--- /dev/null
+<!-- BEGIN page_title_block -->
+Weekly News - August 15 2010
+<!-- END page_title_block -->
+
+<h1>PostgreSQL Weekly News - August 15 2010</h1>
+
+<h2>PostgreSQL Product News</h2>
+<p>
+Npgsql 2.0.10, a .NET data provider for PostgreSQL, released.
+<a href="http://www.npgsql.org">http://www.npgsql.org</a>
+</p>
+
+<h2>PostgreSQL Local</h2>
+<p>
+FrOSCon 2010 will take place in St. Augustin, Germany on August 21-22,
+2010. The German PostgreSQL User Group got his own devroom and some
+interesting talks. More info:
+<a href="http://psoos.blogspot.com/2010/08/postgresql-at-froscon-2010.html">http://psoos.blogspot.com/2010/08/postgresql-at-froscon-2010.html</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Call for Papers for West is open until September 5, 2010. Details at:
+<a href="http://www.postgresqlconference.org/">http://www.postgresqlconference.org/</a>
+</p>
+
+<h2>PostgreSQL in the News</h2>
+<p>
+Planet PostgreSQL: <a href="http://planet.postgresql.org/">http://planet.postgresql.org/</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PostgreSQL Weekly News is brought to you this week by David Fetter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Submit news and announcements by Sunday at 3:00pm Pacific time.
+</p>
+
+<h2>Applied Patches</h2>
+<p>
+Tom Lane committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Modify the handling of RAISE without parameters so that the error it
+ throws can be caught in the same places that could catch an ordinary
+ RAISE ERROR in the same location. The previous coding insisted on
+ throwing the error from the block containing the active exception
+ handler; which is arguably more surprising, and definitely unlike
+ Oracle's behavior. Not back-patching, since this is a pretty
+ obscure corner case. The risk of breaking somebody's code in a
+ minor version update seems to outweigh any possible benefit. Piyush
+ Newe, reviewed by David Fetter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Fix incorrect logic in plpgsql for cleanup after evaluation of
+ non-simple expressions. We need to deal with this when handling
+ subscripts in an array assignment, and also when catching an
+ exception. In an Assert-enabled build these omissions led to Assert
+ failures, but I think in a normal build the only consequence would
+ be short-term memory leakage; which may explain why this wasn't
+ reported from the field long ago. Back-patch to all supported
+ versions. 7.4 doesn't have exceptions, but otherwise these bugs go
+ all the way back. Heikki Linnakangas and Tom Lane.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Add three-parameter forms of array_to_string and string_to_array, to
+ allow better handling of NULL elements within the arrays. The third
+ parameter is a string that should be used to represent a NULL
+ element, or should be translated into a NULL element, respectively.
+ If the third parameter is NULL it behaves the same as the
+ two-parameter form. There are two incompatible changes in the
+ behavior of the two-parameter form of string_to_array. First, it
+ will return an empty (zero-element) array rather than NULL when the
+ input string is of zero length. Second, if the field separator is
+ NULL, the function splits the string into individual characters,
+ rather than returning NULL as before. These two changes make this
+ form fully compatible with the behavior of the new three-parameter
+ form. Pavel Stehule, reviewed by Brendan Jurd.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Remove the arbitrary (and undocumented) limit on the number of
+ parameter=value pairs that can be handled by xslt_process(). There
+ is much else to do here, but this patch seems useful in its own
+ right for as long as this code survives. Pavel Stehule, reviewed by
+ Mike Fowler.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Extend psql's \e and \ef commands so that a line number can be
+ specified, and the editor's cursor will be initially placed on that
+ line. In \e the lines are counted with respect to the query buffer,
+ while in \ef they are counted with line 1 = first line of function
+ body. These choices are useful for positioning the cursor on the
+ line of a previously-reported error. To avoid assumptions about
+ what switch the user's editor takes for this purpose, invent a new
+ psql variable EDITOR_LINENUMBER_SWITCH with (at present) no default
+ value. One incompatibility from previous behavior is that "\e 1234"
+ will now take "1234" as a line number not a file name. There are at
+ least two ways to select a numerically-named file if you really want
+ to. Pavel Stehule, reviewed by Jan Urbanski, with further editing
+ by Robert Haas and Tom Lane.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Add the ability to compute per-statement latencies (ie, average
+ execution times) to pgbench. Florian Pflug, reviewed by Greg Smith.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/contrib/pgbench/pgbench.c, get rid of a bunch of dubious
+ error handling code in pgbench by just erroring out immediately on
+ any out-of-memory condition. It's rather pointless to imagine that
+ pgbench will be able to continue usefully after a malloc failure,
+ and in any case there were a number of unchecked mallocs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Fix pg_restore to complain if any arguments remain after parsing the
+ switches and input file name, per bug #5617 from Leo Shklovskii.
