewi.kfunigraz.ac.at> - * Jason Wright <jason@shiloh.vnet.net> - * Cees de Groot <C.deGroot@inter.NL.net> - * ernst.molitor@uni-bonn.de - * michael.siebenborn@ae3.Hypo.DE (Michael Siebenborn (6929)) - * Brian E. Gallew <geek+@cmu.edu> - * Vadim B. Mikheev <vadim@sable.krasnoyarsk.su> - * Adam Sussman <myddryn@vidya.com> - * Chris Dunlop <chris@onthe.net.au> - * Marc G. Fournier <scrappy@ki.net> - * Dan McGuirk <mcguirk@indirect.com> - * Dr_George_D_Detlefsen <drgeorge@ilt.com> - * Erich Stamberger <eberger@gewi.kfunigraz.ac.at> - * Massimo Dal Zotto <dz@cs.unitn.it> - * Randy Kunkee <kunkee@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM> - * Rick Weldon <rick@wisetech.com> - * Thomas van Reimersdahl <reimersd@dali.techinfo.rwth-aachen.de> - * david bennett <dave@bensoft.com> - * ernst.molitor@uni-bonn.de - * Julian Assange <proff@suburbia.net> - * Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> - * Paul "Shag" Walmsley <ccshag@cclabs.missouri.edu> - * "Alistair G. Crooks" <azcb0@sde.uts.amdahl.com> ---> -</sect2> -</sect1> - -<sect1 id="release-1-01"> -<title>Release 1.01</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>1996-02-23</simpara> - </note> - - -<sect2> -<title>Migration from version 1.0 to version 1.01</title> - -<para> -The following notes are for the benefit of users who want to migrate -databases from <productname>Postgres95</> 1.0 to <productname>Postgres95</> 1.01. -</para> -<para> -If you are starting afresh with <productname>Postgres95</> 1.01 and do not need -to migrate old databases, you do not need to read any further. -</para> -<para> -In order to <productname>Postgres95</> version 1.01 with databases created with -<productname>Postgres95</> version 1.0, the following steps are required: -</para> -<procedure> -<step> -<para> -Set the definition of <symbol>NAMEDATALEN</symbol> in <filename>src/Makefile.global</filename> to 16 - and <symbol>OIDNAMELEN</symbol> to 20. -</para> -</step> -<step> -<para> -Decide whether you want to use Host based authentication. -</para> -<substeps> -<step> -<para> -If you do, you must create a file name <literal>pg_hba</literal> in your top-level data - directory (typically the value of your <envar>$PGDATA</envar>). <filename>src/libpq/pg_hba</filename> - shows an example syntax. -</para> -</step> -<step> -<para> -If you do not want host-based authentication, you can comment out - the line: -<programlisting> - HBA = 1 -</programlisting> - in <filename>src/Makefile.global</filename> -</para> -<para> - Note that host-based authentication is turned on by default, and if - you do not take steps A or B above, the out-of-the-box 1.01 will - not allow you to connect to 1.0 databases. -</para> -</step> -</substeps> -</step> - -<step> -<para> -Compile and install 1.01, but DO NOT do the <command>initdb</command> step. -</para> -</step> -<step> -<para> -Before doing anything else, terminate your 1.0 postmaster, and - backup your existing <envar>$PGDATA</envar> directory. -</para> -</step> -<step> -<para> -Set your <envar>PGDATA</envar> environment variable to your 1.0 databases, but set up - path up so that 1.01 binaries are being used. -</para> -</step> -<step> -<para> -Modify the file <filename><envar>$PGDATA</envar>/PG_VERSION</filename> from 5.0 to 5.1 -</para> -</step> -<step> -<para> -Start up a new 1.01 postmaster -</para> -</step> -<step> -<para> -Add the new built-in functions and operators of 1.01 to 1.0 - databases. This is done by running the new 1.01 server against - your own 1.0 database and applying the queries attached and saving - in the file 1.0_to_1.01.sql. This can be done easily through <command>psql</command>. - If your 1.0 database is name <literal>testdb</literal>: - -<programlisting> - % psql testdb -f 1.0_to_1.01.sql -</programlisting> - -and then execute the following commands (cut and paste from here): - -<programlisting> --- add builtin functions that are new to 1.01 - -create function int4eqoid (int4, oid) returns bool as 'foo' -language 'internal'; -create function oideqint4 (oid, int4) returns bool as 'foo' -language 