postgres/doc/TODO

PostgreSQL TODO List
====================
Current maintainer:	Bruce Momjian (pgman@candle.pha.pa.us)
Last updated:		Sat Jun  4 20:28:35 EDT 2005

The most recent version of this document can be viewed at
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faqs.TODO.html.

#A hyphen, "-", marks changes that will appear in the upcoming 8.1 release.#

Bracketed items, "[]", have more detail.

This list contains all known PostgreSQL bugs and feature requests. If
you would like to work on an item, please read the Developer's FAQ
first.


Administration
==============

* Remove behavior of postmaster -o after making postmaster/postgres
  flags unique
* Allow limits on per-db/user connections
* Add group object ownership, so groups can rename/drop/grant on objects,
  so we can implement roles
* Allow server log information to be output as INSERT statements

  This would allow server log information to be easily loaded into
  a database for analysis.

* Prevent default re-use of sysids for dropped users and groups

  Currently, if a user is removed while he still owns objects, a new
  user given might be given their user id and inherit the
  previous users objects.

* Prevent dropping user that still owns objects, or auto-drop the objects
* Allow pooled connections to list all prepared queries

  This would allow an application inheriting a pooled connection to know
  the queries prepared in the current session.

* Allow major upgrades without dump/reload, perhaps using pg_upgrade 
  [pg_upgrade]
* Have SHOW ALL and pg_settings show descriptions for server-side variables
* Allow GRANT/REVOKE permissions to be applied to all schema objects with one
  command

  The proposed syntax is:
	GRANT SELECT ON ALL TABLES IN public TO phpuser;
	GRANT SELECT ON NEW TABLES IN public TO phpuser;

* Allow GRANT/REVOKE permissions to be inherited by objects based on
  schema permissions
* Check for unreferenced table files created by transactions that were
  in-progress when the server terminated abruptly
* Allow reporting of which objects are in which tablespaces

  This item is difficult because a tablespace can contain objects from
  multiple databases. There is a server-side function that returns the
  databases which use a specific tablespace, so this requires a tool
  that will call that function and connect to each database to find the
  objects in each database for that tablespace.

* Allow a database in tablespace t1 with tables created in tablespace t2
  to be used as a template for a new database created with default
  tablespace t2

  All objects in the default database tablespace must have default tablespace
  specifications.  This is because new databases are created by copying
  directories.  If you mix default tablespace tables and tablespace-specified
  tables in the same directory, creating a new database from such a mixed
  directory would create a new database with tables that had incorrect
  explicit tablespaces.  To fix this would require modifying pg_class in the
  newly copied database, which we don't currently do.

* Add a GUC variable to control the tablespace for temporary objects and
  sort files

  It could start with a random tablespace from a supplied list and cycle
  through the list.

* Add ability to monitor the use of temporary sort files
* Allow WAL replay of CREATE TABLESPACE to work when the directory
  structure on the recovery computer is different from the original
* Add "include file" functionality in postgresql.conf
* -Add session start time and last statement time to pg_stat_activity
* Allow server logs to be remotely read using SQL commands
* Allow pg_hba.conf settings to be controlled via SQL

  This would require a new global table that is dumped to flat file for
  use by the postmaster.  We do a similar thing for pg_shadow currently.

* Allow administrators to safely terminate individual sessions

  Right now, SIGTERM will terminate a session, but it is treated as
  though the postmaster has paniced and shared memory might not be
  cleaned up properly.  A new signal is needed for safe termination.

* Un-comment all variables in postgresql.conf

  By not showing commented-out variables, we discourage people from
  thinking that re-commenting a variable returns it to its default.
  This has to address environment variables that are then overridden
  by config file values.  Another option is to allow commented values
  to return to their default values.

* Allow point-in-time recovery to archive partially filled write-ahead
  logs [pitr]

  Currently only full WAL files are archived. This means that the most
  recent transactions aren't available for recovery in case of a disk
  failure.  This could be triggered by a user command or a timer.

* Automatically force archiving of partially-filled WAL files when 
  pg_stop_backup() is called or the server is stopped

  Doing this will allow administrators to know more easily when the
  archive contins all the files needed for point-in-time recovery.

* Create dump tool for write-ahead logs for use in determining
  transaction id for point-in-time recovery
* Set proper permissions on non-system schemas during db creation

  Currently all schemas are owned by the super-user because they are
  copied from the template1 database.

* Add a function that returns the 'uptime' of the postmaster
* Allow a warm standby system to also allow read-only queries [pitr]

  This is useful for checking PITR recovery.

