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Bruce Momjian d89578ccbe Add to release notes.
2003-08-17 05:24:52 +00:00

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Release Notes
7.4 Development Branch
Valid as of 2003-08-01. Update release.sgml later.
Server Operation
Allow IPv6 server connections (Nigel Kukard, Johan Jordaan, Bruce, Tom, Kurt
Roeckx, Andrew Dunstan)
Fix SSL to handle errors cleanly (Nathan Mueller)
SSL protocol security and performance improvements (Sean Chittenden)
Print lock information when a deadlock is detected (Tom)
Update /tmp socket mod. times regularly to avoid their removal (Tom)
Enable PAM for MAC OS X (Aaron Hillegass)
Make btree indexes fully WAL-safe (Tom)
Allow btree index compaction and empty page reuse (Tom)
Fix inconsistent index lookups during split of first root page (Tom)
Improve free space map allocation logic (Tom)
Preserve free space information between postmaster restarts (Tom)
Set proper schema permissions in initdb (Peter)
Add start time to pg_stat_activity (Neil)
New code to detect corrupt disk pages; erase with zero_damaged_pages (Tom)
New client/server protocol: faster, no username length limit, allow
clean exit from COPY (Tom)
Add transaction status, tableid, columnid to backend protocol (Tom)
Add new binary I/O protocol (Tom)
Remove autocommit server setting; move to client applications (Tom)
New error message wording, error codes, and three levels of error detail (Tom)
_________________________________________________________________
Performance
Add hashing for GROUP BY aggregates (Tom)
Allow nested loops to be smarter about multicolumn indexes (Tom)
Allow multi-key hash joins (Tom)
Improve constant folding (Tom)
Add ability to inline simple SQL functions (Tom)
Reduce memory usage for queries using complex functions (Tom)
Improve GEQO optimizer performance (Tom)
Allow IN/NOT IN to be handled via hash tables (Tom)
Improve NOT IN (subquery) performance (Tom)
Allow most IN subqueries to be processed as joins (Tom)
Allow the postmaster to preload libraries using preload_libraries (Joe)
Improve optimizer cost computations, particularly for subqueries (Tom)
Avoid sort when subquery ORDER BY matches upper query (Tom)
Assume WHERE a.x = b.y and b.y = 42 also means a.x = 42 (Tom)
Allow hash/merge joins on complex joins (Tom)
Allow hash joins for more data types (Tom)
Allow join optimization of ANSI joins, disable with join_collapse_limit (Tom)
Add from_collapse_limit to control conversion of subqueries to joins (Tom)
Use faster regex code from TCL (Henry Spencer, Tom)
Use bit-mapped relation sets in the optimizer (Tom)
Improve backend startup time (Tom)
Improve trigger/constraint performance (Stephan)
_________________________________________________________________
Server Configuration
Rename server parameter server_min_messages to log_min_messages (Bruce)
Rename show_*_stats to log_*_stats (Bruce)
Rename show_source_port to log_source_port (Bruce)
Rename hostname_lookup to log_hostname (Bruce)
Add checkpoint_warning to warn of excessive checkpointing (Bruce)
New read-only server parameters for localization (Tom)
Change debug server log messages to output as DEBUG rather than LOG (Bruce)
Prevent server log variables from being turned off by non-super users (Bruce)
log_min_messages/client_min_messages now controls debug_* output (Bruce)
Add Rendezvous server support (Chris Campbell)
Add ability to print only slow statements using log_min_duration_statement
(Christopher)
Allow pg_hba.conf to accept netmasks in CIDR format (Andrew Dunstan)
New is_superuser read-only variable (Tom)
New server-side parameter log_error_verbosity to control error detail (Tom)
postgres --help-config now dumps server config variables (Aizaz Ahmed)
Make default shared_buffers 1000 and max_connections 100, if possible (Tom)
Add new columns in pg_settings: context, type, source , min_val, max_val (Joe)
New pg_hba.conf 'hostnossl' to prevent SSL connections (Jon Jensen)
_________________________________________________________________
Queries
New SQL-standard information schema (Peter)
Add read-only transactions (Peter)
Add server variable regex_flavor to control regular expression
processing (Tom)
Print key name and value in foreign-key violation messages (Dmitry Tkach)
Allow users to see their own queries in pg_stat_activity (Kevin Brown)
Fix subquery aggregates of upper query columns to match SQL spec. (Tom)
Add option to prevent auto-addition of tables referenced in query (Nigel J.
Andrews)
Allow UPDATE ... SET col = DEFAULT (Rod)
Allow expressions to be used in LIMIT/OFFSET (Tom)
Change EXECUTE INTO to CREATE TABLE AS EXECUTE (Peter)
_________________________________________________________________
Object Manipulation
Make CREATE SEQUENCE grammar more SQL1999 standards compliant (Neil)
Add FOR EACH STATEMENT statement-level triggers (Neil Conway)
Add DOMAIN CHECK constraints (Rod)
Add ALTER DOMAIN .. SET / DROP NOT NULL, SET / DROP DEFAULT, ADD / DROP
CONSTRAINT (Rod)
Fix several zero-column table bugs (Tom)
Have ALTER TABLE ... ADD PRIMARY KEY add NOT NULL constraint (Rod)
Add ALTER DOMAIN OWNER (Rod)
Add ALTER TABLE ... WITHOUT OIDS? (Rod)
Add ALTER SEQUENCE to modify min/max/increment/cache/cycle values (Rod)
Add ALTER TABLE ... CLUSTER ON (Alvaro Herrera)
Improve DOMAIN automatic type casting (Rod, Tom)
Allow dollar signs in identifiers, except as first character (Tom)
Disallow dollar signs in operator names, so x=$1 works (Tom)
Allow SQL200X inheritance syntax LIKE <subtable>, INCLUDING DEFAULTS (Rod)
Add WITH GRANT OPTION clause to GRANT, per SQL spec (Peter)
_________________________________________________________________
Utility Commands
Add ON COMMIT PRESERVE ROWS for temp tables (Gavin)
Allow cursors outside transactions using WITH HOLD (Neil)
Make MOVE/FETCH 0 actually move/fetch 0 (Bruce)
Cause FETCH 1 to return the current cursor row, or zero if at
beginning/end of cursor, per SQL spec (Bruce)
Have MOVE return 0 or 1 depending on cursor position (Bruce)
Properly handle SCROLL with cursors, or report an error (Neil)
Implement SQL92-compatible FIRST, LAST, ABSOLUTE n, RELATIVE n options
for FETCH and MOVE (Tom)
Allow EXPLAIN on DECLARE CURSOR (Tom)
Allow CLUSTER to use index marked as pre-clustered by default (Alvaro Herrera)
Allow CLUSTER to cluster all tables (Alvaro Herrera)
Prevent CLUSTER on partial indexes (Tom)
Allow \r and \r\n termination for COPY files (Bruce)
Disallow literal carriage return as a data value, backslash-carriage-return
and \r still allowed (Bruce)
COPY changes (binary, \.)? (Tom)
Recover from COPY IN/OUT failure cleanly (Tom)
Prevent possible memory leaks in COPY (Tom)
Make TRUNCATE transaction-safe (Rod)
Multiple pg_dump fixes, including tar format and large objects
Allow pg_dump to dump specific schemas (Neil)
Allow pg_dump to preserve column storage characteristics (Christopher)
Allow pg_dump to preserve CLUSTER characteristics (Christopher)
Have pg_dumpall use GRANT/REVOKE to dump database-level permissions (Tom)
Allow pg_dumpall to support the -a, -s, -x options of pg_dump (Tom)
Prevent pg_dump from lowercasing identifiers specified on the command line (Tom)
Allow PREPARE/bind of utility commands like FETCH and EXPLAIN (Tom)
Allow EXPLAIN EXECUTE (Neil)
Allow pg_get_constraintdef() to support UNIQUE, PRIMARY KEY and
CHECK constraints (Christopher)
Improve VACUUM performance on indexes by reducing WAL traffic (Tom)
Allow pg_ctl to better handle non-standard ports (Greg)
Functional indexes now support indexes on column expressions (Tom)
Syntax errors now reported as 'syntax error' rather than 'parse error' (Tom)
Have SHOW TRANSACTION_ISOLATION match input to SET TRANSACTION_ISOLATION (Tom)
Have COMMENT ON DATABASE on non-local database generate a warning (Rod)
_________________________________________________________________
Data Types and Functions
New extra_float_digits server parameter to control float precision display
(Pedro Ferreira, Tom)
Allow +1300 as a numeric timezone specifier, for FJST (Tom)
Remove rarely used oidrand(), oidsrand(), and userfntest() functions (Neil)
Add md5() function to main server, already in /contrib/pgcrypto (Joe)
Increase date range of timestamp (John Cochran)
Change EXTRACT(EPOCH FROM timestamp) so timestamp without time zone
is assumed to be in local time, not GMT (Tom)
Trap division by zero in case the operating system doesn't prevent it (Tom)
Change the NUMERIC data type internally to base 10000 (Tom)
New hostmask() function (Greg Wickham)
Fixes for to_char() (Karel)
Allow functions that can take any argument data type and return
any data type, using ANYELEMENT and ANYARRAY (Joe)
Arrays may now be specified as ARRAY[1,2,3], ARRAY[['a','b'],['c','d']],
or ARRAY[ARRAY[ARRAY[2]]] (Joe)
Allow proper comparisons for arrays (Joe)
Allow array concatenation with '||' (Joe)
Allow indexes on array columns, and used in ORDER BY and DISTINCT (Joe)
Allow WHERE qualification 'expr <oper> ANY/SOME/ALL (array-expr)' (Joe)
Allow polymorphic SQL functions (Joe)
New array functions array_append(), array_cat(), array_lower(),
array_prepend(), array_to_string(), array_upper(), string_to_array() (Joe)
Allow user defined aggregates to use polymorphic functions (Joe)
Allow polymorphic user defined aggregates (Joe)
Allow assignments to empty arrays (Joe)
Allow 60 in seconds fields of timestamp, time, interval input values (Tom)
Allow CIDR data type to be cast to text (Tom)
Allow the creation of special LIKE indexes for non-C locales (Peter)
Disallow invalid timezone names (Tom)
Trim trailing spaces when CHAR() data is cast to VARCHAR or TEXT (Tom)
Make FLOAT(p) measure the precision p in bits, not decimal digits (Tom)
Add IPv6 support to the inet and cidr data types (Michael Graff)
Add family() function to report whether address is IPv4 or IPv6 (Michael Graff)
Have SHOW DATESTYLE generate output similar to that used by SET DATESTYLE (Tom)
Change DATESTYLE to output its value in a more common format (Tom)
Make EXTRACT(TIMEZONE) and SET/SHOW TIMEZONE follow the SQL convention
for the sign of timezone offsets, ie, positive is east from UTC (Tom)
Fix date_trunc('quarter',...) (B?jthe Zolt?n)
Make initcap() more compatible with Oracle (Mike Nolan)
Allow only DateStyle field order for date values not in ISO format (Greg)
Add new DateStyle values MDY, DMY, and YMD, honor US and European for
backward compatibility (Tom)
'now' will no longer work as a column default, use now() (change required for
prepared statements) (Tom)
Assume NaN value to be larger than any other value in MIN()/MAX() (Tom)
Prevent interval from supressing ':00' seconds display
New pg_get_triggerdef(prettyprint) and pg_constraint_is_visible() functions
_________________________________________________________________
Server-side Languages
Prevent PL/pgSQL crash when RETURN NEXT is used on a zero-row record var. (Tom)
Make PL/python's spi_execute interface handle NULLs properly (Andrew Bosma)
Allow PL/pgSQL to declare variables of composite types without %ROWTYPE (Tom)
Fix PL/python _quote() function to handle big integers (?)