'internal'; -create function char2icregexeq (char2, text) returns bool as 'foo' -language 'internal'; -create function char2icregexne (char2, text) returns bool as 'foo' -language 'internal'; -create function char4icregexeq (char4, text) returns bool as 'foo' -language 'internal'; -create function char4icregexne (char4, text) returns bool as 'foo' -language 'internal'; -create function char8icregexeq (char8, text) returns bool as 'foo' -language 'internal'; -create function char8icregexne (char8, text) returns bool as 'foo' -language 'internal'; -create function char16icregexeq (char16, text) returns bool as 'foo' -language 'internal'; -create function char16icregexne (char16, text) returns bool as 'foo' -language 'internal'; -create function texticregexeq (text, text) returns bool as 'foo' -language 'internal'; -create function texticregexne (text, text) returns bool as 'foo' -language 'internal'; - --- add builtin functions that are new to 1.01 - -create operator = (leftarg = int4, rightarg = oid, procedure = int4eqoid); -create operator = (leftarg = oid, rightarg = int4, procedure = oideqint4); -create operator ~* (leftarg = char2, rightarg = text, procedure = char2icregexeq); -create operator !~* (leftarg = char2, rightarg = text, procedure = char2icregexne); -create operator ~* (leftarg = char4, rightarg = text, procedure = char4icregexeq); -create operator !~* (leftarg = char4, rightarg = text, procedure = char4icregexne); -create operator ~* (leftarg = char8, rightarg = text, procedure = char8icregexeq); -create operator !~* (leftarg = char8, rightarg = text, procedure = char8icregexne); -create operator ~* (leftarg = char16, rightarg = text, procedure = char16icregexeq); -create operator !~* (leftarg = char16, rightarg = text, procedure = char16icregexne); -create operator ~* (leftarg = text, rightarg = text, procedure = texticregexeq); -create operator !~* (leftarg = text, rightarg = text, procedure = texticregexne); -</programlisting> -</para> -</step> -</procedure> -</sect2> - -<sect2> -<title>Changes</title> - -<para> -<programlisting> -Incompatibilities: - * 1.01 is backwards compatible with 1.0 database provided the user - follow the steps outlined in the MIGRATION_from_1.0_to_1.01 file. - If those steps are not taken, 1.01 is not compatible with 1.0 database. - -Enhancements: - * added PQdisplayTuples() to libpq and changed monitor and psql to use it - * added NeXT port (requires SysVIPC implementation) - * added CAST .. AS ... syntax - * added ASC and DESC key words - * added 'internal' as a possible language for CREATE FUNCTION - internal functions are C functions which have been statically linked - into the postgres backend. - * a new type "name" has been added for system identifiers (table names, - attribute names, etc.) This replaces the old char16 type. The - of name is set by the NAMEDATALEN #define in src/Makefile.global - * a readable reference manual that describes the query language. - * added host-based access control. A configuration file ($PGDATA/pg_hba) - is used to hold the configuration data. If host-based access control - is not desired, comment out HBA=1 in src/Makefile.global. - * changed regex handling to be uniform use of Henry Spencer's regex code - regardless of platform. The regex code is included in the distribution - * added functions and operators for case-insensitive regular expressions. - The operators are ~* and !~*. - * pg_dump uses COPY instead of SELECT loop for better performance - -Bug fixes: - * fixed an optimizer bug that was causing core dumps when - functions calls were used in comparisons in the WHERE clause - * changed all uses of getuid to geteuid so that effective uids are used - * psql now returns non-zero status on errors when using -c - * applied public patches 1-14 -</programlisting> -</para> -</sect2> -</sect1> - -<sect1 id="release-1-0"> -<title>Release 1.0</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>1995-09-05</simpara> - </note> - -<sect2> -<title>Changes</title> - -<para> -<programlisting> -Copyright change: - * The