* Allow the PITR process to be debugged and data examined
* -Add the client IP address and port to pg_stat_activity
* Improve replication solutions
	o Load balancing

	  You can use any of the master/slave replication servers to use a
	  standby server for data warehousing. To allow read/write queries to
	  multiple servers, you need multi-master replication like pgcluster.

	o Allow replication over unreliable or non-persistent links

* Support table partitioning that allows a single table to be stored
  in subtables that are partitioned based on the primary key or a WHERE
  clause
* Allow postgresql.conf values to be set so they can not be changed by
  the user


Data Types
==========

* Remove Money type, add money formatting for decimal type
* Change NUMERIC to enforce the maximum precision, and increase it
* Add function to return compressed length of TOAST data values
* Allow INET subnet tests using non-constants to be indexed
* Add transaction_timestamp(), statement_timestamp(), clock_timestamp()
  functionality

  Current CURRENT_TIMESTAMP returns the start time of the current
  transaction, and gettimeofday() returns the wallclock time. This will
  make time reporting more consistent and will allow reporting of
  the statement start time.

* Have sequence dependency track use of DEFAULT sequences,
  seqname.nextval (?)
* Disallow changing default expression of a SERIAL column (?)
* Allow infinite dates just like infinite timestamps
* Have initdb set DateStyle based on locale?
* Add pg_get_acldef(), pg_get_typedefault(), and pg_get_attrdef()
* Allow to_char() to print localized month names
* Allow functions to have a schema search path specified at creation time
* Allow substring/replace() to get/set bit values
* Add a GUC variable to allow output of interval values in ISO8601 format
* Fix data types where equality comparison isn't intuitive, e.g. box
* Merge hardwired timezone names with the TZ database; allow either kind
  everywhere a TZ name is currently taken
* Allow customization of the known set of TZ names (generalize the
  present australian_timezones hack)
* Allow TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE to store the original timezone
  information, either zone name or offset from UTC [timezone]

  If the TIMESTAMP value is stored with a time zone name, interval 
  computations should adjust based on the time zone rules, e.g. adding
  24 hours to a timestamp would yield a different result from adding one
  day.

* Prevent INET cast to CIDR if the unmasked bits are not zero, or
  zero the bits
* Prevent INET cast to CIDR from droping netmask, SELECT '1.1.1.1'::inet::cidr
* Allow INET + INT4 to increment the host part of the address, or
  throw an error on overflow
* Add 'tid != tid ' operator for use in corruption recovery
* Prevent to_char() on interval from returning meaningless values

  For example, to_char('1 month', 'mon') is meaningless.  Basically,
  most date-related parameters to to_char() are meaningless for
  intervals because interval is not anchored to a date.

* Allow to_char() on interval values to accumulate the highest unit
  requested

  Some special format flag would be required to request such
  accumulation.  Such functionality could also be added to EXTRACT. 
  Prevent accumulation that crosses the month/day boundary because of
  the uneven number of days in a month.

	o to_char(INTERVAL '1 hour 5 minutes', 'MI') => 65
	o to_char(INTERVAL '43 hours 20 minutes', 'MI' ) => 2600 
	o to_char(INTERVAL '43 hours 20 minutes', 'WK:DD:HR:MI') => 0:1:19:20
	o to_char(INTERVAL '3 years 5 months','MM') => 41

* Add ISO INTERVAL handling
	o Add support for day-time syntax, INTERVAL '1 2:03:04' DAY TO SECOND
	o Add support for year-month syntax, INTERVAL '50-6' YEAR TO MONTH
	o For syntax that isn't uniquely ISO or PG syntax, like '1:30' or
	  '1', treat as ISO if there is a range specification clause,
          and as PG if there no clause is present, e.g. interpret '1:30' 
	  MINUTE TO SECOND as '1 minute 30 seconds', and interpret '1:30'
	  as '1 hour, 30 minutes'
	o Interpret INTERVAL '1 year' MONTH as CAST (INTERVAL '1 year' AS
	  INTERVAL MONTH), and this should return '12 months'
	o Round or truncate values to the requested precision, e.g.
	  INTERVAL '11 months' AS YEAR should return one or zero
	o Support precision, CREATE TABLE foo (a INTERVAL MONTH(3))

* ARRAYS
	o Allow NULLs in arrays
	o Allow MIN()/MAX() on arrays
	o Delay resolution of array expression's data type so assignment
	  coercion can be performed on empty array expressions
	o Modify array literal representation to handle array index lower bound
	  of other than one


* BINARY DATA
	o Improve vacuum of large objects, like /contrib/vacuumlo (?)
	o Add security checking for large objects

	  Currently large objects entries do not have owners. Permissions can
	  only be set at the pg_largeobject table level.

	o Auto-delete large objects when referencing row is deleted

	o Allow read/write into TOAST values like large objects

	  This requires the TOAST column to be stored EXTERNAL.