Make PL/python an untrusted language, now called plpythonu (Kevin Jacobs, Tom)
Allow polymorphic PL/pgSQL functions (Tom, Joe)
Improved compiled function caching mechanism in PL/pgSQL with full
support for polymorphism (Joe)
Add new $0 parameter in PL/pgSQL representing the function's actual
return type (Joe)
_________________________________________________________________
Psql
Add "\pset pager always" to always use pager (Greg)
Improve tab completion (Rod, Ross Reedstrom, Ian Barwick)
Reorder \? help into groupings (Harald Armin Massa, Bruce)
Add schema, cast, and conversion backslash commands (Christopher)
\encoding now tracks client_encoding server variable (Tom)
Save edit history into readline history (Ross)
Improve \d display (Christopher)
Enhance HTML mode to be more standards-compliant (Greg)
New '\set AUTOCOMMIT off' capability (Tom)
New '\set VERBOSITY' to control error detail (Tom)
New %T prompt string to show transaction status (Tom)
_________________________________________________________________
Libpq
Allow PQcmdTuples() to return row counts for MOVE and FETCH (Neil)
Add PQfreemem() for freeing memory on Win32, suggest for NOTIFY (Bruce)
Document service capability, and add sample file (Bruce)
Make PQsetdbLogin() have the same defaults as PQconnectdb() (Tom)
Allow libpq to cleanly fail when result sets are too large (Tom)
Improve performance of PGunescapeBytea() (Ben Lamb)
Allow thread-safe libpq with --enable-thread-safety (Lee Kindness, Philip Yarra)
Allow pqInternalNotice() to accept a format string and args instead of
just a preformatted message (Tom, Sean Chittenden)
Allow control SSL negotiation with sslmode values "disable", "allow",
"Prefer", and "require" (Jon Jensen)
Allow new error codes and levels of text (Tom)
Allow access to the underlying table and column of a query result (Tom)
Allow access to the current transaction status (Tom)
Add ability to pass binary data directly to the backend (Tom)
_________________________________________________________________
JDBC
Allow setNull on updateable resultsets
Allow executeBatch on a prepared statement (Barry)
Support SSL connections (Barry)
Handle schema names in result sets (Paul Sorenson)
Add refcursor support (Nic Ferrier)
_________________________________________________________________
Miscellaneous Interfaces
Prevent possible memory leak or core dump during libpgtcl shutdown (Tom)
Add ecpg Informix compatibility (Michael)
Add ecpg DECIMAL type that is fixed length, for Informix (Michael)
Allow thread-safe ecpg with --enable-thread-safety (Lee Kindness, Bruce)
Allow client interfaces to compile under MinGW/win32 (Bruce)
Move python client interface to http://www.pygresql.org (Marc)
_________________________________________________________________
Source Code
Prevent need for separate platform geometry regression result files (Tom)
Improved PPC locking primitive (Reinhard Max)
Embed LD_LIBRARY_PATH used for build process into binaries (Billy)
New palloc0 to allocate and clear memory (Bruce)
Fix locking code for s390x CPU (64-bit) (Tom)
Allow OpenBSD to use local ident credentials (William Ahern)
Make query plan trees read-only to executor (Tom)
Add Darwin startup scripts (David Wheeler)
Allow libpq to compile with Borland C++ compiler (Lester Godwin, Karl Waclawek)
Use our own version of getopt_long() if needed (Peter)
Convert administration scripts to C (Peter)
Bison >=1.85 is now required for grammar changes
Merge documentation into one book (Peter)
Add Win32 compatibility functions (Bruce)
New ereport() function for error reporting (Tom)
Support Intel Linux compiler (Peter)
Improve Linux startup scripts (Slawomir Sudnik, Darko Prenosil)
Add support for AMD Opteron and Itanium (Jeffrey W. Baker, Bruce)
_________________________________________________________________
Contrib
Change dbmirror license to BSD
Improve earthdistance (Bruno Wolff III)
Portability improvements to pgcrypto (Marko Kreen)
Prevent xml crash (John Gray, Michael Richards)
Update oracle
Update mysql
Update cube (Bruno Wolff III)
Update earthdistance to use cube (Bruno Wolff III)
Update btree_gist (Oleg)
New tsearch2 full-text search module (Oleg, Teodor)
Add hashed based crosstab function to tablefuncs (Joe)
Add serial column to order connectby() siblings in tablefuncs (Nabil Sayegh,Joe)
Add named persistent connections to dblink (Shridhar Daithanka)
New pg_autovacuum allows automatic VACUUM (Matthew T. O'Connor)
Allow pgbench to honor PGHOST, PGPORT, PGUSER env. variables (Tatsuo)
Improve intarray (Teodor Sigaev)
Improve pgstattuple (Rod)
Fix bug in metaphone() in fuzzystrmatch
Improve adddepend (Rod)
Update spi/timetravel (B?jthe Zolt?n)
Fix dbase -s option (Thomas Behr)
_________________________________________________________________
Release 7.3.3
Release date: 2003-05-22
This has a variety of fixes from 7.3.2.
_________________________________________________________________
Migration to version 7.3.3
A dump/restore is *not* required for those running 7.3.*.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
Repair sometimes-incorrect computation of StartUpID after a crash
Avoid slowness with lots of deferred triggers in one transaction (Stephan)
Don't lock referenced row when UPDATE doesn't change foreign key's value
(Jan)
Use -fPIC not -fpic on Sparc (Tom Callaway)
Repair lack of schema-awareness in contrib/reindexdb
Fix contrib/intarray error for zero-element result array (Teodor)
Ensure createuser script will exit on control-C (Oliver)
Fix errors when the type of a dropped column has itself been dropped
CHECKPOINT does not cause database panic on failure in noncritical steps
Accept 60 in seconds fields of timestamp, time, interval input values
Issue notice, not error, if TIMESTAMP, TIME, or INTERVAL precision too
large
Fix abstime-to-time cast function (fix is not applied unless you initdb)
Fix pg_proc entry for timestamptz_izone (fix is not applied unless you
initdb)
Make EXTRACT(EPOCH FROM timestamp without time zone) treat input as
local time
'now'::timestamptz gave wrong answer if timezone changed earlier in
transaction
HAVE_INT64_TIMESTAMP code for time with timezone overwrote its input
Accept GLOBAL TEMP/TEMPORARY as a synonym for TEMPORARY
Avoid improper schema-permissions-check failure in foreign-key triggers
Fix bugs in foreign-key triggers for SET DEFAULT action
Fix incorrect time-qual check in row fetch for UPDATE and DELETE triggers
Foreign-key clauses were parsed but ignored in ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN
Fix createlang script breakage for case where handler function already
exists
Fix misbehavior on zero-column tables in pg_dump, COPY, ANALYZE, other
places
Fix misbehavior of func_error() on type names containing '%'
Fix misbehavior of replace() on strings containing '%'
Regular-expression patterns containing certain multibyte characters failed
Account correctly for NULLs in more cases in join size estimation
Avoid conflict with system definition of isblank() function or macro
Fix failure to convert large code point values in EUC_TW conversions
(Tatsuo)
Fix error recovery for SSL_read/SSL_write calls
Don't do early constant-folding of type coercion expressions
Validate page header fields immediately after reading in any page
Repair incorrect check for ungrouped variables in unnamed joins
Fix buffer overrun in to_ascii (Guido Notari)
contrib/ltree fixes (Teodor)
Fix core dump in deadlock detection on machines where char is unsigned
Avoid running out of buffers in many-way indexscan (bug introduced in 7.3)
Fix planner's selectivity estimation functions to handle domains properly
Fix dbmirror memory-allocation bug (Steven Singer)
Prevent infinite loop in ln(numeric) due to roundoff error.
GROUP BY got confused if there were multiple equal GROUP BY items
Fix bad plan when inherited UPDATE/DELETE references another inherited
table
Prevent clustering on incomplete (partial or non-NULL-storing) indexes
Service shutdown request at proper time if it arrives while still
starting up
Fix left-links in temporary indexes (could make backwards scans miss
entries)
Fix incorrect handling of client_encoding setting in postgresql.conf
(Tatsuo)
Fix failure to respond to 'pg_ctl stop -m fast' after Async_NotifyHandler
runs
Fix SPI for case where rule contains multiple statements of the same type
Fix problem with checking for wrong type of access permission in rule query
Fix problem with EXCEPT in CREATE RULE
Prevent problem with dropping temp tables having serial columns
Fix replace_vars_with_subplan_refs failure in complex views
Fix regexp slowness in single-byte encodings (Tatsuo)
Allow qualified type names in CREATE CAST and DROP CAST
Accept 'SETOF type[]', which formerly had to be written 'SETOF _type'
Fix pg_dump core dump in some cases with procedural languages
Force ISO datestyle in pg_dump output, for portability (Oliver)
pg_dump failed to handle error return from lo_read (Oleg Drokin)
pg_dumpall failed with groups having no members (Nick Eskelinen)
pg_dumpall failed to recognize --globals-only switch
pg_restore failed to restore blobs if -X disable-triggers is specified
Repair intrafunction memory leak in plpgsql
pltcl's elog command dumped core if given wrong parameters (Ian Harding)
plpython used wrong value of atttypmod (Brad McLean)
Fix improper quoting of boolean values in Python interface (D'Arcy)
Added addDataType() method to PGConnection interface for JDBC
Fixed various problems with updateable ResultSets for JDBC (Shawn Green)
Fixed various problems with DatabaseMetaData for JDBC (Kris Jurka,
Peter Royal)
Fixed problem with parsing table ACLs in JDBC
Better error message for character set conversion problems in JDBC
_________________________________________________________________
Release 7.3.2
Release date: 2003-02-04
This has a variety of fixes from 7.3.1.
_________________________________________________________________
Migration to version 7.3.2
A dump/restore is *not* required for those running 7.3.*.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
Restore creation of OID column in CREATE TABLE AS / SELECT INTO
Fix pg_dump core dump when dumping views having comments
Dump DEFERRABLE/INITIALLY DEFERRED constraints properly
Fix UPDATE when child table's column numbering differs from parent
Increase default value of max_fsm_relations
Fix problem when fetching backwards in a cursor for a single-row query
Make backward fetch work properly with cursor on SELECT DISTINCT query
Fix problems with loading pg_dump files containing contrib/lo usage
Fix problem with all-numeric user names
Fix possible memory leak and core dump during disconnect in libpgtcl
Make plpython's spi_execute command handle nulls properly (Andrew Bosma)
Adjust plpython error reporting so that its regression test passes again
Work with bison 1.875
Handle mixed-case names properly in plpgsql's %type (Neil)
Fix core dump in pltcl when executing a query rewritten by a rule
Repair array subscript overruns (per report from Yichen Xie)
Reduce MAX_TIME_PRECISION from 13 to 10 in floating-point case
Correctly case-fold variable names in per-database and per-user settings
Fix coredump in plpgsql's RETURN NEXT when SELECT into record returns
no rows
Fix outdated use of pg_type.typprtlen in python client interface
Correctly handle fractional seconds in timestamps in JDBC driver
Improve performance of getImportedKeys() in JDBC
Make shared-library symlinks work standardly on HPUX (Giles)
Repair inconsistent rounding behavior for timestamp, time, interval
SSL negotiation fixes (Nathan Mueller)
Make libpq's ~/.pgpass feature work when connecting with PQconnectDB
Update my2pg, ora2pg
Translation updates
Add casts between types lo and oid in contrib/lo
fastpath code now checks for privilege to call function
_________________________________________________________________
Release 7.3.1
Release date: 2002-12-18
This has a variety of fixes from 7.3.