+ Rearrange the corresponding code in pg_dump and pg_dumpall so that
+ all three programs handle this in a consistent, straightforward
+ fashion. Back-patch to 9.0, but no further. Although this is
+ certainly a bug, it's possible that people have scripts that will be
+ broken by the added error check, so it seems better not to change
+ the behavior in stable branches.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Fix Assert failure in PushOverrideSearchPath when trying to restore
+ a search path that specifies useTemp, but there is no active temp
+ schema in the current session. (This can happen if the path was
+ saved during a transaction that created a temp schema and was later
+ rolled back.) For existing callers it's sufficient to ignore the
+ useTemp flag in this case, though we might later want to offer an
+ option to create a fresh temp schema. So far as I can tell this is
+ just an Assert failure: in a non-assert build, the code would push a
+ zero onto the new search path, which is useless but not very
+ harmful. Per bug report from Heikki. Back-patch to 8.3; prior
+ versions don't have this code.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Add xml_is_well_formed, xml_is_well_formed_document,
+ xml_is_well_formed_content functions to the core XML code. Per
+ discussion, the former depends on XMLOPTION while the others do not.
+ These supersede a version previously offered by contrib/xml2. Mike
+ Fowler, reviewed by Pavel Stehule.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Minor #include cleanup. I just noticed that libpq's pqsignal.h was
+ violating our general inclusion style guidelines by explicitly
+ including postgres_fe.h. Remove that, and put it in pqsignal.c
+ where it belongs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/bin/psql/help.c, clean up failure to use ClosePager()
+ where appropriate. Also prevent possible repeat opening of pager in
+ helpSQL().
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/include/storage/backendid.h, myBackendId now needs to
+ be PGDLLIMPORT, so that contrib modules can access it on Windows.
+ Per buildfarm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Add a \sf (show function) command to psql, for those times when you
+ need to look at a function but don't wish to fire up an editor.
+ Pavel Stehule, reviewed by Jan Urbanski
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Fix \ef and \sf to not fail on functions with nonnull probin.
+ Update comment about them in pg_get_functiondef.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/backend/optimizer/util/clauses.c, fix planner to make a
+ reasonable assumption about the amount of memory space used by
+ array_agg(), string_agg(), and similar aggregate functions that use
+ "internal" as their transition datatype. The previous coding
+ thought this took *no* extra space, since "internal" is
+ pass-by-value; but actually these aggregates typically consume a
+ great deal of space. Per bug #5608 from Itagaki Takahiro, and fix
+ suggestion from Hitoshi Harada. Back-patch to 8.4, where array_agg
+ was introduced.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/pgbench.sgml, avoid unnecessary use of TPS
+ acronym. Robert Haas, per gripe from Erik Rijkers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/pgarchivecleanup.sgml, improve
+ pgarchivecleanup documentation, per comments from Satoshi Nagayasu.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/func.sgml, clarify bit numbering in
+ get_bit/set_bit etc. Per gripe from Zoltan Boszormenyi.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/backup.sgml, assorted improvements to
+ backup/restore documentation, per Thom Brown.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/bin/psql/mbprint.c, fix psql's copy of utf2ucs() to
+ match the backend's copy exactly; in particular, propagate a fix in
+ the test to see whether a UTF8 character has length 4 bytes. This
+ is likely of little real-world consequence because 5-or-more-byte
+ UTF8 sequences are not supported by Postgres nor seen anywhere in
+ the wild, but still we may as well get it right. Problem found by
+ Joseph Adams. Bug is aboriginal, so back-patch all the way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Robert Haas committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In the libpq docs, provide stable target anchors for libpq
+ functions. Daniele Varrazzo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Use double quotes rather than double quotes for libpq target
+ anchors. Per observation from Tom Lane that the previous patch to
+ these files was not consistent with what is done elsewhere in the
+ docs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/ecpg.sgml, fix incorrect errno definitions in
+ ECPG manual. ecpgerrno.h hasn't materially changed since PostgreSQL
+ 7.4, so this has been wrong for a very long time. Back-patch all
+ the way. Satoshi Nagayasu.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/ecpg.sgml, fix one more incorrect errno
+ definition in the ECPG manual. Again, back-patch all the way to
+ 7.4.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Correct sundry errors in Hot Standby-related comments. Fujii Masao.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/syntax.sgml, reorder docs on lexical structure
+ slightly for clarity. Thom Brown.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/backend/access/transam/xact.c, make RecordTransactionCommit()