Multi-Language Support
======================

* Add NCHAR (as distinguished from ordinary varchar),
* Allow locale to be set at database creation

  Currently locale can only be set during initdb.  No global tables have
  locale-aware columns.  However, the database template used during
  database creation might have locale-aware indexes.  The indexes would
  need to be reindexed to match the new locale.

* Allow encoding on a per-column basis

  Right now only one encoding is allowed per database.

* Support multiple simultaneous character sets, per SQL92
* Improve UTF8 combined character handling (?)
* Add octet_length_server() and octet_length_client()
* Make octet_length_client() the same as octet_length()?


Views / Rules
=============

* Automatically create rules on views so they are updateable, per SQL99

  We can only auto-create rules for simple views.  For more complex
  cases users will still have to write rules.

* Add the functionality for WITH CHECK OPTION clause of CREATE VIEW
* Allow NOTIFY in rules involving conditionals
* Have views on temporary tables exist in the temporary namespace
* Allow temporary views on non-temporary tables
* Allow RULE recompilation


Indexes
=======

* Allow inherited tables to inherit index, UNIQUE constraint, and primary
  key, foreign key
* UNIQUE INDEX on base column not honored on INSERTs/UPDATEs from
  inherited table:  INSERT INTO inherit_table (unique_index_col) VALUES
  (dup) should fail

  The main difficulty with this item is the problem of creating an index
  that can span more than one table.

* Add UNIQUE capability to non-btree indexes
* Add rtree index support for line, lseg, path, point
* -Use indexes for MIN() and MAX()

  MIN/MAX queries can already be rewritten as SELECT col FROM tab ORDER
  BY col {DESC} LIMIT 1. Completing this item involves doing this
  transformation automatically.

* Use index to restrict rows returned by multi-key index when used with
  non-consecutive keys to reduce heap accesses

  For an index on col1,col2,col3, and a WHERE clause of col1 = 5 and
  col3 = 9, spin though the index checking for col1 and col3 matches,
  rather than just col1; also called skip-scanning.

* Prevent index uniqueness checks when UPDATE does not modify the column

  Uniqueness (index) checks are done when updating a column even if the
  column is not modified by the UPDATE.

* Fetch heap pages matching index entries in sequential order

  Rather than randomly accessing heap pages based on index entries, mark
  heap pages needing access in a bitmap and do the lookups in sequential
  order. Another method would be to sort heap ctids matching the index
  before accessing the heap rows.

* -Allow non-bitmap indexes to be combined by creating bitmaps in memory

  This feature allows separate indexes to be ANDed or ORed together.  This
  is particularly useful for data warehousing applications that need to
  query the database in an many permutations.  This feature scans an index
  and creates an in-memory bitmap, and allows that bitmap to be combined
  with other bitmap created in a similar way.  The bitmap can either index
  all TIDs, or be lossy, meaning it records just page numbers and each
  page tuple has to be checked for validity in a separate pass.

* Allow the creation of on-disk bitmap indexes which can be quickly
  combined with other bitmap indexes

  Such indexes could be more compact if there are only a few distinct values.
  Such indexes can also be compressed.  Keeping such indexes updated can be
  costly.

* Allow use of indexes to search for NULLs

  One solution is to create a partial index on an IS NULL expression.

* Add concurrency to GIST
* Pack hash index buckets onto disk pages more efficiently

  Currently no only one hash bucket can be stored on a page. Ideally
  several hash buckets could be stored on a single page and greater
  granularity used for the hash algorithm.

* Consider sorting hash buckets so entries can be found using a binary
  search, rather than a linear scan
* In hash indexes, consider storing the hash value with or instead
  of the key itself
* Allow accurate statistics to be collected on indexes with more than
  one column or expression indexes, perhaps using per-index statistics
* Add fillfactor to control reserved free space during index creation
* Allow the creation of indexes with mixed ascending/descending specifiers


Commands
========

* Add BETWEEN ASYMMETRIC/SYMMETRIC
* Change LIMIT/OFFSET and FETCH/MOVE to use int8
* Allow CREATE TABLE AS to determine column lengths for complex
  expressions like SELECT col1 || col2
* Allow UPDATE to handle complex aggregates [update] (?)
* Allow backslash handling in quoted strings to be disabled for portability

  The use of C-style backslashes (.e.g. \n, \r) in quoted strings is not
  SQL-spec compliant, so allow such handling to be disabled.  However,
  disabling backslashes could break many third-party applications and tools.

* Allow an alias to be provided for the target table in UPDATE/DELETE

  This is not SQL-spec but many DBMSs allow it.

* -Allow additional tables to be specified in DELETE for joins

  UPDATE already allows this (UPDATE...FROM) but we need similar
  functionality in DELETE.  It's been agreed that the keyword should
  be USING, to avoid anything as confusing as DELETE FROM a FROM b.