_________________________________________________________________
Migration to version 7.3.1
A dump/restore is *not* required for those running 7.3. However, it
should be noted that the main PostgreSQL interface library, libpq, has
a new major version number for this release, which may require
recompilation of client code in certain cases.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
Fix a core dump of COPY TO when client/server encodings don't match (Tom)
Allow pg_dump to work with pre-7.2 servers (Philip)
/contrib/adddepend fixes (Tom)
Fix problem with deletion of per-user/per-database config settings (Tom)
/contrib/vacuumlo fix (Tom)
Allow 'password' encryption even when pg_shadow contains MD5 passwords
(Bruce)
/contrib/dbmirror fix (Steven Singer)
Optimizer fixes (Tom)
/contrib/tsearch fixes (Teodor Sigaev, Magnus)
Allow locale names to be mixed case (Nicolai Tufar)
Increment libpq library's major version number (Bruce)
pg_hba.conf error reporting fixes (Bruce, Neil)
Add SCO Openserver 5.0.4 as a supported platform (Bruce)
Prevent EXPLAIN from crashing server (Tom)
SSL fixes (Nathan Mueller)
Prevent composite column creation via ALTER TABLE (Tom)
_________________________________________________________________
Release 7.3
Release date: 2002-11-27
_________________________________________________________________
Overview
Major changes in this release:
Schemas
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 permissions
on the public schema.
Drop Column
PostgreSQL now supports the ALTER TABLE ... DROP COLUMN
functionality.
Table Functions
Functions returning multiple rows and/or multiple columns are
now much easier to use than before. You can call such a "table
function" in the SELECT FROM clause, treating its output like a
table. Also, PL/pgSQL functions can now return sets.
Prepared Queries
PostgreSQL now supports prepared queries, for improved
performance.
Dependency Tracking
PostgreSQL now records object dependencies, which allows
improvements in many areas. "DROP" statements now take either
CASCADE or RESTRICT to control whether dependent objects are
also dropped.
Privileges
Functions and procedural languages now have privileges, and
functions can be defined to run with the privileges of their
creator.
Internationalization
Both multibyte and locale support are now always enabled.
Logging
A variety of logging options have been enhanced.
Interfaces
A large number of interfaces have been moved to
http://gborg.postgresql.org where they can be developed and
released independently.
Functions/Identifiers
By default, functions can now take up to 32 parameters, and
identifiers can be up to 63 bytes long. Also, OPAQUE is now
deprecated: there are specific "pseudo-datatypes" to represent
each of the former meanings of OPAQUE in function argument and
result types.
_________________________________________________________________
Migration to version 7.3
A dump/restore using 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:
http://www.ca.postgresql.org/docs/momjian/upgrade_tips_7.3.
Observe the following incompatibilities:
* Pre-6.3 clients are no longer supported.
* "pg_hba.conf" now has a column for the user name and additional
features. Existing files need to be adjusted.
* Several "postgresql.conf" logging parameters have been renamed.
* LIMIT #,# has been disabled; use LIMIT # OFFSET #.
* "INSERT" statements with column lists must specify a value for
each specified column. For example, INSERT INTO tab (col1, col2)
VALUES ('val1') is now invalid. It's still allowed to supply fewer
columns than expected if the "INSERT" does not have a column list.
* serial columns are no longer automatically UNIQUE; thus, an index
will not automatically be created.
* A "SET" command inside an aborted transaction is now rolled back.
* "COPY" no longer considers missing trailing columns to be null.
All columns need to be specified. (However, one may achieve a
similar effect by specifying a column list in the "COPY" command.)
* The data type timestamp is now equivalent to timestamp without
time zone, instead of timestamp with time zone.
* Pre-7.3 databases loaded into 7.3 will not have the new object
dependencies for serial columns, unique constraints, and foreign
keys. See the directory "contrib/adddepend/" for a detailed
description and a script that will add such dependencies.
* An empty string ('') is no longer allowed as the input into an
integer field. Formerly, it was silently interpreted as 0.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
Server Operation
Add pg_locks view to show locks (Neil)
Security fixes for password negotiation memory allocation (Neil)
Remove support for version 0 FE/BE protocol (PostgreSQL 6.2 and
earlier) (Tom)
Reserve the last few backend slots for superusers, add parameter
superuser_reserved_connections to control this (Nigel J. Andrews)
_________________________________________________________________
Performance
Improve startup by calling localtime() only once (Tom)
Cache system catalog information in flat files for faster startup
(Tom)
Improve caching of index information (Tom)
Optimizer improvements (Tom, Fernando Nasser)
Catalog caches now store failed lookups (Tom)
Hash function improvements (Neil)
Improve performance of query tokenization and network handling (Peter)
Speed improvement for large object restore (Mario Weilguni)
Mark expired index entries on first lookup, saving later heap fetches
(Tom)
Avoid excessive NULL bitmap padding (Manfred Koizar)
Add BSD-licensed qsort() for Solaris, for performance (Bruce)
Reduce per-row overhead by four bytes (Manfred Koizar)
Fix GEQO optimizer bug (Neil Conway)
Make WITHOUT OID actually save four bytes per row (Manfred Koizar)
Add default_statistics_target variable to specify ANALYZE buckets
(Neil)
Use local buffer cache for temporary tables so no WAL overhead (Tom)
Improve free space map performance on large tables (Stephen Marshall,
Tom)
Improved WAL write concurrency (Tom)
_________________________________________________________________
Privileges
Add privileges on functions and procedural languages (Peter)
Add OWNER to CREATE DATABASE so superusers can create databases
on behalf of unprivileged users. (Gavin Sherry, Tom)
Add new object permission bits EXECUTE and USAGE (Tom)
Add SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION DEFAULT and RESET SESSION AUTHORIZATION
(Tom)
Allow functions to be executed with the privilege of the function
owner (Peter)
_________________________________________________________________
Server Configuration
Server log messages now tagged with LOG, not DEBUG (Bruce)
Add user column to pg_hba.conf (Bruce)
Have log_connections output two lines in log file (Tom)
Remove debug_level from postgresql.conf, now server_min_messages
(Bruce)
New ALTER DATABASE/USER ... SET command for per-user/database
initialization (Peter)
New parameters server_min_messages and client_min_messages to
control which messages are sent to the server logs or client
applications (Bruce)
Allow pg_hba.conf to specify lists of users/databases separated by
commas, group names prepended with +, and file names prepended
with @ (Bruce)
Remove secondary password file capability and pg_password utility
(Bruce)
Add variable db_user_namespace for database-local user names (Bruce)
SSL improvements (Bear Giles)
Make encryption of stored passwords the default (Bruce)
Allow pg_statistics to be reset by calling pg_stat_reset()
(Christopher)
Add log_duration parameter (Bruce)
Rename debug_print_query to log_statement (Bruce)
Rename show_query_stats to show_statement_stats (Bruce)
Add param log_min_error_statement to print commands to logs on error
(Gavin)
_________________________________________________________________
Queries
Make cursors insensitive, meaning their contents do not change (Tom)
Disable LIMIT #,# syntax; now only LIMIT # OFFSET # supported (Bruce)
Increase identifier length to 63 (Neil, Bruce)
UNION fixes for merging >= 3 columns of different lengths (Tom)
Add DEFAULT keyword to INSERT, e.g., INSERT ... (..., DEFAULT, ...)
(Rod)
Allow views to have default values using ALTER COLUMN ... SET DEFAULT
(Neil)
Fail on INSERTs with column lists that don't supply all column
values, e.g., INSERT INTO tab (col1, col2) VALUES ('val1'); (Rod)
Fix for join aliases (Tom)
Fix for FULL OUTER JOINs (Tom)
Improve reporting of invalid identifier and location (Tom, Gavin)
Fix OPEN cursor(args) (Tom)
Allow 'ctid' to be used in a view and currtid(viewname) (Hiroshi)
Fix for CREATE TABLE AS with UNION (Tom)
SQL99 syntax improvements (Thomas)
Add statement_timeout variable to cancel queries (Bruce)
Allow prepared queries with PREPARE/EXECUTE (Neil)
Allow FOR UPDATE to appear after LIMIT/OFFSET (Bruce)
Add variable autocommit (Tom, David Van Wie)
_________________________________________________________________
Object Manipulation
Make equals signs optional in CREATE DATABASE (Gavin Sherry)
Make ALTER TABLE OWNER change index ownership too (Neil)
New ALTER TABLE tabname ALTER COLUMN colname SET STORAGE controls
TOAST storage, compression (John Gray)
Add schema support, CREATE/DROP SCHEMA (Tom)
Create schema for temporary tables (Tom)
Add variable search_path for schema search (Tom)
Add ALTER TABLE SET/DROP NOT NULL (Christopher)
New CREATE FUNCTION volatility levels (Tom)
Make rule names unique only per table (Tom)
Add 'ON tablename' clause to DROP RULE and COMMENT ON RULE (Tom)
Add ALTER TRIGGER RENAME (Joe)
New current_schema() and current_schemas() inquiry functions (Tom)
Allow functions to return multiple rows (table functions) (Joe)
Make WITH optional in CREATE DATABASE, for consistency (Bruce)
Add object dependency tracking (Rod, Tom)
Add RESTRICT/CASCADE to DROP commands (Rod)
Add ALTER TABLE DROP for non-CHECK CONSTRAINT (Rod)
Autodestroy sequence on DROP of table with SERIAL (Rod)
Prevent column dropping if column is used by foreign key (Rod)
Automatically drop constraints/functions when object is dropped (Rod)
Add CREATE/DROP OPERATOR CLASS (Bill Studenmund, Tom)
Add ALTER TABLE DROP COLUMN (Christopher, Tom, Hiroshi)
Prevent inherited columns from being removed or renamed (Alvaro
Herrera)
Fix foreign key constraints to not error on intermediate database
states (Stephan)
Propagate column or table renaming to foreign key constraints
Add CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW (Gavin, Neil, Tom)
Add CREATE OR REPLACE RULE (Gavin, Neil, Tom)
Have rules execute alphabetically, returning more predictable values
(Tom)
Triggers are now fired in alphabetical order (Tom)
Add /contrib/adddepend to handle pre-7.3 object dependencies (Rod)
Allow better casting when inserting/updating values (Tom)
_________________________________________________________________
Utility Commands
Have COPY TO output embedded carriage returns and newlines as \r and
\n (Tom)
Allow DELIMITER in COPY FROM to be 8-bit clean (Tatsuo)
Make pg_dump use ALTER TABLE ADD PRIMARY KEY, for performance (Neil)
Disable brackets in multistatement rules (Bruce)
Disable VACUUM from being called inside a function (Bruce)
Allow dropdb and other scripts to use identifiers with spaces (Bruce)
Restrict database comment changes to the current database
Allow comments on operators, independent of the underlying function
(Rod)
Rollback SET commands in aborted transactions (Tom)
EXPLAIN now outputs as a query (Tom)
Display condition expressions and sort keys in EXPLAIN (Tom)
Add 'SET LOCAL var = value' to set configuration variables for a
single transaction (Tom)
Allow ANALYZE to run in a transaction (Bruce)