+ respect wal_level. Since the only purpose of WAL-logging
+ SharedInvalidationMessages is to support Hot Standby operation, they
+ needn't be included when wal_level < hot_standby. Back-patch to
+ 9.0. Review by Heikki Linnakanagas and Fujii Masao.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Include the backend ID in the relpath of temporary relations. This
+ allows us to reliably remove all leftover temporary relation files
+ on cluster startup without reference to system catalogs or WAL;
+ therefore, we no longer include temporary relations in
+ XLOG_XACT_COMMIT and XLOG_XACT_ABORT WAL records. Since these
+ changes require including a backend ID in each SharedInvalSmgrMsg,
+ the size of the SharedInvalidationMessage.id field has been reduced
+ from two bytes to one, and the maximum number of connections has
+ been reduced from INT_MAX / 4 to 2^23-1. It would be possible to
+ remove these restrictions by increasing the size of
+ SharedInvalidationMessage by 4 bytes, but right now that doesn't
+ seem like a good trade-off. Review by Jaime Casanova and Tom Lane.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Fix assorted dtrace breakage caused by patch to include backend IDs
+ in temp relpaths. Per buildfarm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Further dtrace adjustments for the backend-IDs-in-relpath patch.
+ Update the documentation, and back out a few ill-considered changes
+ whose folly I failed to realize for failure to read the
+ documentation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Add doc link and additional index reference to pgcrypto. Kevin
+ Grittner, with markup adjustments.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/backend/storage/lmgr/lmgr.c, make LockDatabaseObject()
+ AcceptInvalidationMessages(). This is appropriate for the same
+ reasons we already do it in LockSharedObject(): things might have
+ changed while we were waiting for the lock. There doesn't seem to
+ be a live bug here at the moment, but that's mostly because it isn't
+ currently used for very much.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bruce Momjian committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/ref/explain.sgml, add EXPLAIN documentation
+ example. Gabrielle Roth. Backpatch to 9.0.X.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/syntax.sgml, properly lowercase identifiers,
+ uppercase keywords, in doc examples.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/syntax.sgml, back out syntax case changes ---
+ seems they were intentional.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Peter Eisentraut committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/datatype.sgml, <example> is a floating
+ element, so it's use is inappropriate when the surrounding text
+ refers to the example inline.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Add some links to tables in the docs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Heikki Linnakangas committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/backend/utils/adt/arrayfuncs.c, the sanity check added
+ to array_recv() wa a bit too tight; we must continue to accept an
+ empty array with dimension information. array_send() can output
+ such arrays. Per report from Vladimir Shakhov.
+</p>
+
+<h2>Rejected Patches (for now)</h2>
+<p>
+No one was disappointed this week :-)
+</p>
+
+<h2>Pending Patches</h2>
+<p>
+Erik Rijkers sent in a doc patch for pgbench defining TPS to mean
+"transactions per second."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kris Jurka sent in another revision of the patch to fix COPY IN.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Peter Eisentraut sent in a patch to allow specifying hosts by name in
+pg_hba.conf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pavel Stehule sent in another revision of the GROUPING SETS patch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Robert Haas sent in a patch to reduce the size of the id for
+SharedInvalidationMessages to one byte.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Boxuan Zhai sent in four more revisions of the MERGE patch, and Heikki
+Linnakangas responded with a cleaned-up one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Joseph Adams sent in two more WIP patches to add the JSON type, the
+second adding it as a core type rather than the previous contrib.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fujii Masao sent in a patch to align the docs and code for
+trace_recovery_messages.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Greg Smith sent in another revision of the patch to add individual
+statement latencies to pgbench.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Joseph Adams sent in a patch to fix utf8-to-unicode.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Joseph Adams sent in some general utility functions for, among other
+things, enum handling in C stored procedures.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Zoltan Boszormenyi sent in a WIP patch to add replication to the SQL
+syntax.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dean Rasheed sent in another WIP patch to implement triggers on views.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Robert Haas sent in another revision of the patch to refactor
+comment.c.
+
+</p>
+
projects / pgweb-old.git / commitdiff