* Add CORRESPONDING BY to UNION/INTERSECT/EXCEPT
* Allow REINDEX to rebuild all database indexes, remove /contrib/reindex
* Add ROLLUP, CUBE, GROUPING SETS options to GROUP BY
* Add a schema option to createlang
* Allow UPDATE tab SET ROW (col, ...) = (...) for updating multiple columns
* Allow SET CONSTRAINTS to be qualified by schema/table name
* Allow TRUNCATE ... CASCADE/RESTRICT
* Allow PREPARE of cursors
* Allow PREPARE to automatically determine parameter types based on the SQL
  statement
* Allow finer control over the caching of prepared query plans

  Currently, queries prepared via the libpq API are planned on first
  execute using the supplied parameters --- allow SQL PREPARE to do the
  same.  Also, allow control over replanning prepared queries either
  manually or automatically when statistics for execute parameters
  differ dramatically from those used during planning.

* Allow LISTEN/NOTIFY to store info in memory rather than tables?

  Currently LISTEN/NOTIFY information is stored in pg_listener. Storing
  such information in memory would improve performance.

* Dump large object comments in custom dump format
* Add optional textual message to NOTIFY

  This would allow an informational message to be added to the notify
  message, perhaps indicating the row modified or other custom
  information.

* Use more reliable method for CREATE DATABASE to get a consistent copy
  of db?

  Currently the system uses the operating system COPY command to create
  a new database.

* Add C code to copy directories for use in creating new databases
* Have pg_ctl look at PGHOST in case it is a socket directory?
* Allow pg_ctl to work properly with configuration files located outside
  the PGDATA directory

  pg_ctl can not read the pid file because it isn't located in the
  config directory but in the PGDATA directory.  The solution is to
  allow pg_ctl to read and understand postgresql.conf to find the
  data_directory value.

* Allow column-level GRANT/REVOKE privileges
* Add a GUC variable to warn about non-standard SQL usage in queries
* Add MERGE command that does UPDATE/DELETE, or on failure, INSERT (rules,
  triggers?)
* Add ON COMMIT capability to CREATE TABLE AS SELECT
* Add NOVICE output level for helpful messages like automatic sequence/index
  creation
* Add COMMENT ON for all cluster global objects (users, groups, databases
  and tablespaces)
* Add an option to automatically use savepoints for each statement in a
  multi-statement transaction.

  When enabled, this would allow errors in multi-statement transactions
  to be automatically ignored.

* Make row-wise comparisons work per SQL spec
* Add RESET CONNECTION command to reset all session state

  This would include resetting of all variables (RESET ALL), dropping of
  all temporary tables, removal of any NOTIFYs, cursors, prepared 
  queries(?), currval()s, etc.  This could be used for connection pooling. 
  We could also change RESET ALL to have this functionality.

* Allow FOR UPDATE queries to do NOWAIT locks
* Add GUC to issue notice about queries that use unjoined tables

* ALTER
	o Have ALTER TABLE RENAME rename SERIAL sequence names
	o Add ALTER DOMAIN TYPE
	o Allow ALTER TABLE ... ALTER CONSTRAINT ... RENAME
	o Allow ALTER TABLE to change constraint deferrability and actions
	o Disallow dropping of an inherited constraint
	o Allow objects to be moved to different schemas
	o Allow ALTER TABLESPACE to move to different directories
	o Allow databases and schemas to be moved to different tablespaces

	  One complexity is whether moving a schema should move all existing
	  schema objects or just define the location for future object creation.

	o Allow moving system tables to other tablespaces, where possible

	  Currently non-global system tables must be in the default database
	  schema. Global system tables can never be moved.

	o Prevent child tables from altering constraints like CHECK that were
	  inherited from the parent table


* CLUSTER
	o Automatically maintain clustering on a table

	  This might require some background daemon to maintain clustering
	  during periods of low usage. It might also require tables to be only
	  paritally filled for easier reorganization.  Another idea would
          be to create a merged heap/index data file so an index lookup would
	  automatically access the heap data too.  A third idea would be to
	  store heap rows in hashed groups, perhaps using a user-supplied
	  hash function.

	o Add default clustering to system tables

	  To do this, determine the ideal cluster index for each system
	  table and set the cluster setting during initdb.