Improve COPY syntax using new WITH clauses, keep backward
compatibility (Bruce)
Fix pg_dump to consistently output tags in non-ASCII dumps (Bruce)
Make foreign key constraints clearer in dump file (Rod)
Add COMMENT ON CONSTRAINT (Rod)
Allow COPY TO/FROM to specify column names (Brent Verner)
Dump UNIQUE and PRIMARY KEY constraints as ALTER TABLE (Rod)
Have SHOW output a query result (Joe)
Generate failure on short COPY lines rather than pad NULLs (Neil)
Fix CLUSTER to preserve all table attributes (Alvaro Herrera)
New pg_settings table to view/modify GUC settings (Joe)
Add smart quoting, portability improvements to pg_dump output (Peter)
Dump serial columns out as SERIAL (Tom)
Enable large file support, >2G for pg_dump (Peter, Philip Warner,
Bruce)
Disallow TRUNCATE on tables that are involved in referential
constraints (Rod)
Have TRUNCATE also auto-truncate the toast table of the relation (Tom)
Add clusterdb utility that will auto-cluster an entire database
based on previous CLUSTER operations (Alvaro Herrera)
Overhaul pg_dumpall (Peter)
Allow REINDEX of TOAST tables (Tom)
Implemented START TRANSACTION, per SQL99 (Neil)
Fix rare index corruption when a page split affects bulk delete (Tom)
Fix ALTER TABLE ... ADD COLUMN for inheritance (Alvaro Herrera)
_________________________________________________________________
Data Types and Functions
Fix factorial(0) to return 1 (Bruce)
Date/time/timezone improvements (Thomas)
Fix for array slice extraction (Tom)
Fix extract/date_part to report proper microseconds for timestamp
(Tatsuo)
Allow text_substr() and bytea_substr() to read TOAST values more
efficiently (John Gray)
Add domain support (Rod)
Make WITHOUT TIME ZONE the default for TIMESTAMP and TIME data types
(Thomas)
Allow alternate storage scheme of 64-bit integers for date/time types
using --enable-integer-datetimes in configure (Thomas)
Make timezone(timestamptz) return timestamp rather than a string
(Thomas)
Allow fractional seconds in date/time types for dates prior to 1BC
(Thomas)
Limit timestamp data types to 6 decimal places of precision (Thomas)
Change timezone conversion functions from timetz() to timezone()
(Thomas)
Add configuration variables datestyle and timezone (Tom)
Add OVERLAY(), which allows substitution of a substring in a string
(Thomas)
Add SIMILAR TO (Thomas, Tom)
Add regular expression SUBSTRING(string FROM pat FOR escape) (Thomas)
Add LOCALTIME and LOCALTIMESTAMP functions (Thomas)
Add named composite types using CREATE TYPE typename AS (column)
(Joe)
Allow composite type definition in the table alias clause (Joe)
Add new API to simplify creation of C language table functions (Joe)
Remove ODBC-compatible empty parentheses from calls to SQL99
functions for which these parentheses do not match the standard
(Thomas)
Allow macaddr data type to accept 12 hex digits with no separators
(Mike Wyer)
Add CREATE/DROP CAST (Peter)
Add IS DISTINCT FROM operator (Thomas)
Add SQL99 TREAT() function, synonym for CAST() (Thomas)
Add pg_backend_pid() to output backend pid (Bruce)
Add IS OF / IS NOT OF type predicate (Thomas)
Allow bit string constants without fully-specified length (Thomas)
Allow conversion between 8-byte integers and bit strings (Thomas)
Implement hex literal conversion to bit string literal (Thomas)
Allow table functions to appear in the FROM clause (Joe)
Increase maximum number of function parameters to 32 (Bruce)
No longer automatically create index for SERIAL column (Tom)
Add current_database() (Rod)
Fix cash_words() to not overflow buffer (Tom)
Add functions replace(), split_part(), to_hex() (Joe)
Fix LIKE for bytea as a right-hand argument (Joe)
Prevent crashes caused by SELECT cash_out(2) (Tom)
Fix to_char(1,'FM999.99') to return a period (Karel)
Fix trigger/type/language functions returning OPAQUE to return
proper type (Tom)
_________________________________________________________________
Internationalization
Add additional encodings: Korean (JOHAB), Thai (WIN874), Vietnamese
(TCVN), Arabic (WIN1256), Simplified Chinese (GBK), Korean (UHC)
(Eiji Tokuya)
Enable locale support by default (Peter)
Add locale variables (Peter)
Escape byes >= 0x7f for multibyte in PQescapeBytea/PQunescapeBytea
(Tatsuo)
Add locale awareness to regular expression character classes
Enable multibyte support by default (Tatso)
Add GB18030 multibyte support (Bill Huang)
Add CREATE/DROP CONVERSION, allowing loadable encodings (Tatsuo,
Kaori)
Add pg_conversion table (Tatsuo)
Add SQL99 CONVERT() function (Tatsuo)
pg_dumpall, pg_controldata, and pg_resetxlog now national-language
aware (Peter)
New and updated translations
_________________________________________________________________
Server-side Languages
Allow recursive SQL function (Peter)
Change PL/Tcl build to use configured compiler and Makefile.shlib
(Peter)
Overhaul the PL/pgSQL FOUND variable to be more Oracle-compatible
(Neil, Tom)
Allow PL/pgSQL to handle quoted identifiers (Tom)
Allow set-returning PL/pgSQL functions (Neil)
Make PL/pgSQL schema-aware (Joe)
Remove some memory leaks (Nigel J. Andrews, Tom)
_________________________________________________________________
Psql
Don't lowercase psql \connect database name for 7.2.0 compatibility
(Tom)
Add psql \timing to time user queries (Greg Sabino Mullane)
Have psql \d show index information (Greg Sabino Mullane)
New psql \dD shows domains (Jonathan Eisler)
Allow psql to show rules on views (Paul ?)
Fix for psql variable substitution (Tom)
Allow psql \d to show temporary table structure (Tom)
Allow psql \d to show foreign keys (Rod)
Fix \? to honor \pset pager (Bruce)
Have psql reports its version number on startup (Tom)
Allow \copy to specify column names (Tom)
_________________________________________________________________
Libpq
Add $HOME/.pgpass to store host/user password combinations (Alvaro
Herrera)
Add PQunescapeBytea() function to libpq (Patrick Welche)
Fix for sending large queries over non-blocking connections
(Bernhard Herzog)
Fix for libpq using timers on Win9X (David Ford)
Allow libpq notify to handle servers with different-length
identifiers (Tom)
Add libpq PQescapeString() and PQescapeBytea() to Win32 (Bruce)
Fix for SSL with non-blocking connections (Jack Bates)
Add libpq connection timeout parameter (Denis A Ustimenko)
_________________________________________________________________
JDBC
Allow JDBC to compile with JDK 1.4 (Dave)
Add JDBC 3 support (Barry)
Allows JDBC to set loglevel by adding ?loglevel=X to the connection
URL (Barry)
Add Driver.info() message that prints out the version number (Barry)
Add updateable result sets (Raghu Nidagal, Dave)
Add support for callable statements (Paul Bethe)
Add query cancel capability
Add refresh row (Dave)
Fix MD5 encryption handling for multibyte servers (Jun Kawai)
Add support for prepared statements (Barry)
_________________________________________________________________
Miscellaneous Interfaces
Fixed ECPG bug concerning octal numbers in single quotes (Michael)
Move src/interfaces/libpgeasy to http://gborg.postgresql.org (Marc,
Bruce)
Improve Python interface (Elliot Lee, Andrew Johnson, Greg Copeland)
Add libpgtcl connection close event (Gerhard Hintermayer)
Move src/interfaces/libpq++ to http://gborg.postgresql.org (Marc,
Bruce)
Move src/interfaces/odbc to http://gborg.postgresql.org (Marc)
Move src/interfaces/libpgeasy to http://gborg.postgresql.org (Marc,
Bruce)
Move src/interfaces/perl5 to http://gborg.postgresql.org (Marc,
Bruce)
Remove src/bin/pgaccess from main tree, now at
http://www.pgaccess.org (Bruce)
Add pg_on_connection_loss command to libpgtcl (Gerhard Hintermayer,
Tom)
_________________________________________________________________
Source Code
Fix for parallel make (Peter)
AIX fixes for linking Tcl (Andreas Zeugswetter)
Allow PL/Perl to build under Cygwin (Jason Tishler)
Improve MIPS compiles (Peter, Oliver Elphick)
Require Autoconf version 2.53 (Peter)
Require readline and zlib by default in configure (Peter)
Allow Solaris to use Intimate Shared Memory (ISM), for performance
(Scott Brunza, P.J. Josh Rovero)
Always enable syslog in compile, remove --enable-syslog option
(Tatsuo)
Always enable multibyte in compile, remove --enable-multibyte option
(Tatsuo)
Always enable locale in compile, remove --enable-locale option
(Peter)
Fix for Win9x DLL creation (Magnus Naeslund)
Fix for link() usage by WAL code on Win32, BeOS (Jason Tishler)
Add sys/types.h to c.h, remove from main files (Peter, Bruce)
Fix AIX hang on SMP machines (Tomoyuki Niijima)
AIX SMP hang fix (Tomoyuki Niijima)
Fix pre-1970 date handling on newer glibc libraries (Tom)
Fix PowerPC SMP locking (Tom)
Prevent gcc -ffast-math from being used (Peter, Tom)
Bison >= 1.50 now required for developer builds
Kerberos 5 support now builds with Heimdal (Peter)
Add appendix in the User's Guide which lists SQL features (Thomas)
Improve loadable module linking to use RTLD_NOW (Tom)
New error levels WARNING, INFO, LOG, DEBUG[1-5] (Bruce)
New src/port directory holds replaced libc functions (Peter, Bruce)
New pg_namespace system catalog for schemas (Tom)
Add pg_class.relnamespace for schemas (Tom)
Add pg_type.typnamespace for schemas (Tom)
Add pg_proc.pronamespace for schemas (Tom)
Restructure aggregates to have pg_proc entries (Tom)
System relations now have their own namespace, pg_* test not required
(Fernando Nasser)
Rename TOAST index names to be *_index rather than *_idx (Neil)
Add namespaces for operators, opclasses (Tom)
Add additional checks to server control file (Thomas)
New Polish FAQ (Marcin Mazurek)
Add Posix semaphore support (Tom)
Document need for reindex (Bruce)
Rename some internal identifiers to simplify Win32 compile (Jan,
Katherine Ward)
Add documentation on computing disk space (Bruce)
Remove KSQO from GUC (Bruce)
Fix memory leak in rtree (Kenneth Been)
Modify a few error messages for consistency (Bruce)
Remove unused system table columns (Peter)
Make system columns NOT NULL where appropriate (Tom)
Clean up use of sprintf in favor of snprintf() (Neil, Jukka Holappa)
Remove OPAQUE and create specific subtypes (Tom)
Cleanups in array internal handling (Joe, Tom)
Disallow pg_atoi('') (Bruce)
Remove parameter wal_files because WAL files are now recycled (Bruce)
Add version numbers to heap pages (Tom)
_________________________________________________________________
Contrib
Allow inet arrays in /contrib/array (Neil)
Gist fixes (Teodor Sigaev, Neil)
Upgrade /contrib/mysql
Add /contrib/dbsize which shows table sizes without vacuum (Peter)
Add /contrib/intagg, integer aggregator routines (mlw)
Improve /contrib/oid2name (Neil, Bruce)
Improve /contrib/tsearch (Oleg, Teodor Sigaev)
Cleanups of /contrib/rserver (Alexey V. Borzov)
Update /contrib/oracle conversion utility (Gilles Darold)
Update /contrib/dblink (Joe)
Improve options supported by /contrib/vacuumlo (Mario Weilguni)
Improvements to /contrib/intarray (Oleg, Teodor Sigaev, Andrey
Oktyabrski)
Add /contrib/reindexdb utility (Shaun Thomas)
Add indexing to /contrib/isbn_issn (Dan Weston)
Add /contrib/dbmirror (Steven Singer)
Improve /contrib/pgbench (Neil)
Add /contrib/tablefunc table function examples (Joe)
Add /contrib/ltree data type for tree structures (Teodor Sigaev,
Oleg Bartunov)
Move /contrib/pg_controldata, pg_resetxlog into main tree (Bruce)
Fixes to /contrib/cube (Bruno Wolff)
Improve /contrib/fulltextindex (Christopher)
_________________________________________________________________
Release 7.2.4
Release date: 2003-01-30
This has a variety of fixes from 7.2.3, including fixes to prevent
possible data loss.
