TODO list for PostgreSQL ======================== Last updated: Mon Apr 17 12:34:31 EDT 2000 Current maintainer: Bruce Momjian (pgman@candle.pha.pa.us) The most recent version of this document can be viewed at the PostgreSQL web site, http://www.PostgreSQL.org. A dash(-) marks changes that will appear in the upcoming 7.0 release. Names in brackets "[]" indicate more detailed information is available in the directory pgsql/doc/TODO.detail/ under that name. RELIABILITY ----------- RESOURCES * -Disallow inherited columns with the same name as new columns * -Elog() does not free all its memory * -spinlock stuck problem when elog(FATAL) and elog(ERROR) inside bufmgr * -Recover or force failure when disk space is exhausted(Hiroshi) PARSER * -INSERT INTO ... SELECT with AS columns matching result columns problem * SELECT pg_class FROM pg_class generates strange error * Alter TABLE ADD COLUMN does not honor DEFAULT, add CONSTRAINT * -Select a[1] FROM test fails, it needs test.a[1](Tom) * -Array index references without table name cause problems [array](Tom) * Creating index of TIMESTAMP & RELTIME fails, or rename to DATETIME(Thomas) * SELECT foo UNION SELECT foo is incorrectly simplified to SELECT foo * -INSERT ... SELECT ... GROUP BY groups by target columns not source columns(Tom) * -CREATE TABLE test (a char(5) DEFAULT text '', b int4) fails on INSERT(Tom) * -UNION with LIMIT fails * Unique index on base column not honored on inserts from inherited table INSERT INTO inherit_table (unique_index_col) VALUES (dup) should fail [inherit] * -CREATE TABLE x AS SELECT 1 UNION SELECT 2 fails * -CREATE TABLE test(col char(2) DEFAULT user) fails in length restriction * -mismatched types in CREATE TABLE ... DEFAULT causes problems [default] * -SELECT ... UNION ... ORDER BY fails when sort expr not in result list, ORDER BY is applied only to the first SELECT * Be smarter about promoting types when UNION merges different data types * redesign INSERT ... SELECT to have two levels of target list * -select * from pg_class where oid in (0,-1) * have INTERSECT/EXCEPT prevent duplicates unless ALL is specified * -prevent primary key that exceeds max index columns [primary] * -SELECT COUNT('asdf') FROM pg_class WHERE oid=12 crashes * SELECT DISTINCT ON col1 col1 col2 FROM tab1 is broken [distinct] * -require SELECT DISTINCT target list to have all ORDER BY columns * -When using aggregates + GROUP BY, no rows in should yield no rows out(Tom) * -Allow HAVING to use comparisons that have no aggregates(Tom) * -Allow COUNT(DISTINCT col))(TOm) * SELECT 'x'::varchar(10) INTO newtable; fails * SELECT col::DECIMAL(12,10); fails VIEWS * Views containing aggregates sometimes fail(Jan) * -Views with spaces in view name fail when referenced * Creating view and inheriting the view causes view* to show duplicates(inherit) * Disallow LOCK on view MISC * -User who can create databases can modify pg_database table(Peter E) * Plpgsql does not handle quoted mixed-case identifiers * -Fix btree to give a useful elog when key > 1/2 (page - overhead)(Tom) * -pg_dump should preserve primary key information(Peter E) * -plpgsql regression tests fails on BSD/OS * -database names with spaces fail * -insert of 0.0 into DECIMAL(4,4) field fails(Tom) * -* Interlock to prevent DROP DATABASE on a database with running backendsInterlock to prevent DROP DATABASE on a database with running backends * Buffer reference counting bugfixes * Fix libpq bug that causes it to drop backend error message sent just before connection closure (ie, any FATAL error message) * SELECT ... UNION ... ORDER BY fails when sort expr not in result list * SELECT ... UNION ... GROUP BY fails if column types disagree, no type promotion occurs * Modification of pg_class can happen while table in use by another backend. Might lead to MVCC inside of syscache * Permission to UPDATE table allows DELETE also ENHANCEMENTS ------------ URGENT * -Add referential integrity(Jan)[primary] * Add MATCH PARTIAL referential integrity * Foreign key does not check that columns referenced form a primary key or constrained by UNIQUE * Add OUTER joins, left and right[outer](Thomas, Bruce) * Allow long tuples by chaining or auto-storing outside db (TOAST)(Jan) * -Eliminate limits on query length * Fix memory leak for expressions[memory](Tom?) * -Fix memory leak for aggregates(Tom) ADMIN * -Better interface for adding to pg_group(Peter E) * More access control over who can create tables and access the database * Test syslog functionality * Allow elog() to return error codes, not just messages * Allow international error message support and add error codes * -Generate postmaster pid file and remove flock/fcntl lock code[flock](Tatsuo) * Add ability