* COPY
	o Allow COPY to report error lines and continue

	  This requires the use of a savepoint before each COPY line is
	  processed, with ROLLBACK on COPY failure.

	o -Allow COPY to understand \x as a hex byte
	o Have COPY return the number of rows loaded/unloaded (?)
	o -Allow COPY to optionally include column headings in the first line
	o -Allow COPY FROM ... CSV to interpret newlines and carriage
	  returns in data


* CURSOR
	o Allow UPDATE/DELETE WHERE CURRENT OF cursor

	  This requires using the row ctid to map cursor rows back to the
	  original heap row. This become more complicated if WITH HOLD cursors
	  are to be supported because WITH HOLD cursors have a copy of the row
	  and no FOR UPDATE lock.

	o Prevent DROP TABLE from dropping a row referenced by its own open
	  cursor (?)

	o Allow pooled connections to list all open WITH HOLD cursors

	  Because WITH HOLD cursors exist outside transactions, this allows
	  them to be listed so they can be closed.


* INSERT
	o Allow INSERT/UPDATE of the system-generated oid value for a row
	o Allow INSERT INTO tab (col1, ..) VALUES (val1, ..), (val2, ..)
	o Allow INSERT/UPDATE ... RETURNING new.col or old.col

	  This is useful for returning the auto-generated key for an INSERT.
	  One complication is how to handle rules that run as part of
	  the insert.


* SHOW/SET
	o Add SET PERFORMANCE_TIPS option to suggest INDEX, VACUUM, VACUUM
	  ANALYZE, and CLUSTER
	o Add SET PATH for schemas (?)

	  This is basically the same as SET search_path.


* SERVER-SIDE LANGUAGES
	o Allow PL/PgSQL's RAISE function to take expressions (?)

	  Currently only constants are supported.

	o -Change PL/PgSQL to use palloc() instead of malloc()
	o Handle references to temporary tables that are created, destroyed,
	  then recreated during a session, and EXECUTE is not used

	  This requires the cached PL/PgSQL byte code to be invalidated when
	  an object referenced in the function is changed.

	o Fix PL/pgSQL RENAME to work on variables other than OLD/NEW
	o Allow function parameters to be passed by name,
	  get_employee_salary(emp_id => 12345, tax_year => 2001)
	o Add Oracle-style packages
	o Add table function support to pltcl, plperl, plpython (?)
	o Allow PL/pgSQL to name columns by ordinal position, e.g. rec.(3)
	o Allow PL/pgSQL EXECUTE query_var INTO record_var;
	o Add capability to create and call PROCEDURES
	o Allow PL/pgSQL to handle %TYPE arrays, e.g. tab.col%TYPE[]
	o Add MOVE to PL/pgSQL


Clients
=======

* Add a libpq function to support Parse/DescribeStatement capability
* Prevent libpq's PQfnumber() from lowercasing the column name (?)
* Allow libpq to access SQLSTATE so pg_ctl can test for connection failure

  This would be used for checking if the server is up.

* Have psql show current values for a sequence
* Move psql backslash database information into the backend, use mnemonic
  commands? [psql]

  This would allow non-psql clients to pull the same information out of
  the database as psql.

* Fix psql's display of schema information (Neil)
* Allow psql \pset boolean variables to set to fixed values, rather than toggle
* Consistently display privilege information for all objects in psql
* Improve psql's handling of multi-line queries
* pg_dump
	o Have pg_dump use multi-statement transactions for INSERT dumps
	o Allow pg_dump to use multiple -t and -n switches [pg_dump]
	o Add dumping of comments on composite type columns
	o Add dumping of comments on index columns
	o Replace crude DELETE FROM method of pg_dumpall for cleaning of
	  users and groups with separate DROP commands
	o Add dumping and restoring of LOB comments
	o Stop dumping CASCADE on DROP TYPE commands in clean mode
	o Add full object name to the tag field.  eg. for operators we need
	  '=(integer, integer)', instead of just '='.
	o Add pg_dumpall custom format dumps.

	  This is probably best done by combining pg_dump and pg_dumpall
	  into a single binary.

	o Add CSV output format
	o Update pg_dump and psql to use the new COPY libpq API (Christopher)

* ECPG
	o Docs

	  Document differences between ecpg and the SQL standard and
	  information about the Informix-compatibility module.

	o Solve cardinality > 1 for input descriptors / variables (?)
	o Add a semantic check level, e.g. check if a table really exists
	o fix handling of DB attributes that are arrays
	o Use backend PREPARE/EXECUTE facility for ecpg where possible
	o Implement SQLDA
	o Fix nested C comments
	o sqlwarn[6] should be 'W' if the PRECISION or SCALE value specified
	o Make SET CONNECTION thread-aware, non-standard?
	o Allow multidimensional arrays
	o Add internationalized message strings


Referential Integrity
=====================

* Add MATCH PARTIAL referential integrity
* Add deferred trigger queue file

  Right now all deferred trigger information is stored in backend
  memory.  This could exhaust memory for very large trigger queues.
  This item involves dumping large queues into files.