_________________________________________________________________
Migration to version 7.2.4
A dump/restore is *not* required for those running 7.2.X.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
Fix some additional cases of VACUUM "No one parent tuple was found"
error
Prevent VACUUM from being called inside a function (Bruce)
Ensure pg_clog updates are sync'd to disk before marking checkpoint
complete
Avoid integer overflow during large hash joins
Make GROUP commands work when pg_group.grolist is large enough
to be toasted
Fix errors in datetime tables; some timezone names weren't being
recognized
Fix integer overflows in circle_poly(), path_encode(), path_add()
(Neil)
Repair long-standing logic errors in lseg_eq(), lseg_ne(), lseg_center()
_________________________________________________________________
Release 7.2.3
Release date: 2002-10-01
This has a variety of fixes from 7.2.2, including fixes to prevent
possible data loss.
_________________________________________________________________
Migration to version 7.2.3
A dump/restore is *not* required for those running 7.2.X.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
Prevent possible compressed transaction log loss (Tom)
Prevent non-superuser from increasing most recent vacuum info (Tom)
Handle pre-1970 date values in newer versions of glibc (Tom)
Fix possible hang during server shutdown
Prevent spinlock hangs on SMP PPC machines (Tomoyuki Niijima)
Fix pg_dump to properly dump FULL JOIN USING (Tom)
_________________________________________________________________
Release 7.2.2
Release date: 2002-08-23
This has a variety of fixes from 7.2.1.
_________________________________________________________________
Migration to version 7.2.2
A dump/restore is *not* required for those running 7.2.X.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
Allow EXECUTE of "CREATE TABLE AS ... SELECT" in PL/pgSQL (Tom)
Fix for compressed transaction log id wraparound (Tom)
Fix PQescapeBytea/PQunescapeBytea so that they handle bytes > 0x7f (Ta
tsuo)
Fix for psql and pg_dump crashing when invoked with non-existand long
options (Tatsuo)
Fix crash when invoking geometric operators (Tom)
Allow OPEN cursor(args) (Tom)
Fix for rtree_gist index build (Teodor)
Fix for dumping user-defined aggregates (Tom)
Contrib/intarray fixes (Oleg)
Fix for complex UNION/EXCEPT/INTERSECT queries using parens (Tom)
Fix to pg_convert (Tatsuo)
Fix for crash with long DATA strings (Thomes, Neil)
Fix for repeat(), lpad(), rpad() and long strings (Neil)
_________________________________________________________________
Release 7.2.1
Release date: 2002-03-21
This has a variety of fixes from 7.2.
_________________________________________________________________
Migration to version 7.2.1
A dump/restore is *not* required for those running 7.2.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
Ensure that sequence counters do not go backwards after a crash (Tom)
Fix pgaccess kanji-coversion key binding (Tatsuo)
Optimizer improvements (Tom)
Cash I/O improvements (Tom)
New Russian FAQ
Compile fix for missing AuthBlockSig (Heiko)
Additional time zones and time zone fixes (Thomas)
Allow psql \connect to handle mixed case database and user names (Tom)
Return proper OID on command completion even with ON INSERT rules (Tom
)
Allow COPY FROM to use 8-bit DELIMITERS (Tatsuo)
Fix bug in extract/date_part for milliseconds/microseconds (Tatsuo)
Improve handling of multiple UNIONs with different lengths (Tom)
contrib/btree_gist improvements (Teodor Sigaev)
contrib/tsearch dictionary improvements, see README.tsearch for
an additional installation step (Thomas T. Thai, Teodor Sigaev)
Fix for array subscripts handling (Tom)
Allow EXECUTE of "CREATE TABLE AS ... SELECT" in PL/pgSQL (Tom)
_________________________________________________________________
Release 7.2
Release date: 2002-02-04
_________________________________________________________________
Overview
This release improves PostgreSQL for use in high-volume applications.
Major changes in this release:
VACUUM
Vacuuming no longer locks tables, thus allowing normal user
access during the vacuum. A new "VACUUM FULL" command does
old-style vacuum by locking the table and shrinking the on-disk
copy of the table.
Transactions
There is no longer a problem with installations that exceed
four billion transactions.
OIDs
OIDs are now optional. Users can now create tables without OIDs
for cases where OID usage is excessive.
Optimizer
The system now computes histogram column statistics during
"ANALYZE", allowing much better optimizer choices.
Security
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.
Statistics
Administrators can use the new table access statistics module
to get fine-grained information about table and index usage.
Internationalization
Program and library messages can now be displayed in several
languages.
_________________________________________________________________
Migration to version 7.2
A dump/restore using "pg_dump" is required for those wishing to
migrate data from any previous release.
Observe the following incompatibilities:
* The semantics of the "VACUUM" command have changed in this
release. You may wish to update your maintenance procedures
accordingly.
* In this release, comparisons using = NULL will always return false
(or NULL, more precisely). Previous releases automatically
transformed this syntax to IS NULL. The old behavior can be
re-enabled using a "postgresql.conf" parameter.
* The "pg_hba.conf" and "pg_ident.conf" configuration is now only
reloaded after receiving a SIGHUP signal, not with each
connection.
* The function "octet_length()" now returns the uncompressed data
length.
* The date/time value 'current' is no longer available. You will
need to rewrite your applications.
* The timestamp(), time(), and interval() functions are no longer
available. Instead of timestamp(), use timestamp 'string' or CAST.
The SELECT ... LIMIT #,# syntax will be removed in the next release.
You should change your queries to use separate LIMIT and OFFSET
clauses, e.g. LIMIT 10 OFFSET 20.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
Server Operation
Create temporary files in a separate directory (Bruce)
Delete orphaned temporary files on postmaster startup (Bruce)
Added unique indexes to some system tables (Tom)
System table operator reorganization (Oleg Bartunov, Teodor Sigaev, To
m)
Renamed pg_log to pg_clog (Tom)
Enable SIGTERM, SIGQUIT to kill backends (Jan)
Removed compile-time limit on number of backends (Tom)
Better cleanup for semaphore resource failure (Tatsuo, Tom)
Allow safe transaction ID wraparound (Tom)
Removed OIDs from some system tables (Tom)
Removed "triggered data change violation" error check (Tom)
SPI portal creation of prepared/saved plans (Jan)
Allow SPI column functions to work for system columns (Tom)
Long value compression improvement (Tom)
Statistics collector for table, index access (Jan)
Truncate extra-long sequence names to a reasonable value (Tom)
Measure transaction times in milliseconds (Thomas)
Fix TID sequential scans (Hiroshi)
Superuser ID now fixed at 1 (Peter E)
New pg_ctl "reload" option (Tom)
_________________________________________________________________
Performance
Optimizer improvements (Tom)
New histogram column statistics for optimizer (Tom)
Reuse write-ahead log files rather than discarding them (Tom)
Cache improvements (Tom)
IS NULL, IS NOT NULL optimizer improvement (Tom)
Improve lock manager to reduce lock contention (Tom)
Keep relcache entries for index access support functions (Tom)
Allow better selectivity with NaN and infinities in NUMERIC (Tom)
R-tree performance improvements (Kenneth Been)
B-tree splits more efficient (Tom)
_________________________________________________________________
Privileges
Change UPDATE, DELETE permissions to be distinct (Peter E)
New REFERENCES, TRIGGER privileges (Peter E)
Allow GRANT/REVOKE to/from more than one user at a time (Peter E)
New has_table_privilege() function (Joe Conway)
Allow non-superuser to vacuum database (Tom)
New SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION command (Peter E)
Fix bug in privilege modifications on newly created tables (Tom)
Disallow access to pg_statistic for non-superuser, add user-accessible
views (Tom)
_________________________________________________________________
Client Authentication
Fork postmaster before doing authentication to prevent hangs (Peter E)
Add ident authentication over Unix domain sockets on Linux, *BSD (Helg
e Bahmann, Oliver Elphick, Teodor Sigaev, Bruce)
Add a password authentication method that uses MD5 encryption (Bruce)
Allow encryption of stored passwords using MD5 (Bruce)
PAM authentication (Dominic J. Eidson)
Load pg_hba.conf and pg_ident.conf only on startup and SIGHUP (Bruce)
_________________________________________________________________
Server Configuration
Interpretation of some time zone abbreviations as Australian rather th
an North American now settable at run time (Bruce)
New parameter to set default transaction isolation level (Peter E)
New parameter to enable conversion of "expr = NULL" into "expr IS NULL
", off by default (Peter E)
New parameter to control memory usage by VACUUM (Tom)
New parameter to set client authentication timeout (Tom)
New parameter to set maximum number of open files (Tom)
_________________________________________________________________
Queries
Statements added by INSERT rules now execute after the INSERT (Jan)
Prevent unadorned relation names in target list (Bruce)
NULLs now sort after all normal values in ORDER BY (Tom)
New IS UNKNOWN, IS NOT UNKNOWN Boolean tests (Tom)
New SHARE UPDATE EXCLUSIVE lock mode (Tom)
New EXPLAIN ANALYZE command that shows run times and row counts (Marti
jn van Oosterhout)
Fix problem with LIMIT and subqueries (Tom)
Fix for LIMIT, DISTINCT ON pushed into subqueries (Tom)
Fix nested EXCEPT/INTERSECT (Tom)
_________________________________________________________________
Schema Manipulation
Fix SERIAL in temporary tables (Bruce)
Allow temporary sequences (Bruce)
Sequences now use int8 internally (Tom)
New SERIAL8 creates int8 columns with sequences, default still SERIAL4
(Tom)
Make OIDs optional using WITHOUT OIDS (Tom)
Add %TYPE syntax to CREATE TYPE (Ian Lance Taylor)
Add ALTER TABLE / DROP CONSTRAINT for CHECK constraints (Christopher K
ings-Lynne)
New CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION to alter existing function (preserving
the function OID) (Gavin Sherry)
Add ALTER TABLE / ADD [ UNIQUE | PRIMARY ] (Christopher Kings-Lynne)
Allow column renaming in views
Make ALTER TABLE / RENAME COLUMN update column names of indexes (Brent
Verner)
Fix for ALTER TABLE / ADD CONSTRAINT ... CHECK with inherited tables (
Stephan Szabo)
ALTER TABLE RENAME update foreign-key trigger arguments correctly (Bre
nt Verner)
DROP AGGREGATE and COMMENT ON AGGREGATE now accept an aggtype (Tom)