copyright of <productname>Postgres</productname> 1.0 has been loosened to be freely modifiable - and modifiable for any purpose. Please read the COPYRIGHT file. - Thanks to Professor Michael Stonebraker for making this possible. - -Incompatibilities: - * date formats have to be MM-DD-YYYY (or DD-MM-YYYY if you're using - EUROPEAN STYLE). This follows SQL-92 specs. - * "delimiters" is now a key word + To add a new major-release series, add an entry here and in filelist.sgml. + Follow the naming convention, or you'll confuse generate_history.pl. -Enhancements: - * sql LIKE syntax has been added - * copy command now takes an optional USING DELIMITER specification. - delimiters can be any single-character string. - * IRIX 5.3 port has been added. - Thanks to Paul Walmsley and others. - * updated pg_dump to work with new libpq - * \d has been added psql - Thanks to Keith Parks - * regexp performance for architectures that use POSIX regex has been - improved due to caching of precompiled patterns. - Thanks to Alistair Crooks - * a new version of libpq++ - Thanks to William Wanders - -Bug fixes: - * arbitrary userids can be specified in the createuser script - * \c to connect to other databases in psql now works. - * bad pg_proc entry for float4inc() is fixed - * users with usecreatedb field set can now create databases without - having to be usesuper - * remove access control entries when the entry no longer has any - privileges - * fixed non-portable datetimes implementation - * added kerberos flags to the src/backend/Makefile - * libpq now works with kerberos - * typographic errors in the user manual have been corrected. - * btrees with multiple index never worked, now we tell you they don't - work when you try to use them -</programlisting> -</para> -</sect2> -</sect1> - -<sect1 id="release-0-03"> -<title><productname>Postgres95</productname> Release 0.03</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>1995-07-21</simpara> - </note> - -<sect2> -<title>Changes</title> -<para> -<programlisting> -Incompatible changes: - * BETA-0.3 IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH DATABASES CREATED WITH PREVIOUS VERSIONS - (due to system catalog changes and indexing structure changes). - * double-quote (") is deprecated as a quoting character for string literals; - you need to convert them to single quotes ('). <!-- " --> - * name of aggregates (eg. int4sum) are renamed in accordance with the - SQL standard (eg. sum). - * CHANGE ACL syntax is replaced by GRANT/REVOKE syntax. - * float literals (eg. 3.14) are now of type float4 (instead of float8 in - previous releases); you might have to do typecasting if you depend on it - being of type float8. If you neglect to do the typecasting and you assign - a float literal to a field of type float8, you might get incorrect values - stored! - * LIBPQ has been totally revamped so that frontend applications - can connect to multiple backends - * the usesysid field in pg_user has been changed from int2 to int4 to - allow wider range of Unix user ids. - * the netbsd/freebsd/bsd o/s ports have been consolidated into a - single BSD44_derived port. (thanks to Alistair Crooks) - -SQL standard-compliance (the following details changes that makes postgres95 -more compliant to the SQL-92 standard): - * the following SQL types are now built-in: smallint, int(eger), float, real, - char(N), varchar(N), date and time. - - The following are aliases to existing postgres types: - smallint -> int2 - integer, int -> int4 - float, real -> float4 - char(N) and varchar(N) are implemented as truncated text types. In - addition, char(N) does blank-padding. - * single-quote (') is used for quoting string literals; '' (in addition to - \') is supported as means of inserting a single quote in a string - * SQL standard aggregate names (MAX, MIN, AVG, SUM, COUNT) are used - (Also, aggregates can now be overloaded, i.e. you can define your - own MAX aggregate to take in a user-defined type.) - * CHANGE ACL removed. GRANT/REVOKE syntax added. - - Privileges can be given to a group using