to specifiy location of lock/socket files [flock] * Unify configuration into one configuration file TYPES * -Add BIT, BIT VARYING * Nchar (as distinguished from ordinary varchar), * Domain capability * Add STDDEV/VARIANCE() function for standard deviation computation/variance * Allow compression of large fields or a compressed field type * Large objects o Fix large object mapping scheme, own typeid or reltype(Peter) o Not to stuff everything as files in a single directory, hash dirs o Allow large object vacuuming o Tables that start with xinv confused to be large objects * -Allow pg_descriptions when creating tables * -Allow pg_descriptions when creating types, columns, and functions * Add IPv6 capability to INET/CIDR types * Make a separate SERIAL type? * Store binary-compatible type information in the system * Add support for & operator * Allow LOCALE on a per-column basis, default to ASCII * -Allow LOCALE to use indexes in regular expression searches(Tom) * -Allow array on int8[](Thomas) * Allow nulls in arrays * Allow arrays to be ORDER'ed * Remove Money type, add money formatting for decimal type * Declare typein/out functions in pg_proc with a special "C string" data type * Add non-large-object binary field * -Add index on NUMERIC/DECIMAL type(Jan) * -Make Absolutetime/Relativetime int4 because time_t can be int8 on some ports (Peter E) * Functions returning sets don't really work right[function] * Make type equivalency apply to aggregates(Peter E.) VIEWS * Allow DISTINCT on views * Allow views of aggregate columns * Allow views with subselects INDEXES * Allow CREATE INDEX zman_index ON test (date_trunc( 'day', zman ) datetime_ops) fails index can't store constant parameters * -Allow creation of functional indexes to use default types * -Permissions on indexes, prevent them(Peter E) * Allow SQL function indexes * Add FILLFACTOR to index creation * -Allow indexing of LIKE with localle character sets * -Allow indexing of more than eight columns COMMANDS * ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN to inherited table put column in wrong place [inherit] * -Add ALTER TABLE DROP/ALTER COLUMN feature(Peter E) * Allow CLUSTER on all tables at once, and improve CLUSTER, loses NOT NULL specification, indexes, permissions, etc on table[cluster] * Add SIMILAR TO to allow character classes, 'pg_[a-c]%' * Auto-destroy sequence on DROP of table with SERIAL(Ryan) * Allow LOCK TABLE tab1, tab2, tab3 so all tables locked in unison * Allow INSERT/UPDATE of system-generated oid value for a row * Allow ESCAPE '\' at the end of LIKE for ANSI compliance [like] * Rewrite the LIKE handling by rewriting the user string with the supplied ESCAPE [like] * -Move LIKE index optimization handling to the optimizer(Tom) * Allow RULE recompilation * Support UNION/INTERSECT/EXCEPT in sub-selects * Allow DELETE and UPDATE to use inheritance using tablename* * Allow INSERT INTO my_table VALUES (a, b, c, DEFAULT, x, y, z, ...) CLIENTS * Make NULL's come out at the beginning or end depending on the ORDER BY direction * -Allow flag to control COPY input/output of NULLs(Peter E) * Update reltuples from COPY command * -Allow psql \copy to allow delimiters(Peter E) * -Add a function to return the last inserted oid, for use in psql scripts (Peter E) * -Allow psql to print nulls as distinct from "" [null](Peter E) * fix array handling for ECPG * add pg_dump option to dump type names as standard ANSI types * allow psql \d to show primary and foreign keys EXOTIC FEATURES * Add sql3 recursive unions * Add the concept of dataspaces * Add replication of distributed databases * Allow queries across multiple databases * Allow nested transactions MISC * Increase identifier length(NAMEDATALEN) if small performance hit * Allow row re-use without vacuum(Vadim) * Create a background process for each database that runs while database is idle, finding superceeded rows, gathering stats and vacuuming * Add UNIQUE capability to non-btree indexes * Certain indexes will not shrink, i.e. oid indexes with many inserts(Vadim) * Restore unused oid's on backend exit if no one else has gotten oids * Have UPDATE/DELETE clean out indexes * -Allow WHERE restriction on ctid(Hiroshi) * Allow cursors to be DECLAREd/OPENed/CLOSEed outside transactions * Allow DELETE WHERE CURRENT OF cursor * -Allow PQrequestCancel() to terminate when in waiting-for-lock state * Transaction log, so re-do log can be on a separate disk by with after-row images(Vadim) [logging](Vadim)(in-progress) * Populate backend status area and write program to dump status data * Make oid use unsigned int more reliably, pg_atoi() * -Allow subqueries in target list(Tom) * Put sort files, large objects in their own directory * Do