Add automatic return type data casting for SQL functions (Tom)
Allow GiST indexes to handle NULLs and multikey indexes (Oleg Bartunov
, Teodor Sigaev, Tom)
Enable partial indexes (Martijn van Oosterhout)
_________________________________________________________________
Utility Commands
Add RESET ALL, SHOW ALL (Marko Kreen)
CREATE/ALTER USER/GROUP now allow options in any order (Vince)
Add LOCK A, B, C functionality (Neil Padgett)
New ENCRYPTED/UNENCRYPTED option to CREATE/ALTER USER (Bruce)
New light-weight VACUUM does not lock table; old semantics are availab
le as VACUUM FULL (Tom)
Disable COPY TO/FROM on views (Bruce)
COPY DELIMITERS string must be exactly one character (Tom)
VACUUM warning about index tuples fewer than heap now only appears whe
n appropriate (Martijn van Oosterhout)
Fix permission checks for CREATE INDEX (Tom)
Disallow inappropriate use of CREATE/DROP INDEX/TRIGGER/VIEW (Tom)
_________________________________________________________________
Data Types and Functions
SUM(), AVG(), COUNT() now uses int8 internally for speed (Tom)
Add convert(), convert2() (Tatsuo)
New function bit_length() (Peter E)
Make the "n" in CHAR(n)/VARCHAR(n) represents letters, not bytes (Tats
uo)
CHAR(), VARCHAR() now reject strings that are too long (Peter E)
BIT VARYING now rejects bit strings that are too long (Peter E)
BIT now rejects bit strings that do not match declared size (Peter E)
INET, CIDR text conversion functions (Alex Pilosov)
INET, CIDR operators << and <<= indexable (Alex Pilosov)
Bytea \### now requires valid three digit octal number
Bytea comparison improvements, now supports =, <>, >, >=, <, and <=
Bytea now supports B-tree indexes
Bytea now supports LIKE, LIKE...ESCAPE, NOT LIKE, NOT LIKE...ESCAPE
Bytea now supports concatenation
New bytea functions: position, substring, trim, btrim, and length
New encode() function mode, "escaped", converts minimally escaped byte
a to/from text
Add pg_database_encoding_max_length() (Tatsuo)
Add pg_client_encoding() function (Tatsuo)
now() returns time with millisecond precision (Thomas)
New TIMESTAMP WITHOUT TIMEZONE data type (Thomas)
Add ISO date/time specification with "T", yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss (Thomas)
New xid/int comparison functions (Hiroshi)
Add precision to TIME, TIMESTAMP, and INVERVAL data types (Thomas)
Modify type coercion logic to attempt binary-compatible functions firs
t (Tom)
New encode() function installed by default (Marko Kreen)
Improved to_*() conversion functions (Karel Zak)
Optimize LIKE/ILIKE when using single-byte encodings (Tatsuo)
New functions in contrib/pgcrypto: crypt(), hmac(), encrypt(), gen_sal
t() (Marko Kreen)
Correct description of translate() function (Bruce)
Add INTERVAL argument for SET TIME ZONE (Thomas)
Add INTERVAL YEAR TO MONTH (etc.) syntax (Thomas)
Optimize length functions when using single-byte encodings (Tatsuo)
Fix path_inter, path_distance, path_length, dist_ppath to handle close
d paths (Curtis Barrett, Tom)
octet_length(text) now returns non-compressed length (Tatsuo, Bruce)
Handle "July" full name in date/time literals (Greg Sabino Mullane)
Some datatype() function calls now evaluated differently
Add support for Julian and ISO time specifications (Thomas)
_________________________________________________________________
Internationalization
National language support in psql, pg_dump, libpq, and server (Peter E
)
Message translations in Chinese (simplified, traditional), Czech, Fren
ch, German, Hungarian, Russian, Swedish (Peter E, Serguei A. Mokhov, K
arel Zak, Weiping He, Zhenbang Wei, Kovacs Zoltan)
Make trim, ltrim, rtrim, btrim, lpad, rpad, translate multibyte aware
(Tatsuo)
Add LATIN5,6,7,8,9,10 support (Tatsuo)
Add ISO 8859-5,6,7,8 support (Tatsuo)
Correct LATIN5 to mean ISO-8859-9, not ISO-8859-5 (Tatsuo)
Make mic2ascii() non-ASCII aware (Tatsuo)
Reject invalid multibyte character sequences (Tatsuo)
_________________________________________________________________
PL/pgSQL
Now uses portals for SELECT loops, allowing huge result sets (Jan)
CURSOR and REFCURSOR support (Jan)
Can now return open cursors (Jan)
Add ELSEIF (Klaus Reger)
Improve PL/pgSQL error reporting, including location of error (Tom)
Allow IS or FOR key words in cursor declaration, for compatibility (Br
uce)
Fix for SELECT ... FOR UPDATE (Tom)
Fix for PERFORM returning multiple rows (Tom)
Make PL/pgSQL use the server's type coercion code (Tom)
Memory leak fix (Jan, Tom)
Make trailing semicolon optional (Tom)
_________________________________________________________________
PL/Perl
New untrusted PL/Perl (Alex Pilosov)
PL/Perl is now built on some platforms even if libperl is not shared (
Peter E)
_________________________________________________________________
PL/Tcl
Now reports errorInfo (Vsevolod Lobko)
Add spi_lastoid function (bob@redivi.com)
_________________________________________________________________
PL/Python
...is new (Andrew Bosma)
_________________________________________________________________
Psql
\d displays indexes in unique, primary groupings (Christopher Kings-Ly
nne)
Allow trailing semicolons in backslash commands (Greg Sabino Mullane)
Read password from /dev/tty if possible
Force new password prompt when changing user and database (Tatsuo, Tom
)
Format the correct number of columns for Unicode (Patrice)
_________________________________________________________________
Libpq
New function PQescapeString() to escape quotes in command strings (Flo
rian Weimer)
New function PQescapeBytea() escapes binary strings for use as SQL str
ing literals
_________________________________________________________________
JDBC
Return OID of INSERT (Ken K)
Handle more data types (Ken K)
Handle single quotes and newlines in strings (Ken K)
Handle NULL variables (Ken K)
Fix for time zone handling (Barry Lind)
Improved Druid support
Allow eight-bit characters with non-multibyte server (Barry Lind)
Support BIT, BINARY types (Ned Wolpert)
Reduce memory usage (Michael Stephens, Dave Cramer)
Update DatabaseMetaData (Peter E)
Add DatabaseMetaData.getCatalogs() (Peter E)
Encoding fixes (Anders Bengtsson)
Get/setCatalog methods (Jason Davies)
DatabaseMetaData.getColumns() now returns column defaults (Jason Davie
s)
DatabaseMetaData.getColumns() performance improvement (Jeroen van Vian
en)
Some JDBC1 and JDBC2 merging (Anders Bengtsson)
Transaction performance improvements (Barry Lind)
Array fixes (Greg Zoller)
Serialize addition
Fix batch processing (Rene Pijlman)
ExecSQL method reorganization (Anders Bengtsson)
GetColumn() fixes (Jeroen van Vianen)
Fix isWriteable() function (Rene Pijlman)
Improved passage of JDBC2 conformance tests (Rene Pijlman)
Add bytea type capability (Barry Lind)
Add isNullable() (Rene Pijlman)
JDBC date/time test suite fixes (Liam Stewart)
Fix for SELECT 'id' AS xxx FROM table (Dave Cramer)
Fix DatabaseMetaData to show precision properly (Mark Lillywhite)
New getImported/getExported keys (Jason Davies)
MD5 password encryption support (Jeremy Wohl)
Fix to actually use type cache (Ned Wolpert)
_________________________________________________________________
ODBC
Remove query size limit (Hiroshi)
Remove text field size limit (Hiroshi)
Fix for SQLPrimaryKeys in multibyte mode (Hiroshi)
Allow ODBC procedure calls (Hiroshi)
Improve boolean handing (Aidan Mountford)
Most configuration options on setable via DSN (Hiroshi)
Multibyte, performance fixes (Hiroshi)
Allow driver to be used with iODBC or unixODBC (Peter E)
MD5 password encryption support (Bruce)
Add more compatibility functions to odbc.sql (Peter E)
_________________________________________________________________
ECPG
EXECUTE ... INTO implemented (Christof Petig)
Multiple row descriptor support (e.g. CARDINALITY) (Christof Petig)
Fix for GRANT parameters (Lee Kindness)
Fix INITIALLY DEFERRED bug
Various bug fixes (Michael, Christof Petig)
Auto allocation for indicator variable arrays (int *ind_p=NULL)
Auto allocation for string arrays (char **foo_pp=NULL)
ECPGfree_auto_mem fixed
All function names with external linkage are now prefixed by ECPG
Fixes for arrays of structures (Michael)
_________________________________________________________________
Misc. Interfaces
Python fix fetchone() (Gerhard Haring)
Use UTF, Unicode in Tcl where appropriate (Vsevolod Lobko, Reinhard Ma
x)
Add Tcl COPY TO/FROM (ljb)
Prevent output of default index op class in pg_dump (Tom)
Fix libpgeasy memory leak (Bruce)
_________________________________________________________________
Build and Install
Configure, dynamic loader, and shared library fixes (Peter E)
Fixes in QNX 4 port (Bernd Tegge)
Fixes in Cygwin and Win32 ports (Jason Tishler, Gerhard Haring, Dmitry
Yurtaev, Darko Prenosil, Mikhail Terekhov)
Fix for Win32 socket communication failures (Magnus, Mikhail Terekhov)
Hurd compile fix (Oliver Elphick)
BeOS fixes (Cyril Velter)
Remove configure --enable-unicode-conversion, now enabled by multibyte
(Tatsuo)
AIX fixes (Tatsuo, Andreas)
Fix parallel make (Peter E)
Install SQL language manual pages into OS-specific directories (Peter
E)
Rename config.h to pg_config.h (Peter E)
Reorganize installation layout of header files (Peter E)
_________________________________________________________________
Source Code
Remove SEP_CHAR (Bruce)
New GUC hooks (Tom)
Merge GUC and command line handling (Marko Kreen)
Remove EXTEND INDEX (Martijn van Oosterhout, Tom)
New pgjindent utility to indent java code (Bruce)
Remove define of true/false when compiling under C++ (Leandro Fanzone,
Tom)
pgindent fixes (Bruce, Tom)
Replace strcasecmp() with strcmp() where appropriate (Peter E)
Dynahash portability improvements (Tom)
Add 'volatile' usage in spinlock structures
Improve signal handling logic (Tom)
_________________________________________________________________
Contrib
New contrib/rtree_gist (Oleg Bartunov, Teodor Sigaev)
New contrib/tsearch full-text indexing (Oleg, Teodor Sigaev)
Add contrib/dblink for remote database access (Joe Conway)
contrib/ora2pg Oracle conversion utility (Gilles Darold)
contrib/xml XML conversion utility (John Gray)
contrib/fulltextindex fixes (Christopher Kings-Lynne)
New contrib/fuzzystrmatch with levenshtein and metaphone, soundex merg
ed (Joe Conway)
Add contrib/intarray boolean queries, binary search, fixes (Oleg Bartu
nov)
New pg_upgrade utility (Bruce)
Add new pg_resetxlog options (Bruce, Tom)
_________________________________________________________________
Release 7.1.3
Release date: 2001-08-15
_________________________________________________________________
Migration to version 7.1.3
A dump/restore is *not* required for those running 7.1.X.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
Remove unused WAL segements 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)
_________________________________________________________________
Release 7.1.2
Release date: 2001-05-11
This has one fix from 7.1.1.