the "GROUP" key word. - For example: - GRANT SELECT ON foobar TO GROUP my_group; - The key word 'PUBLIC' is also supported to mean all users. - - Privileges can only be granted or revoked to one user or group - at a time. - - "WITH GRANT OPTION" is not supported. Only class owners can change - access control - - The default access control is to grant users readonly access. - You must explicitly grant insert/update access to users. To change - this, modify the line in - src/backend/utils/acl.h - that defines ACL_WORLD_DEFAULT - -Bug fixes: - * the bug where aggregates of empty tables were not run has been fixed. Now, - aggregates run on empty tables will return the initial conditions of the - aggregates. Thus, COUNT of an empty table will now properly return 0. - MAX/MIN of an empty table will return a row of value NULL. - * allow the use of \; inside the monitor - * the LISTEN/NOTIFY asynchronous notification mechanism now work - * NOTIFY in rule action bodies now work - * hash indexes work, and access methods in general should perform better. - creation of large btree indexes should be much faster. (thanks to Paul - Aoki) - -Other changes and enhancements: - * addition of an EXPLAIN statement used for explaining the query execution - plan (eg. "EXPLAIN SELECT * FROM EMP" prints out the execution plan for - the query). - * WARN and NOTICE messages no longer have timestamps on them. To turn on - timestamps of error messages, uncomment the line in - src/backend/utils/elog.h: - /* define ELOG_TIMESTAMPS */ - * On an access control violation, the message - "Either no such class or insufficient privilege" - will be given. This is the same message that is returned when - a class is not found. This dissuades non-privileged users from - guessing the existence of privileged classes. - * some additional system catalog changes have been made that are not - visible to the user. - -libpgtcl changes: - * The -oid option has been added to the "pg_result" tcl command. - pg_result -oid returns oid of the last row inserted. If the - last command was not an INSERT, then pg_result -oid returns "". - * the large object interface is available as pg_lo* tcl commands: - pg_lo_open, pg_lo_close, pg_lo_creat, etc. - -Portability enhancements and New Ports: - * flex/lex problems have been cleared up. Now, you should be able to use - flex instead of lex on any platforms. We no longer make assumptions of - what lexer you use based on the platform you use. - * The Linux-ELF port is now supported. Various configuration have been - tested: The following configuration is known to work: - kernel 1.2.10, gcc 2.6.3, libc 4.7.2, flex 2.5.2, bison 1.24 - with everything in ELF format, - -New utilities: - * ipcclean added to the distribution - ipcclean usually does not need to be run, but if your backend crashes - and leaves shared memory segments hanging around, ipcclean will - clean them up for you. - -New documentation: - * the user manual has been revised and libpq documentation added. -</programlisting> -</para> -</sect2> -</sect1> - -<sect1 id="release-0-02"> -<title><productname>Postgres95</productname> Release 0.02</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>1995-05-25</simpara> - </note> - -<sect2> -<title>Changes</title> - -<para> -<programlisting> -Incompatible changes: - * The SQL statement for creating a database is 'CREATE DATABASE' instead - of 'CREATEDB'. Similarly, dropping a database is 'DROP DATABASE' instead - of 'DESTROYDB'. However, the names of the executables 'createdb' and - 'destroydb' remain the same. - -New tools: - * pgperl - a Perl (4.036) interface to Postgres95 - * pg_dump - a utility for dumping out a postgres database into a - script file containing query commands. The script files are in a ASCII - format and can be used to reconstruct the database, even on other - machines and other architectures. (Also good for converting - a Postgres 4.2 database to Postgres95 database.) - -The following ports have been incorporated into postgres95-beta-0.02: - * the NetBSD port by Alistair Crooks - * the AIX