autocommit so always in a transaction block(?) * Show location of syntax error in query [yacc] * Redesign the function call interface to handle NULLs better[function](Tom) * -Document/trigger/rule so changes to pg_shadow recreate pg_pwd [pg_shadow](Peter E.) * Missing optimizer selectivities for date, r-tree, etc. [optimizer] * -Overhaul mdmgr/smgr to fix double unlinking and double opens, cleanup * Overhaul bufmgr/lockmgr/transaction manager * -Add PL/Perl(Mark Hollomon) * -Add option for postgres user have a password by default(Peter E) * Add configure test to check for C++ need for *.h and namespaces * Allow BLCKSZ <= 64k, not <= 32k * redesign UNION structures to have separarate target lists * Allow multi-level query trees for INSERT INTO ... SELECT PERFORMANCE ----------- FSYNC * Allow transaction commits with rollback with no-fsync performance [fsync](Vadim) * -Prevent fsync in SELECT-only queries(Vadim) INDEXES * Use indexes in ORDER BY for min(), max() * Use index to restrict rows returned by multi-key index when used with non-consecutive keys or OR clauses, so fewer heap accesses * -Convert function(constant) into a constant for index use(Bernard Frankpitt) * Improve LIMIT processing by using index to limit rows processed [limit] * Have optimizer take LIMIT into account when considering index scans [limit] * -Make index creation use psort code, because it is now faster(Tom) * -Allow creation of sort temp tables > 1 Gig * -Create more system table indexes for faster cache lookups * -fix indexscan() so it does leak memory by not requiring caller to free(Tom) * -Improve _bt_binsrch() to handle equal keys better, remove _bt_firsteq()(Tom) * Allow SELECT * FROM tab WHERE int2col = 4 use int2col index, int8, float4, numeric/decimal too [optimizer] * -Allow optimizer to prefer plans that match ORDER BY(Tom) * Include heap CTID in btree index keys, remove equal-key cruft from btree CACHE * Cache most recent query plan(s) [prepare] * Shared catalog cache, reduce lseek()'s by caching table size in shared area * -elog() flushes cache, try invalidating just entries from current xact, perhaps using invalidation cache MISC * Allow compression of log and meta data * Allow char() not to use variable-sized header to reduce disk size * Allow char1 data type that takes one byte of storage * Do async I/O to do better read-ahead of data * -Fix memory exhaustion when using many OR's [cnfify](Tom) * Get faster regex() code from Henry Spencer when it is available * Use mmap() rather than SYSV shared memory(?) * -Process const = const parts of OR clause in separate pass(Bernard Frankpitt) * Make oid use oidin/oidout not int4in/int4out in pg_type.h * Improve Subplan list handling * Allow Subplans to use efficient joins(hash, merge) with upper variable [subquery] * use fmgr_info()/fmgr_faddr() instead of fmgr() calls in high-traffic places, like GROUP BY, UNIQUE, index processing, etc. * improve dynamic memory allocation by introducing tuple-context memory allocation [memory] * -fix memory leak in cache code when non-existant table is referenced * In WHERE tab1.x=3 AND tab1.x=tab2.y, add tab2.y=3 * -pass atttypmod through parser in more cases [atttypmod] * -remove duplicate type in/out functions for disk and net * Allow persistent backends [persistent] * others [performance] * prevent labels from being output for stored rules (Tom) * allow configuration of maximum number of open files SOURCE CODE ----------- * Add use of 'const' for variables in source tree * Fix C optimizer problem where fmgr_ptr calls return different types [alpha] * -Add needed includes and removed unneeded include files(Bruce) * -Make configure --enable-debug add -g on compile line(Peter E) * Does Mariposa source contain any other bug fixes? * Remove SET KSQO option if OR processing is improved(Tom) * -Pre-generate lex and yacc output so not required for install(Peter E) * Use macros to define NT open() file parameters, remove NT-specific defines * Change CURRENT to OLD internally for rules --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Developers who have claimed items are: -------------------------------------- * Billy is Billy G. Allie * Brook is Brook Milligan * Bruce is Bruce Momjian * Bryan is Bryan Henderson * D'Arcy is D'Arcy J.M. Cain * David is David Hartwig * Edmund is Edmund Mergl * Goran is Goran Thyni * Hiroshi is Hiroshi Inoue * Jan is Jan Wieck * Marc is Marc Fournier * Massimo Dal Zotto * Michael is Michael Meskes * Oleg is Oleg Bartunov * Peter is Peter T Mount * Peter E is Peter Eisentraut * Ryan is Ryan Bradetich * Stefan Simkovics * Tatsuo is Tatsuo Ishii * Tom is Tom Lane * Thomas is Thomas Lockhart * TomH is Tom I Helbekkmo * Vadim is "Vadim B. Mikheev"