* -Implement shared row locks and use them in RI triggers
* Enforce referential integrity for system tables
* Change foreign key constraint for array -> element to mean element
  in array (?)
* Allow DEFERRABLE UNIQUE constraints (?)
* Allow triggers to be disabled [trigger]

  Currently the only way to disable triggers is to modify the system
  tables.

* With disabled triggers, allow pg_dump to use ALTER TABLE ADD FOREIGN KEY

  If the dump is known to be valid, allow foreign keys to be added
  without revalidating the data.

* Allow statement-level triggers to access modified rows
* Support triggers on columns (Greg Sabino Mullane)
* Remove CREATE CONSTRAINT TRIGGER

  This was used in older releases to dump referential integrity
  constraints.

* Allow AFTER triggers on system tables

  System tables are modified in many places in the backend without going
  through the executor and therefore not causing triggers to fire. To
  complete this item, the functions that modify system tables will have
  to fire triggers.


Dependency Checking
===================

* Flush cached query plans when the dependent objects change
* Track dependencies in function bodies and recompile/invalidate


Exotic Features
===============

* Add SQL99 WITH clause to SELECT
* Add SQL99 WITH RECURSIVE to SELECT
* Add pre-parsing phase that converts non-ISO syntax to supported
  syntax

  This could allow SQL written for other databases to run without
  modification.

* Allow plug-in modules to emulate features from other databases
* SQL*Net listener that makes PostgreSQL appear as an Oracle database
  to clients
* Allow queries across databases or servers with transaction
  semantics

  Right now contrib/dblink can be used to issue such queries except it
  does not have locking or transaction semantics. Two-phase commit is
  needed to enable transaction semantics.

* Add two-phase commit
* Add the features of packages
	o  Make private objects accessable only to objects in the same schema
	o  Allow current_schema.objname to access current schema objects
	o  Add session variables
	o  Allow nested schemas


PERFORMANCE
===========


Fsync
=====

* Improve commit_delay handling to reduce fsync()
* Determine optimal fdatasync/fsync, O_SYNC/O_DSYNC options
* Allow multiple blocks to be written to WAL with one write()
* Add an option to sync() before fsync()'ing checkpoint files


Cache
=====

* Allow free-behind capability for large sequential scans, perhaps using
  posix_fadvise()

  Posix_fadvise() can control both sequential/random file caching and
  free-behind behavior, but it is unclear how the setting affects other
  backends that also have the file open, and the feature is not supported
  on all operating systems.

* Consider use of open/fcntl(O_DIRECT) to minimize OS caching,
  especially for WAL writes

  O_DIRECT doesn't have the same media write guarantees as fsync, so it
  is in addition to the fsync method, not in place of it.

* -Cache last known per-tuple offsets to speed long tuple access
* Speed up COUNT(*)

  We could use a fixed row count and a +/- count to follow MVCC
  visibility rules, or a single cached value could be used and
  invalidated if anyone modifies the table.  Another idea is to
  get a count directly from a unique index, but for this to be
  faster than a sequential scan it must avoid access to the heap
  to obtain tuple visibility information.

* Allow data to be pulled directly from indexes

  Currently indexes do not have enough tuple visibility information 
  to allow data to be pulled from the index without also accessing 
  the heap.  One way to allow this is to set a bit to index tuples 
  to indicate if a tuple is currently visible to all transactions 
  when the first valid heap lookup happens.  This bit would have to 
  be cleared when a heap tuple is expired.

* Consider automatic caching of queries at various levels:
	o Parsed query tree
	o Query execute plan
	o Query results

* -Allow the size of the buffer cache used by temporary objects to be
  specified as a GUC variable

  Larger local buffer cache sizes requires more efficient handling of
  local cache lookups.

* Improve the background writer

  Allow the background writer to more efficiently write dirty buffers
  from the end of the LRU cache and use a clock sweep algorithm to
  write other dirty buffers to reduced checkpoint I/O

* Allow sequential scans to take advantage of other concurrent
  sequentiqal scans, also called "Synchronised Scanning"

  One possible implementation is to start sequential scans from the lowest
  numbered buffer in the shared cache, and when reaching the end wrap
  around to the beginning, rather than always starting sequential scans
  at the start of the table.

Vacuum
======

* Improve speed with indexes

  For large table adjustements during vacuum, it is faster to reindex
  rather than update the index.

* Reduce lock time by moving tuples with read lock, then write
  lock and truncate table

  Moved tuples are invisible to other backends so they don't require a
  write lock. However, the read lock promotion to write lock could lead
  to deadlock situations.

* -Add a warning when the free space map is too small
* Maintain a map of recently-expired rows

  This allows vacuum to target specific pages for possible free space 
  without requiring a sequential scan.