port by Mike Tung - * the Windows NT port by Jon Forrest (more stuff but not done yet) - * the Linux ELF port by Brian Gallew - -The following bugs have been fixed in postgres95-beta-0.02: - * new lines not escaped in COPY OUT and problem with COPY OUT when first - attribute is a '.' - * cannot type return to use the default user id in createuser - * SELECT DISTINCT on big tables crashes - * Linux installation problems - * monitor doesn't allow use of 'localhost' as PGHOST - * psql core dumps when doing \c or \l - * the "pgtclsh" target missing from src/bin/pgtclsh/Makefile - * libpgtcl has a hard-wired default port number - * SELECT DISTINCT INTO TABLE hangs - * CREATE TYPE doesn't accept 'variable' as the internallength - * wrong result using more than 1 aggregate in a SELECT -</programlisting> -</para> -</sect2> -</sect1> - -<sect1 id="release-0-01"> -<title><productname>Postgres95</productname> Release 0.01</title> - - <note> - <title>Release date</title> - <simpara>1995-05-01</simpara> - </note> - -<para> -Initial release. -</para> -</sect1> - -<![IGNORE[ - <sect1 id="timing-results"> - <title>Timing Results</title> - - <para> - These timing results are from running the regression test with the commands - - <programlisting> -% cd src/test/regress -% make all -% time make runtest - </programlisting> - </para> - <para> - Timing under Linux 2.0.27 seems to have a roughly 5% variation from run - to run, presumably due to the scheduling vagaries of multitasking systems. - </para> - - <sect2> - <title>Version 6.5</title> - - <para> - As has been the case for previous releases, timing between - releases is not directly comparable since new regression tests - have been added. In general, 6.5 is faster than previous - releases. - </para> - - <para> - Timing with <function>fsync()</function> disabled: - - <programlisting> - Time System - 02:00 Dual Pentium Pro 180, 224MB, UW-SCSI, Linux 2.0.36, gcc 2.7.2.3 -O2 -m486 - 04:38 Sparc Ultra 1 143MHz, 64MB, Solaris 2.6 - </programlisting> - </para> - - <para> - Timing with <function>fsync()</function> enabled: - - <programlisting> - Time System - 04:21 Dual Pentium Pro 180, 224MB, UW-SCSI, Linux 2.0.36, gcc 2.7.2.3 -O2 -m486 - </programlisting> - - For the <systemitem class="osname">Linux</systemitem> system above, using <acronym>UW-SCSI</acronym> disks rather than (older) <acronym>IDE</acronym> - disks leads to a 50% improvement in speed on the regression test. - </para> - </sect2> - -<sect2> -<title>Version 6.4beta</title> - -<para> -The times for this release are not directly comparable to those for previous releases -since some additional regression tests have been included. -In general, however, 6.4 should be slightly faster than the previous release (thanks, Bruce!). -</para> -<para> -<programlisting> - Time System - 02:26 Dual Pentium Pro 180, 96MB, UW-SCSI, Linux 2.0.30, gcc 2.7.2.1 -O2 -m486 -</programlisting> -</para> -</sect2> - -<sect2> -<title>Version 6.3</title> - -<para> -The times for this release are not directly comparable to those for previous releases -since some additional regression tests have been included and some obsolete tests involving -time travel have been removed. -In general, however, 6.3 is substantially faster than previous releases (thanks, Bruce!). -</para> -<para> -<programlisting> - Time System - 02:30 Dual Pentium Pro 180, 96MB, UW-SCSI, Linux 2.0.30, gcc 2.7.2.1 -O2 -m486 - 04:12 Dual Pentium Pro 180, 96MB, EIDE, Linux 2.0.30, gcc 2.7.2.1 -O2 -m486 -</programlisting> -</para> -</sect2> - -<sect2> -<title>Version 6.1</title> + The reason for splitting the release notes this way is so that appropriate + subsets can easily be copied into back branches. +--> +&release-8.4; +&release-8.3; +&release-8.2; +&release-8.1; +&release-8.0; +&release-7.4; +&release-old; -<para> -<programlisting> - Time System - 06:12 Pentium Pro 180, 32MB, EIDE, Linux 2.0.30, gcc 2.7.2 -O2 -m486 - 12:06 P-100, 48MB, Linux 2.0.29, gcc - 39:58 Sparc IPC 32MB, Solaris 2.5, gcc 2.7.2.1 -O -g -</programlisting> -</para> -</sect2> -</sect1> -]]> </appendix> |