mirror of https://github.com/postgres/postgres
466 lines
17 KiB
Plaintext
466 lines
17 KiB
Plaintext
TODO list for PostgreSQL
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========================
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Last updated: Tue Dec 3 12:38:29 EST 2002
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Current maintainer: Bruce Momjian (pgman@candle.pha.pa.us)
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The most recent version of this document can be viewed at
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the PostgreSQL web site, http://www.PostgreSQL.org.
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A dash (-) marks changes that will appear in the upcoming 7.4 release.
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Bracketed items "[]" have more detailed.
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Urgent
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======
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* Add replication of distributed databases [replication]
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o automatic failover
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o load balancing
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o master/slave replication
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o multi-master replication
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o partition data across servers
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o sample implementation in contrib/rserv
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o queries across databases or servers (two-phase commit)
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o allow replication over unreliable or non-persistent links
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o http://gborg.postgresql.org/project/pgreplication/projdisplay.php
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* Point-in-time data recovery using backup and write-ahead log
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* Create native Win32 port [win32]
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Reporting
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=========
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* Allow elog() to return error codes, module name, file name, line
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number, not just messages (Peter E)
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* Add error codes (Peter E)
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* Make error messages more consistent [error]
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* Show location of syntax error in query [yacc]
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Administration
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==============
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* Incremental backups
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* Remove unreferenced table files and temp tables during database vacuum
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or postmaster startup (Bruce)
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* Remove behavior of postmaster -o after making postmaster/postgres
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flags unique
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* Allow easy display of usernames in a group
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* Allow configuration files to be specified in a different directory
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* Add start time to pg_stat_activity
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* Allow limits on per-db/user connections
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* Have standalone backend read postgresql.conf
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Data Types
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==========
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* Add IPv6 capability to INET/CIDR types
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* Remove Money type, add money formatting for decimal type
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* Change factorial to return a numeric
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* Change NUMERIC data type to use base 10,000 internally
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* Change NUMERIC to enforce the maximum precision, and increase it
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* Add function to return compressed length of TOAST data values (Tom)
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* Allow INET subnet tests using non-constants
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* Add now("transaction|statement|clock") functionality
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* -Add GUC variables to control floating number output digits (Pedro Ferreira)
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* Have sequence dependency track use of DEFAULT sequences, seqname.nextval
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* CONVERSION
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o Allow better handling of numeric constants, type conversion
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[typeconv]
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* ARRAYS
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o Allow nulls in arrays
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o Allow arrays to be ORDER'ed
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o Support construction of array result values in expressions
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* BINARY DATA
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o Improve vacuum of large objects, like /contrib/vacuumlo
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o Add security checking for large objects
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o Make file in/out interface for TOAST columns, similar to large object
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interface (force out-of-line storage and no compression)
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o Auto-delete large objects when referencing row is deleted
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Multi-Language Support
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======================
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* Add NCHAR (as distinguished from ordinary varchar),
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* Allow LOCALE on a per-column basis, default to ASCII
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* Support multiple simultaneous character sets, per SQL92
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* Improve Unicode combined character handling
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* Optimize locale to have minimal performance impact when not used (Peter E)
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* Add octet_length_server() and octet_length_client() (Thomas, Tatsuo)
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* Make octet_length_client the same as octet_length() (?)