* Auto-vacuum
	o Move into the backend code
	o Scan the buffer cache to find free space or use background writer
	o Use free-space map information to guide refilling
	o Do VACUUM FULL if table is nearly empty?


Locking
=======

* Make locking of shared data structures more fine-grained

  This requires that more locks be acquired but this would reduce lock
  contention, improving concurrency.

* Add code to detect an SMP machine and handle spinlocks accordingly
  from distributted.net, http://www1.distributed.net/source,
  in client/common/cpucheck.cpp

  On SMP machines, it is possible that locks might be released shortly,
  while on non-SMP machines, the backend should sleep so the process
  holding the lock can complete and release it.

* -Improve SMP performance on i386 machines

  i386-based SMP machines can generate excessive context switching
  caused by lock failure in high concurrency situations. This may be
  caused by CPU cache line invalidation inefficiencies.

* Research use of sched_yield() for spinlock acquisition failure
* Fix priority ordering of read and write light-weight locks (Neil)


Startup Time
============

* Experiment with multi-threaded backend [thread]

  This would prevent the overhead associated with process creation. Most
  operating systems have trivial process creation time compared to
  database startup overhead, but a few operating systems (WIn32,
  Solaris) might benefit from threading.  Also explore the idea of
  a single session using multiple threads to execute a query faster.

* Add connection pooling

  It is unclear if this should be done inside the backend code or done
  by something external like pgpool. The passing of file descriptors to
  existing backends is one of the difficulties with a backend approach.


Write-Ahead Log
===============

* Eliminate need to write full pages to WAL before page modification [wal]

  Currently, to protect against partial disk page writes, we write the
  full page images to WAL before they are modified so we can correct any
  partial page writes during recovery.  These pages can also be
  eliminated from point-in-time archive files.

* Reduce WAL traffic so only modified values are written rather than
  entire rows (?)
* Turn off after-change writes if fsync is disabled

  If fsync is off, there is no purpose in writing full pages to WAL

* Add WAL index reliability improvement to non-btree indexes
* Allow the pg_xlog directory location to be specified during initdb
  with a symlink back to the /data location
* Allow WAL information to recover corrupted pg_controldata
* Find a way to reduce rotational delay when repeatedly writing
  last WAL page

  Currently fsync of WAL requires the disk platter to perform a full
  rotation to fsync again. One idea is to write the WAL to different
  offsets that might reduce the rotational delay.

* Allow buffered WAL writes and fsync

  Instead of guaranteeing recovery of all committed transactions, this
  would provide improved performance by delaying WAL writes and fsync
  so an abrupt operating system restart might lose a few seconds of
  committed transactions but still be consistent.  We could perhaps
  remove the 'fsync' parameter (which results in an an inconsistent
  database) in favor of this capability.

* Eliminate WAL logging for CREATE TABLE AS when not doing WAL archiving
* -Change WAL to use 32-bit CRC, for performance reasons


Optimizer / Executor
====================

* Add missing optimizer selectivities for date, r-tree, etc
* Allow ORDER BY ... LIMIT # to select high/low value without sort or
  index using a sequential scan for highest/lowest values

  Right now, if no index exists, ORDER BY ... LIMIT # requires we sort
  all values to return the high/low value.  Instead The idea is to do a 
  sequential scan to find the high/low value, thus avoiding the sort.
  MIN/MAX already does this, but not for LIMIT > 1.

* Precompile SQL functions to avoid overhead
* Create utility to compute accurate random_page_cost value
* Improve ability to display optimizer analysis using OPTIMIZER_DEBUG
* Have EXPLAIN ANALYZE highlight poor optimizer estimates
* Use CHECK constraints to influence optimizer decisions

  CHECK constraints contain information about the distribution of values
  within the table. This is also useful for implementing subtables where
  a tables content is distributed across several subtables.

* Consider using hash buckets to do DISTINCT, rather than sorting

  This would be beneficial when there are few distinct values.

* ANALYZE should record a pg_statistic entry for an all-NULL column
* Log queries where the optimizer row estimates were dramatically
  different from the number of rows actually found (?)


Miscellaneous
=============

* Do async I/O for faster random read-ahead of data

  Async I/O allows multiple I/O requests to be sent to the disk with
  results coming back asynchronously.

* Use mmap() rather than SYSV shared memory or to write WAL files (?)

  This would remove the requirement for SYSV SHM but would introduce
  portability issues. Anonymous mmap (or mmap to /dev/zero) is required
  to prevent I/O overhead.

* Consider mmap()'ing files into a backend?

  Doing I/O to large tables would consume a lot of address space or
  require frequent mapping/unmapping.  Extending the file also causes
  mapping problems that might require mapping only individual pages,
  leading to thousands of mappings.  Another problem is that there is no
  way to _prevent_ I/O to disk from the dirty shared buffers so changes
  could hit disk before WAL is written.