_________________________________________________________________
Migration to version 7.1.2
A dump/restore is *not* required for those running 7.1.X.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
Fix PL/pgSQL SELECTs when returning no rows
Fix for psql backslash core dump
Referential integrity permission fix
Optimizer fixes
pg_dump cleanups
_________________________________________________________________
Release 7.1.1
Release date: 2001-05-05
This has a variety of fixes from 7.1.
_________________________________________________________________
Migration to version 7.1.1
A dump/restore is *not* required for those running 7.1.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
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 tuples 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)
_________________________________________________________________
Release 7.1
Release date: 2001-04-13
This release focuses on removing limitations that have existed in the
PostgreSQL code for many years.
Major changes in this release:
Write-ahead Log (WAL)
To maintain database consistency in case of an operating system
crash, previous releases of PostgreSQL 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 may want to consider discontinuing
its use.
TOAST
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.
Outer Joins
We now support outer joins. The UNION/NOT IN workaround for
outer joins is no longer required. We use the SQL92 outer join
syntax.
Function Manager
The previous C function manager did not handle null values
properly, nor did it support 64-bit CPU's (Alpha). The new
function manager does. You can continue using your old custom
functions, but you may want to rewrite them in the future to
use the new function manager call interface.
Complex Queries
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.
_________________________________________________________________
Migration to version 7.1
A dump/restore using pg_dump is required for those wishing to migrate
data from any previous release.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
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 sub-selects (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 keyword 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 keyword 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
_________________________________________________________________
Release 7.0.3
Release date: 2000-11-11
This has a variety of fixes from 7.0.2.
_________________________________________________________________
Migration to version 7.0.3
A dump/restore is *not* required for those running 7.0.*.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
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 aloocation 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 tuples when source and
destination of a tuple 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)
_________________________________________________________________
Release 7.0.2
Release date: 2000-06-05
This is a repackaging of 7.0.1 with added documentation.
_________________________________________________________________
Migration to version 7.0.2
A dump/restore is *not* required for those running 7.*.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
Added documentation to tarball.
_________________________________________________________________
Release 7.0.1
Release date: 2000-06-01
This is a cleanup release for 7.0.
_________________________________________________________________
Migration to version 7.0.1
A dump/restore is *not* required for those running 7.0.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
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)
_________________________________________________________________
Release 7.0
Release date: 2000-05-08
This release contains improvements in many areas, demonstrating the
continued growth of PostgreSQL. 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.
Major changes in this release:
Foreign Keys
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.
Optimizer Overhaul
Continuing on work started a year ago, the optimizer has been
improved, allowing better query plan selection and faster
performance with less memory usage.
Updated psql
psql, our interactive terminal monitor, has been updated with a
variety of new features. See the psql manual page for details.
Join Syntax
SQL92 join syntax is now supported, though only as INNER JOIN
for this release. JOIN, NATURAL JOIN, JOIN/USING, and JOIN/ON
are available, as are column correlation names.
_________________________________________________________________
Migration to version 7.0
A dump/restore using pg_dump is required for those wishing to migrate
data from any previous release of PostgreSQL. For those upgrading from
6.5.*, you may instead use pg_upgrade to upgrade to this release;
however, a full dump/reload installation is always the most robust
method for upgrades.
Interface and compatibility issues to consider for the new release
include:
* The date/time types datetime and timespan have been superseded by
the SQL92-defined types timestamp and interval. Although there has
been some effort to ease the transition by allowing PostgreSQL to
recognize the deprecated type names and translate them to the new
type names, this mechanism may not be completely transparent to
your existing application.
* 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 may
go up. If you are dealing with large amounts of data, you may want
to check your queries to verify performance.
* The JDBC and ODBC interfaces have been upgraded and extended.
* The string function CHAR_LENGTH is now a native function. Previous
versions translated this into a call to LENGTH, which could result
in ambiguity with other types implementing LENGTH such as the
geometric types.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
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 permissions 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 permission 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 <jens@jens.de>)
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 <mascarim@yahoo.com>)
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 permissions 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 keyword, 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 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 WIN32 compilation of libpq
Alpha spinlock fix from Uncle George <gatgul@voicenet.com>
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 Win32 (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 <lamj@stat.cmu.edu>)
Fixes for Alpha compiles
New multibyte encodings
_________________________________________________________________
Release 6.5.3
Release date: 1999-10-13
This is basically a cleanup release for 6.5.2. We have added a new
PgAccess that was missing in 6.5.2, and installed an NT-specific fix.
_________________________________________________________________
Migration to version 6.5.3
A dump/restore is *not* required for those running 6.5.*.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
Updated version of pgaccess 0.98
NT-specific patch
Fix dumping rules on inherited tables
_________________________________________________________________
Release 6.5.2
Release date: 1999-09-15
This is basically a cleanup release for 6.5.1. We have fixed a variety
of problems reported by 6.5.1 users.
_________________________________________________________________
Migration to version 6.5.2
A dump/restore is *not* required for those running 6.5.*.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
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 Win32 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(To
m)
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
_________________________________________________________________
Release 6.5.1
Release date: 1999-07-15
This is basically a cleanup release for 6.5. We have fixed a variety
of problems reported by 6.5 users.
_________________________________________________________________
Migration to version 6.5.1
A dump/restore is *not* required for those running 6.5.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
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 expresssion 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 tuple from being created(Bruce)
plpgsql fixes
Allow port numbers 32k - 64k(Bruce)
Add ^ precidence(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)
_________________________________________________________________
Release 6.5
Release date: 1999-06-09
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.
Here is a brief summary of the more notable changes:
Multiversion concurrency control(MVCC)
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 PostgreSQL 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.
Hot backups from pg_dump
pg_dump takes advantage of the new MVCC features to give a
consistent database dump/backup while the database stays online
and available for queries.
Numeric data type
We now have a true numeric data type, with user-specified
precision.
Temporary tables
Temporary tables are guaranteed to have unique names within a
database session, and are destroyed on session exit.
New SQL features
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.
Speedups
We continue to speed up PostgreSQL, thanks to the variety of
talents within our team. We have sped up memory allocation,
optimization, table joins, and row transfer routines.
Ports
We continue to expand our port list, this time including
Windows NT/ix86 and NetBSD/arm32.
Interfaces
Most interfaces have new versions, and existing functionality
has been improved.
Documentation
New and updated material is present throughout the
documentation. New FAQs have been contributed for SGI and AIX
platforms. The Tutorial has introductory information on SQL
from Stefan Simkovics. For the User's Guide, there are
reference pages covering the postmaster and more utility
programs, and a new appendix contains details on date/time
behavior. The Administrator's Guide has a new chapter on
troubleshooting from Tom Lane. And the Programmer's Guide has a
description of query processing, also from Stefan, and details
on obtaining the PostgreSQL source tree via anonymous CVS and
CVSup.
_________________________________________________________________
Migration to version 6.5
A dump/restore using pg_dump is required for those wishing to migrate
data from any previous release of PostgreSQL. pg_upgrade can *not* be
used to upgrade to this release because the on-disk structure of the
tables has changed compared to previous releases.
The new Multiversion Concurrency Control (MVCC) features can give
somewhat different behaviors in multiuser environments. *Read and
understand the following section to ensure that your existing
applications will give you the behavior you need.*
_________________________________________________________________
Multiversion Concurrency Control
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 "SELECT" 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.
To ensure the actual existence of a row and protect it against
concurrent updates one must use "SELECT FOR UPDATE" or an appropriate
"LOCK TABLE" statement. This should be taken into account when porting
applications from previous releases of PostgreSQL and other
environments.
Keep the above in mind if you are using "contrib/refint.*" triggers
for referential integrity. Additional techniques are required now. One
way is to use "LOCK parent_table IN SHARE ROW EXCLUSIVE MODE" command
if a transaction is going to update/delete a primary key and use "LOCK
parent_table IN SHARE MODE" command if a transaction is going to
update/insert a foreign key.
Note: Note that if you run a transaction in SERIALIZABLE mode then
you must execute the "LOCK" commands above before execution of any
DML statement ("SELECT/INSERT/DELETE/UPDATE/FETCH/COPY_TO") in the
transaction.
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.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
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 username containing a dash GRANT permissions
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 permissions(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 suppports 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 NT/Win32 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 keyword 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)
_________________________________________________________________
Release 6.4.2
Release date: 1998-12-20
The 6.4.1 release was improperly packaged. This also has one
additional bug fix.
_________________________________________________________________
Migration to version 6.4.2
A dump/restore is *not* required for those running 6.4.*.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
Fix for datetime constant problem on some platforms(Thomas)
_________________________________________________________________
Release 6.4.1
Release date: 1998-12-18
This is basically a cleanup release for 6.4. We have fixed a variety
of problems reported by 6.4 users.
_________________________________________________________________
Migration to version 6.4.1
A dump/restore is *not* required for those running 6.4.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
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 existance 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 Win32 fixes(Magnus)
Upgrade to PyGreSQL 2.2(D'Arcy)
_________________________________________________________________
Release 6.4
Release date: 1998-10-30
There are *many* 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:
* 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 Programmer's Guide.
* Jan also contributed a second procedural language, PL/pgSQL, to go
with the original PL/pgTCL procedural language he contributed last
release.
* We have optional multiple-byte character set support from Tatsuo
Ishii to complement our existing locale support.
* Client/server communications has been cleaned up, with better
support for asynchronous messages and interrupts thanks to Tom
Lane.
* 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
PostgreSQL. There is a new chapter in the User's Guide which
covers this topic.
* Three new data types have been added. Two types, inet and cidr,
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 User's Guide for
details. A fourth type, serial, is now supported by the parser as
an amalgam of the int4 type, a sequence, and a unique index.
* Several more SQL92-compatible syntax features have been added,
including "INSERT DEFAULT VALUES"
* The automatic configuration and installation system has received
some attention, and should be more robust for more platforms than
it has ever been.
_________________________________________________________________
Migration to version 6.4
A dump/restore using pg_dump or pg_dumpall is required for those
wishing to migrate data from any previous release of PostgreSQL.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
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)(Thoma
s)
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 can't 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 win32(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 futu
re
* 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 permissions on 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 win32 using win32.mak(Magnus)
Lo_read no longer stores trailing NULL(Bruce)
Identifiers are now truncated to 31 characters internally(Bruce)
Createuser options now availble 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 keyword, that is no longer used(Thomas)
pg_dump -n flag to supress 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 documention(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)
_________________________________________________________________
Release 6.3.2
Release date: 1998-04-07
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.