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* Prevent mismatch of frontend/backend encodings from converting bytea
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data from being interpreted as encoded strings
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* Remove Cyrillic recode support
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Views / Rules
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=============
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* Automatically create rules on views so they are updateable, per SQL92 [view]
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* Add the functionality for WITH CHECK OPTION clause of CREATE VIEW
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* Allow NOTIFY in rules involving conditionals
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* Have views on temporary tables exist in the temporary namespace
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* Move psql backslash information into views
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* Allow RULE recompilation
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Indexes
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=======
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* Allow CREATE INDEX zman_index ON test (date_trunc( 'day', zman ) datetime_ops)
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fails index can't store constant parameters
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* Order duplicate index entries by tid for faster heap lookups
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* Allow inherited tables to inherit index, UNIQUE constraint, and primary
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key, foreign key [inheritance]
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* UNIQUE INDEX on base column not honored on inserts from inherited table
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INSERT INTO inherit_table (unique_index_col) VALUES (dup) should fail
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[inheritance]
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* Add UNIQUE capability to non-btree indexes
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* Add btree index support for reltime, tinterval, regproc
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* Add rtree index support for line, lseg, path, point
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* Certain indexes will not shrink, e.g. indexes on ever-increasing
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columns and indexes with many duplicate keys
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* Use indexes for min() and max() or convert to SELECT col FROM tab ORDER
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BY col DESC LIMIT 1 if appropriate index exists and WHERE clause acceptible
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* Allow LIKE indexing optimization for non-ASCII locales
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* Use index to restrict rows returned by multi-key index when used with
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non-consecutive keys or OR clauses, so fewer heap accesses
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* Be smarter about insertion of already-ordered data into btree index
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* Prevent index uniqueness checks when UPDATE does not modifying column
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* Use bitmaps to fetch heap pages in sequential order [performance]
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* Use bitmaps to combine existing indexes [performance]
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* Improve handling of index scans for NULL
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* Allow SELECT * FROM tab WHERE int2col = 4 to use int2col index, int8,
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float4, numeric/decimal too [optimizer]
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* Add FILLFACTOR to btree index creation
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* Add concurrency to GIST
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* Improve concurrency of hash indexes (Neil)
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Commands
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========
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* Add BETWEEN ASYMMETRIC/SYMMETRIC (Christopher)
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* Allow LIMIT/OFFSET to use expressions
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* CREATE TABLE AS can not determine column lengths from expressions [atttypmod]
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* Allow UPDATE to handle complex aggregates [update]
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* Allow command blocks to ignore certain types of errors
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* Allow backslash handling in quoted strings to be disabled for portability
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* Return proper effected tuple count from complex commands [return]
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* Allow DELETE to handle table aliases for self-joins [delete]
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* Add CORRESPONDING BY to UNION/INTERSECT/EXCEPT
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* Allow REINDEX to rebuild all indexes, remove /contrib/reindex
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* Make a transaction-safe TRUNCATE
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* Fix SELECT ... INTO and CREATE TABLE AS to have appopriate OID column
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* ALTER
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o ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN does not honor DEFAULT and non-CHECK CONSTRAINT
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o ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN column DEFAULT should fill existing
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rows with DEFAULT value
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o ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN column SERIAL doesn't create sequence because
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of the item above
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o Add ALTER TABLE tab SET WITHOUT OIDS
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* CLUSTER
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o Automatically maintain clustering on a table
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o Allow CLUSTER to cluster all tables, remove clusterdb
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* COPY
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o Allow dump/load of CSV format
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o Allow COPY to report error lines and continue; optionally
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allow error codes to be specified; requires savepoints or can
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not be run in a multi-statement transaction
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o Allow copy to understand \x as hex
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* CURSOR
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o Allow BINARY option to SELECT, just like DECLARE
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o -MOVE 0 should not move to end of cursor (Bruce)
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o Allow UPDATE/DELETE WHERE CURRENT OF cursor using per-cursor tid
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stored in the backend
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o Prevent DROP of table being referenced by our own open cursor
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o Allow cursors outside transactions [cursor]
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* INSERT
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o Allow INSERT/UPDATE of system-generated oid value for a row
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o Allow INSERT INTO tab (col1, ..) VALUES (val1, ..), (val2, ..)
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o Allow INSERT/UPDATE ... RETURNING new.col or old.col; handle
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RULE cases (Philip)
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* SHOW/SET
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o Add SET PERFORMANCE_TIPS option to suggest INDEX, VACUUM, VACUUM
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ANALYZE, and CLUSTER
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o Add SET SCHEMA
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o Allow EXPLAIN EXECUTE to see prepared plans
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o Allow SHOW of non-modifiable variables, like pg_controldata
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o Add GUC parameter to control the maximum number of rewrite cycles
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* SERVER-SIDE LANGUAGES
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o Allow PL/PgSQL's RAISE function to take expressions
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o Change PL/PgSQL to use palloc() instead of malloc()
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o Add untrusted version of plpython
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o Allow Java server-side programming, http://pljava.sourceforge.net
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[java]
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o Fix problems with complex temporary table creation/destruction
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without using PL/PgSQL EXECUTE, needs cache prevention/invalidation
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o Fix PL/pgSQL RENAME to work on variables other than OLD/NEW
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o Improve PL/PgSQL exception handling
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o Allow parameters to be specified by name and type during
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definition
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o Allow function parameters to be passed by name,
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get_employee_salary(emp_id => 12345, tax_year => 2001)
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o Add PL/PgSQL packages
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o Allow array declarations and other data types in PL/PgSQL DECLARE
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o Add PL/PgSQL PROCEDURES that can return multiple values
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o Add table function support to pltcl, plperl, plpython
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o Make PL/PgSQL %TYPE schema-aware
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Clients
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=======
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* Allow psql to show transaction status if backend protocol changes made
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* Add XML interface: psql, pg_dump, COPY, separate server (?)
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* Add schema, cast, and conversion backslash commands to psql
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* Allow pg_dump to dump a specific schema
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* Allow psql to do table completion for SELECT * FROM schema_part and
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table completion for SELECT * FROM schema_name.