* Add a script to ask system configuration questions and tune postgresql.conf
* Use a phantom command counter for nested subtransactions to reduce
  per-tuple overhead


Source Code
===========

* Add use of 'const' for variables in source tree
* Rename some /contrib modules from pg* to pg_*
* Move some things from /contrib into main tree
* Move some /contrib modules out to their own project sites
* Remove warnings created by -Wcast-align
* Move platform-specific ps status display info from ps_status.c to ports
* Add optional CRC checksum to heap and index pages
* Improve documentation to build only interfaces (Marc)
* Remove or relicense modules that are not under the BSD license, if possible
* Remove memory/file descriptor freeing before ereport(ERROR)
* Acquire lock on a relation before building a relcache entry for it
* Promote debug_query_string into a server-side function current_query()
* Allow the identifier length to be increased via a configure option
* Remove Win32 rename/unlink looping if unnecessary
* Remove kerberos4 from source tree?
* Allow cross-compiling by generating the zic database on the target system
* Improve NLS maintenace of libpgport messages linked onto applications
* Allow ecpg to work with MSVC and BCC
* -Make src/port/snprintf.c thread-safe
* Add xpath_array() to /contrib/xml2 to return results as an array
* Allow building in directories containing spaces

  This is probably not possible because 'gmake' and other compiler tools
  do not fully support quoting of paths with spaces.

* Allow installing to directories containing spaces

  This is possible if proper quoting is added to the makefiles for the
  install targets.  Because PostgreSQL supports relocatable installs, it
  is already possible to install into a directory that doesn't contain 
  spaces and then copy the install to a directory with spaces.

* Fix cross-compiling of time zone database via 'zic'
* Fix sgmltools so PDFs can be generated with bookmarks
* Win32
	o Remove configure.in check for link failure when cause is found
	o Remove readdir() errno patch when runtime/mingwex/dirent.c rev
	  1.4 is released
	o Remove psql newline patch when we find out why mingw outputs an
	  extra newline
	o Allow psql to use readline once non-US code pages work with
	  backslashes
	o Re-enable timezone output on log_line_prefix '%t' when a
	  shorter timezone string is available
	o Improve dlerror() reporting string
	o Fix problem with shared memory on the Win32 Terminal Server
        o Add support for Unicode

	  To fix this, the data needs to be converted to/from UTF16/UTF8
          so the Win32 wcscoll() can be used, and perhaps other functions
	  like towupper().  However, UTF8 already works with normal
	  locales but provides no ordering or character set classes.

* Wire Protocol Changes
	o Allow dynamic character set handling
	o Add decoded type, length, precision
	o Use compression?
	o Update clients to use data types, typmod, schema.table.column names
	  of result sets using new query protocol


---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Developers who have claimed items are:
--------------------------------------
* Alvaro is Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@dcc.uchile.cl>
* Andrew is Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net>
* Bruce is Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> of Software Research Assoc.
* Christopher is Christopher Kings-Lynne <chriskl@familyhealth.com.au> of
    Family Health Network
* Claudio is Claudio Natoli <claudio.natoli@memetrics.com>
* D'Arcy is D'Arcy J.M. Cain <darcy@druid.net> of The Cain Gang Ltd.
* Fabien is Fabien Coelho <coelho@cri.ensmp.fr>
* Gavin is Gavin Sherry <swm@linuxworld.com.au> of Alcove Systems Engineering
* Greg is Greg Sabino Mullane <greg@turnstep.com>
* Hiroshi is Hiroshi Inoue <Inoue@tpf.co.jp>
* Jan is Jan Wieck <JanWieck@Yahoo.com> of Afilias, Inc.
* Joe is Joe Conway <mail@joeconway.com>
* Karel is Karel Zak <zakkr@zf.jcu.cz>
* Magnus is Magnus Hagander <mha@sollentuna.net>
* Marc is Marc Fournier <scrappy@hub.org> of PostgreSQL, Inc.
* Matthew T. O'Connor <matthew@zeut.net>
* Michael is Michael Meskes <meskes@postgresql.org> of Credativ
* Neil is Neil Conway <neilc@samurai.com>
* Oleg is Oleg Bartunov <oleg@sai.msu.su>
* Peter is Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net>
* Philip is Philip Warner <pjw@rhyme.com.au> of Albatross Consulting Pty. Ltd.
* Rod is Rod Taylor <pg@rbt.ca>
* Simon is Simon Riggs <simon@2ndquadrant.com>
* Stephan is Stephan Szabo <sszabo@megazone23.bigpanda.com>
* Tatsuo is Tatsuo Ishii <t-ishii@sra.co.jp> of Software Research Assoc.
* Tom is Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> of Red Hat