Summary:
* Repairs automatic configuration support for some platforms,
including Linux, from breakage inadvertently introduced in version
6.3.1.
* Correctly handles function calls on the left side of BETWEEN and
LIKE clauses.
A dump/restore is NOT required for those running 6.3 or 6.3.1. A make
distclean, make, and 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 PostgreSQL libraries.
For upgrades from pre-6.3 installations, refer to the installation and
migration instructions for version 6.3.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
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)
_________________________________________________________________
Release 6.3.1
Release date: 1998-03-23
Summary:
* Additional support for multibyte character sets.
* Repair byte ordering for mixed-endian clients and servers.
* Minor updates to allowed SQL syntax.
* Improvements to the configuration autodetection for installation.
A dump/restore is NOT required for those running 6.3. A make
distclean, make, and 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 PostgreSQL libraries.
For upgrades from pre-6.3 installations, refer to the installation and
migration instructions for version 6.3.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
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 keyword 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)
_________________________________________________________________
Release 6.3
Release date: 1998-03-01
There are *many* new features and improvements in this release. Here
is a brief, incomplete summary:
* Many new SQL features, including full SQL92 subselect capability
(everything is here but target-list subselects).
* Support for client-side environment variables to specify time zone
and date style.
* Socket interface for client/server connection. This is the default
now so you may need to start postmaster with the "-i" flag.
* Better password authorization mechanisms. Default table
permissions have changed.
* Old-style time travel has been removed. Performance has been
improved.
Note: Bruce Momjian wrote the following notes to introduce the new
release.
There are some general 6.3 issues that I want to mention. These are
only the big items that can not be described in one sentence. A review
of the detailed changes list is still needed.
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
may think. Vadim has put us on the big SQL map with subselects, and
fully functional ones too. The only thing you can't do with subselects
is to use them in the target list.
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 "pg_hba.conf". Also, for this
reason, the format of "pg_hba.conf" has changed.
Third, char() fields will now allow faster access than varchar() or
text. Specifically, the text and varchar() have a penalty for access
to any columns after the first column of this type. char() used to
also have this access penalty, but it no longer does. This may suggest
that you redesign some of your tables, especially if you have short
character columns that you have defined as varchar() or text. This and
other changes make 6.3 even faster than earlier releases.
We now have passwords definable independent of any Unix file. There
are new SQL USER commands. See the Administrator's Guide 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 postgres 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.
User-created tables now no longer have SELECT permission to PUBLIC by
default. This was done because the ANSI standard requires it. You can
of course GRANT any permissions you want after the table is created.
System tables continue to be SELECT-able by PUBLIC.
We also have real deadlock detection code. No more sixty-second
timeouts. And the new locking code implements a FIFO better, so there
should be less resource starvation during heavy use.
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.
For performance reasons, time travel is gone, but can be implemented
using triggers (see "pgsql/contrib/spi/README"). Please check out the
new \d command for types, operators, etc. Also, views have their own
permissions now, not based on the underlying tables, so permissions on
them have to be set separately. Check "/pgsql/interfaces" for some new
ways to talk to PostgreSQL.
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.
_________________________________________________________________
Migration to version 6.3
A dump/restore using pg_dump or pg_dumpall is required for those
wishing to migrate data from any previous release of PostgreSQL.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
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 MergeJion(Vadim)
Enhancements
------------
Subselects with EXISTS, IN, ALL, ANY keywords (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 PostgreSQL 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 PostgreSQL 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(Tho
mas)
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 permissions(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 permissions 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 permissions.
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 spin lock 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)
_________________________________________________________________
Release 6.2.1
Release date: 1997-10-17
6.2.1 is a bug-fix and usability release on 6.2.
Summary:
* Allow strings to span lines, per SQL92.
* Include example trigger function for inserting user names on table
updates.
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.
_________________________________________________________________
Migration from version 6.2 to version 6.2.1
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.
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.
Another way to avoid dump/reload is to use the following SQL command
from "psql" to update the existing system table:
update pg_aggregate set aggfinalfn = 'cash_div_flt8'
where aggname = 'avg' and aggbasetype = 790;
This will need to be done to every existing database, including
template1.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
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)
_________________________________________________________________
Release 6.2
Release date: 1997-10-02
A dump/restore is required for those wishing to migrate data from
previous releases of PostgreSQL.
_________________________________________________________________
Migration from version 6.1 to version 6.2
This migration requires a complete dump of the 6.1 database and a
restore of the database in 6.2.
Note that the "pg_dump" and "pg_dumpall" utility from 6.2 should be
used to dump the 6.1 database.
_________________________________________________________________
Migration from version 1.x to version 6.2
Those migrating from earlier 1.* releases should first upgrade to 1.09
because the COPY output format was improved from the 1.02 release.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
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(Thoma
s)
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 tuples changed/inserted by a commnd
visible to the command itself (so we had multiple update of
updated tuples, 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 tuples 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 tuples 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 "<^"(Tho
mas)
Add routines for text trimming on both ends, substring, and string position(Tho
mas)
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)
_________________________________________________________________
Release 6.1.1
Release date: 1997-07-22
_________________________________________________________________
Migration from version 6.1 to version 6.1.1
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.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
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)
_________________________________________________________________
Release 6.1
Release date: 1997-06-08
The regression tests have been adapted and extensively modified for
the 6.1 release of PostgreSQL.
Three new data types (datetime, timespan, and circle) have been added
to the native set of PostgreSQL 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.
PostgreSQL 6.1 introduces a new, alternate optimizer which uses
genetic 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 "set geqo to
'off'" and "reset geqo".
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 "./expected/*.out" files reflect
this new interpretation, which may not be correct!
The float8 regression test fails on at least some platforms. This is
due to differences in implementations of pow() and exp() and the
signaling mechanisms used for overflow and underflow conditions.
The "random" results in the random test should cause the "random" test
to be "failed", since the regression tests are evaluated using a
simple diff. However, "random" does not seem to produce random results
on my test machine (Linux/gcc/i686).
_________________________________________________________________
Migration to version 6.1
This migration requires a complete dump of the 6.0 database and a
restore of the database in 6.1.
Those migrating from earlier 1.* releases should first upgrade to 1.09
because the COPY output format was improved from the 1.02 release.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
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 tuples re-incarnation 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 WIN32-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
_________________________________________________________________
Release 6.0
Release date: 1997-01-29
A dump/restore is required for those wishing to migrate data from
previous releases of PostgreSQL.
_________________________________________________________________
Migration from version 1.09 to version 6.0
This migration requires a complete dump of the 1.09 database and a
restore of the database in 6.0.
_________________________________________________________________
Migration from pre-1.09 to version 6.0
Those migrating from earlier 1.* releases should first upgrade to 1.09
because the COPY output format was improved from the 1.02 release.
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
Bug Fixes
---------
ALTER TABLE bug - running postgress 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 unitialized 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 permissions
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(Br
uce)
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 distrubution(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 easly 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, centeralized #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/uninialized variables corrected
_________________________________________________________________
Release 1.09
Release date: 1996-11-04
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.
_________________________________________________________________
Release 1.02
Release date: 1996-08-01
_________________________________________________________________
Migration from version 1.02 to version 1.02.1
Here is a new migration file for 1.02.1. It includes the 'copy' change
and a script to convert old ASCII files.
Note: The following notes are for the benefit of users who want to
migrate databases from Postgres95 1.01 and 1.02 to Postgres95
1.02.1.
If you are starting afresh with Postgres95 1.02.1 and do not need
to migrate old databases, you do not need to read any further.
In order to upgrade older Postgres95 version 1.01 or 1.02 databases to
version 1.02.1, the following steps are required:
1. Start up a new 1.02.1 postmaster
2. 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
"psql". If your 1.01 or 1.02 database is named testdb and you have
cut the commands from the end of this file and saved them in
"addfunc.sql":
% psql testdb -f addfunc.sql
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.
_________________________________________________________________
Dump/Reload Procedure
If you are trying to reload a pg_dump or text-mode, copy tablename to
stdout generated with a previous version, you will need to run the
attached "sed" 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.
sed 's/^\.$/\\./g' <in_file >out_file
If you are loading an older binary copy or non-stdout copy, there is
no end-of-data character, and hence no conversion necessary.
-- 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 = texticregexe
q);
create operator !~* (leftarg = bpchar, rightarg = text, procedure = texticregex
ne);
create operator ~* (leftarg = varchar, rightarg = text, procedure = texticregex
eq);
create operator !~* (leftarg = varchar, rightarg = text, procedure = texticrege
xne);
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
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
_________________________________________________________________
Release 1.01
Release date: 1996-02-23
_________________________________________________________________
Migration from version 1.0 to version 1.01
The following notes are for the benefit of users who want to migrate
databases from Postgres95 1.0 to Postgres95 1.01.
If you are starting afresh with Postgres95 1.01 and do not need to
migrate old databases, you do not need to read any further.
In order to Postgres95 version 1.01 with databases created with
Postgres95 version 1.0, the following steps are required:
1. Set the definition of NAMEDATALEN in "src/Makefile.global" to 16
and OIDNAMELEN to 20.
2. Decide whether you want to use Host based authentication.
a. If you do, you must create a file name pg_hba in your
top-level data directory (typically the value of your
$PGDATA). "src/libpq/pg_hba" shows an example syntax.
b. If you do not want host-based authentication, you can comment
out the line
HBA = 1
in "src/Makefile.global"
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.
3. Compile and install 1.01, but DO NOT do the "initdb" step.
4. Before doing anything else, terminate your 1.0 postmaster, and
backup your existing $PGDATA directory.
5. Set your PGDATA environment variable to your 1.0 databases, but
set up path up so that 1.01 binaries are being used.
6. Modify the file "$PGDATA/PG_VERSION" from 5.0 to 5.1
7. Start up a new 1.01 postmaster
8. 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
"psql". If your 1.0 database is name testdb:
% psql testdb -f 1.0_to_1.01.sql
and then execute the following commands (cut and paste from here):
-- 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 = char2icregexe
q);
create operator !~* (leftarg = char2, rightarg = text, procedure = char2icregex
ne);
create operator ~* (leftarg = char4, rightarg = text, procedure = char4icregexe
q);
create operator !~* (leftarg = char4, rightarg = text, procedure = char4icregex
ne);
create operator ~* (leftarg = char8, rightarg = text, procedure = char8icregexe
q);
create operator !~* (leftarg = char8, rightarg = text, procedure = char8icregex
ne);
create operator ~* (leftarg = char16, rightarg = text, procedure = char16icrege
xeq);
create operator !~* (leftarg = char16, rightarg = text, procedure = char16icreg
exne);
create operator ~* (leftarg = text, rightarg = text, procedure = texticregexeq)
;
create operator !~* (leftarg = text, rightarg = text, procedure = texticregexne
);
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
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 keywords
* 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
_________________________________________________________________
Release 1.0
Release date: 1995-09-05
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
Copyright change:
* The copyright of Postgres 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 keyword
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
permissions
* 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
_________________________________________________________________
Postgres95 Release 0.03
Release date: 1995-07-21
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
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 may 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" keyword.
For example:
GRANT SELECT ON foobar TO GROUP my_group;
The keyword '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 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 tuple 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 tuple 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.
_________________________________________________________________
Postgres95 Release 0.02
Release date: 1995-05-25
_________________________________________________________________
Changes
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
_________________________________________________________________
Postgres95 Release 0.01
Release date: 1995-05-01
Initial release.
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