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* JDBC
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o Comprehensive test suite. This may be available already.
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o JDBC-standard BLOB support
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o Error Codes (pending backend implementation)
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o Support both 'make' and 'ant'
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o Fix LargeObject API to handle OIDs as unsigned ints
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o Use cursors implicitly to avoid large results (see setCursorName())
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o Add LISTEN/NOTIFY support to the JDBC driver (Barry)
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* ECPG
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o Implement set descriptor, using descriptor
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o Make casts work in variable initializations
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o Implement SQLDA
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o Allow multi-threaded use of SQLCA
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o Solve cardinality > 1 for input descriptors / variables
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o Understand structure definitions outside a declare section
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o sqlwarn[6] should be 'W' if the PRECISION or SCALE value specified
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o Improve error handling
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o Allow :var[:index] or :var[<integer>] as cvariable for an array var
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o Add a semantic check level, e.g. check if a table really exists
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o Fix nested C comments
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o Add SQLSTATE
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o fix handling of DB attributes that are arrays
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* Python
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o Allow users to register their own types with _pg
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o Allow SELECT to return a dictionary of dictionaries
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o Allow COPY BINARY FROM
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Referential Integrity
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=====================
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* Add MATCH PARTIAL referential integrity [foreign]
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* Add deferred trigger queue file (Jan)
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* Implement dirty reads and use them in RI triggers
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* Enforce referential integrity for system tables
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* Change foreign key constraint for array -> element to mean element
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in array
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* Allow DEFERRABLE UNIQUE constraints
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* Allow triggers to be disabled [trigger]
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* -Support statement-level triggers (Neil)
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* Support triggers on columns (Neil)
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Dependency Checking
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===================
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* Flush cached query plans when their underlying catalog data changes
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* Use dependency information to dump data in proper order
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Transactions
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============
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* Overhaul bufmgr/lockmgr/transaction manager
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* Allow savepoints / nested transactions [transactions] (Bruce)
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Exotic Features
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===============
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* Add SQL99 WITH clause to SELECT
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* Add SQL99 WITH RECURSIVE to SELECT
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* Add the concept of dataspaces/tablespaces [tablespaces]
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* Allow queries across multiple databases [crossdb]
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* Add pre-parsing phase that converts non-ANSI features to supported features
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* Allow plug-in modules to emulate features from other databases
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* SQL*Net listener that makes PostgreSQL appear as an Oracle database
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to clients
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PERFORMANCE
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===========
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Fsync
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=====
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* Delay fsync() when other backends are about to commit too [fsync]
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o Determine optimal commit_delay value
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* Determine optimal fdatasync/fsync, O_SYNC/O_DSYNC options
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o Allow multiple blocks to be written to WAL with one write()
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Cache
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=====
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* Shared catalog cache, reduce lseek()'s by caching table size in shared area
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* Add free-behind capability for large sequential scans (Bruce)
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* Allow binding query args over FE/BE protocol
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* Consider use of open/fcntl(O_DIRECT) to minimize OS caching
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* Make blind writes go through the file descriptor cache
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Vacuum
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======
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* Improve speed with indexes (perhaps recreate index instead) [vacuum]
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* Reduce lock time by moving tuples with read lock, then write
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lock and truncate table [vacuum]
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* Provide automatic running of vacuum in the background (Tom) [vacuum]
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* Allow free space map to be auto-sized or warn when it is too small
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Locking
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=======
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* Make locking of shared data structures more fine-grained
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* Add code to detect an SMP machine and handle spinlocks accordingly
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from distributted.net, http://www1.distributed.net/source,
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in client/common/cpucheck.cpp
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* Research use of sched_yield() for spinlock acquisition failure
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Startup Time
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============
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* Experiment with multi-threaded backend [thread]
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* Add connection pooling [pool]
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* Allow persistent backends [persistent]
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* Create a transaction processor to aid in persistent connections and
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connection pooling
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* Do listen() in postmaster and accept() in pre-forked backend
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* Have pre-forked backend pre-connect to last requested database or pass
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file descriptor to backend pre-forked for matching database
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Write-Ahead Log
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===============
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* Have after-change WAL write()'s write only modified data to kernel
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* Reduce number of after-change WAL writes; they exist only to gaurd against
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partial page writes [wal]
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* Turn off after-change writes if fsync is disabled (?)
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* Add WAL index reliability improvement to non-btree indexes
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* Find proper defaults for postgresql.conf WAL entries
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* Add checkpoint_min_warning postgresql.conf option to warn about checkpoints
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that are too frequent
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* Allow xlog directory location to be specified during initdb, perhaps
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using symlinks
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* Allow pg_xlog to be moved without symlinks
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Optimizer / Executor
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====================
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* Improve Subplan list handling
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* Allow Subplans to use efficient joins(hash, merge) with upper variable
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* -Add hash for evaluating GROUP BY aggregates (Tom)
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* Allow merge and hash joins on expressions not just simple variables (Tom)
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* Make IN/NOT IN have similar performance to EXISTS/NOT EXISTS [exists]
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* Missing optimizer selectivities for date, r-tree, etc. [optimizer]
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* Allow ORDER BY ... LIMIT to select top values without sort or index
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using a sequential scan for highest/lowest values (Oleg)
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* -Inline simple SQL functions to avoid overhead (Tom)
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* Precompile SQL functions to avoid overhead (Neil)
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* Add utility to compute accurate random_page_cost value
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* Improve ability to display optimizer analysis using OPTIMIZER_DEBUG
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* Use CHECK constraints to improve optimizer decisions
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* Check GUC geqo_threshold to see if it is still accurate
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* Allow sorting, temp files, temp tables to use multiple work directories
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Miscellaneous
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=============
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* Do async I/O for faster random read-ahead of data
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* Get faster regex() code from Henry Spencer <henry@zoo.utoronto.ca>
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when it is available
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* Use mmap() rather than SYSV shared memory or to write WAL files (?) [mmap]
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* Improve caching of attribute offsets when NULLs exist in the row
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Source Code
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===========
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* Add use of 'const' for variables in source tree
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* Rename some /contrib modules from pg* to pg_*
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* Move some things from /contrib into main tree
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* Remove warnings created by -Wcast-align
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* Move platform-specific ps status display info from ps_status.c to ports
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* Modify regression tests to prevent failures do to minor numeric rounding
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* Add OpenBSD's getpeereid() call for local socket authentication (Bruce)
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* Improve access-permissions check on data directory in Cygwin (Tom)
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* Add --port flag to regression tests
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* Add documentation for perl, including mention of DBI/DBD perl location
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* Add optional CRC checksum to heap and index pages
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* Change representation of whole-tuple parameters to functions
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* Clarify use of 'application' and 'command' tags in SGML docs
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* Better document ability to build only certain interfaces (Marc)
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* Remove or relicense modules that are not under the BSD license, if possible
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* Remove memory/file descriptor freeing befor elog(ERROR) (Bruce)
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* Acquire lock on a relation before building a relcache entry for it
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* Research interaction of setitimer() and sleep() used by statement_timeout
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Developers who have claimed items are:
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--------------------------------------
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* Barry is Barry Lind <barry@xythos.com>
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* Billy is Billy G. Allie <Bill.Allie@mug.org>
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* Bruce is Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us>
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* Christopher is Christopher Kings-Lynne <chriskl@familyhealth.com.au>
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* D'Arcy is D'Arcy J.M. Cain <darcy@druid.net>
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* Dave is Dave Cramer <dave@fastcrypt.com>
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* Edmund is Edmund Mergl <E.Mergl@bawue.de>
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* Gavin Sherry <swm@linuxworld.com.au>
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* Hiroshi is Hiroshi Inoue <Inoue@tpf.co.jp>
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* Karel is Karel Zak <zakkr@zf.jcu.cz>
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* Jan is Jan Wieck <wieck@sapserv.debis.de>
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* Liam is Liam Stewart <liams@redhat.com>
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* Marc is Marc Fournier <scrappy@hub.org>
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* Mark is Mark Hollomon <mhh@mindspring.com>
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* Marko is Marko Kreen <marko@l-t.ee>
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* Michael is Michael Meskes <meskes@postgresql.org>
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* Neil is Neil Conway <neilc@samurai.com>
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* Oleg is Oleg Bartunov <oleg@sai.msu.su>
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* Peter M is Peter T Mount <peter@retep.org.uk>
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* Peter E is Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net>
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* Philip is Philip Warner <pjw@rhyme.com.au>
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* Rod is Rod Taylor <rbt@zort.ca>
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* Ross is Ross J. Reedstrom <reedstrm@wallace.ece.rice.edu>
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* Ryan is Ryan Bradetich <rbrad@hpb50023.boi.hp.com>
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* Stephan is Stephan Szabo <sszabo@megazone23.bigpanda.com>
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* Tatsuo is Tatsuo Ishii <t-ishii@sra.co.jp>
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* Thomas is Thomas Lockhart <lockhart@fourpalms.org>
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* Tom is Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
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* TomH is Tom I Helbekkmo <tih@Hamartun.Priv.no>
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* Vadim is Vadim B. Mikheev <vadim4o@email.com>
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