From 7bd93589c8f05de9414f3fe97457b8e8ebaec7ff Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Peter Eisentraut Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:52:58 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] Preliminary release notes for 8.5alpha2 --- doc/src/sgml/release-8.5.sgml | 329 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--- 1 file changed, 306 insertions(+), 23 deletions(-) diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/release-8.5.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/release-8.5.sgml index 3c93e4f820..77e3cd69d8 100644 --- a/doc/src/sgml/release-8.5.sgml +++ b/doc/src/sgml/release-8.5.sgml @@ -1,7 +1,7 @@ - + - - Release 8.5alpha1 + + Release 8.5alpha2 Overview @@ -32,6 +32,11 @@ using those if you are looking for bug-fix-only upgrades for your current installations. + + The release notes are cumulative over all alpha releases. Items + that are new in the latest alpha release + are emphasized. + Migration @@ -52,6 +57,68 @@ SQL Features + + + Modify the definition of window-function PARTITION + BY and ORDER BY clauses so that their elements are always + taken as simple expressions over the query's input + columns. + + + + + Fix bug with WITH RECURSIVE immediately inside WITH + RECURSIVE. + + + + + Define a new, more extensible syntax for COPY options. + + + + + Add ALTER DEFAULT PRIVILEGES command, which allows + users to adjust the privileges that will be applied to + subsequently-created objects. + + + + + Support use of function argument names to identify which + actual arguments match which function parameters. The syntax + uses AS, for example funcname(value AS arg1, anothervalue AS + arg2). + + + + + Add CREATE LIKE INCLUDING COMMENTS and STORAGE, and INCLUDING + ALL shortcut. + + + + + Add GRANT/REVOKE ON ALL TABLES/SEQUENCES/FUNCTIONS IN SCHEMA. + + + + + Add SQL-compliant triggers on columns, ie fire only if + certain columns are named in the UPDATE's SET list. + + + + + Add surrogate pair support for U& string and identifier + syntax. + + + + + Add Unicode escapes in E'...' strings. + + DROP COLUMN and DROP CONSTRAINT now support an IF EXISTS clause so @@ -67,19 +134,19 @@ - Allows parentheses around the query expression that follows a WITH + Allow parentheses around the query expression that follows a WITH clause. INFORMATION_SCHEMA, a catalog of standard views of database - objects, has been updated to the SQL:2008 ANSI/ISO standard. + objects, has been updated to the SQL:2008 standard. - Changes character_octet_length to more sensible values in + Change character_octet_length to more sensible values in INFORMATION_SCHEMA. @@ -94,6 +161,19 @@ Performance + + + Make TRUNCATE do truncate-in-place when processing + a relation that was created or previously truncated in the + current (sub)transaction. + + + + + Implement "join removal" for cases where the inner side + of a left join is unique and is not referenced above the join. + + EXPLAIN allows output of plans in XML or JSON format for automated @@ -116,7 +196,7 @@ - Makes GEQO's planning deterministic by having it start from a + Make GEQO's planning deterministic by having it start from a predictable random number seed each time. @@ -153,6 +233,31 @@ Administration and Monitoring + + + Add a Boolean server configuration parameter + "bonjour" to control whether a Bonjour-enabled + build actually attempts to advertise itself via Bonjour. + + + + + When reloading postgresql.conf, log what parameters actually + changed. + + + + + Make it possibly to specify server configuration parameters + per user and per database. psql has gained a drds command to + display the settings. + + + + + Allow the collection of statistics on sequences. + + Add the ability to include the SQLSTATE error code of any error @@ -169,9 +274,28 @@ + + Server Configuration + + + + Increase the maximum value of extra_float_digits to + 3, and have pg_dump use that value when the backend is new + enough to allow it, because it is possible to need 3 extra + digits for float4 values (but not for float8 values). + + + + Security + + + Support "samehost" and "samenet" specifications + in pg_hba.conf. + + New has_sequence_privilege() functions allow you to check sequence @@ -183,6 +307,12 @@ Built-In Functions + + + Support POSIX-compatible interpretation of ? as well as {m,n} + and related constructs in SIMILAR TO, per SQL:2008. + + The to_char() formatting functions now supports EEEE (scientific @@ -206,13 +336,24 @@ - Datatypes + Data Types + + + Fix encoding handling in binary input function of xml type. + + + + + Tighten binary receive functions so that they reject values + that the text input functions don't accept either. + + - New hex-string input and output format options for type BYTEA. Hex - output format is enabled by default, which is an INCOMPATIBLE - CHANGE. See the new bytea_output parameter if you need to restore + New hex-string input and output format options for type bytea. Hex + output format is enabled by default, which is an incompatible + change. See the new bytea_output parameter if you need to restore compatibility. @@ -227,14 +368,28 @@ Server Tools - + + + It is now reasonably safe to use pg_ctl to start + the postmaster from a boot-time script. + + + + + Remove the use of the flat files pg_auth and + pg_database. (At least pgbouncer currently suggests referring + to the pg_auth file for its user database. Such schemes will + no longer work.) + + + pg_dump/pg_restore --clean now drops large objects. - Modifies parallel pg_restore ordering logic to avoid a potential + Modify parallel pg_restore ordering logic to avoid a potential O(N^2) slowdown for some complex databases. @@ -243,6 +398,21 @@ psql + + + Implement significantly saner behavior when two or + more psql sessions overlap in their use of the history file. + + + + + Add "pset linestyle ascii/unicode" option to psql, + allowing our traditional ASCII-art style of table output to + be upgraded to use Unicode box drawing characters if + desired. By default, psql will use the Unicode characters + whenever client_encoding is UTF8. + + Have \d show child tables that inherit from the specified parent @@ -258,6 +428,52 @@ Procedural Languages + + + Add DO statement to support execution of procedural language + code without having to create a function for it. + + + + + Fix/improve bytea and boolean support in PL/Python. Data type + conversion into and out of PL/Python previously went through + an intermediate string representation, which caused various + discrepancies especially with bytea and boolean data. This is + now fixed by converting the values directly. + + + + + PL/Python now accepts Unicode objects where it previously + only accepted string objects (for example, as return + value). Unicode objects are converted to the PostgreSQL + server encoding as necessary. + + + + + Improve error context reporting in PL/Perl, for + easier debugging. + + + + + Allow plpgsql IN parameters to be assigned to. + + + + + Convert a Perl array to a PostgreSQL array when returned by + set-returning functions as well as non-SRFs. + + + + + Allow MOVE FORWARD n, MOVE BACKWARD n, MOVE FORWARD ALL, MOVE + BACKWARD ALL in PL/pgSQL. + + PL/pgSQL functions can now better cope with row types @@ -266,13 +482,13 @@ - Improves error context reporting in PL/Python, for easier + Improve error context reporting in PL/Python, for easier debugging. - Greatly expands the regression testing for PL/Python. + Greatly expand the regression testing for PL/Python. @@ -280,6 +496,11 @@ Additional Supplied Modules + + + Assorted improvements in contrib/hstore. + + pgbench is now multi-threaded, allowing it to use multiple CPU's @@ -306,6 +527,27 @@ + + Programming Tools + + + + Add ECPG function that returns the current transaction status. + + + + + Make ECPG more robust against applications freeing strings. + + + + + Make libpq reject non-numeric and out-of-range port numbers with a + suitable error message. + + + + Development @@ -331,7 +573,33 @@ Ports - + + + Change the WIN32 API version to be 5.01 (Windows XP), to + bring in the proper IPv6 headers in newer SDKs. + + + + + Write to the Windows eventlog in UTF-16, converting the + message encoding as necessary. + + + + + Replace use of the long-deprecated Bonjour API + DNSServiceRegistrationCreate with the not-so-deprecated + DNSServiceRegister. The new code will fail on Mac OS X + releases before 10.3. + + + + + Install a hopefully-temporary workaround for Mac OS X Snow Leopard + readdir() bug. + + + Reserve the shared memory region during backend startup on Windows, so that memory allocated by starting third party DLLs doesn't end @@ -350,6 +618,28 @@ Source code, build options + + + Fix inclusions of readline/editline header files so that we + only attempt to #include the version of history.h that is in + the same directory as the readline.h we are using. This + avoids problems in some scenarios where both readline and + editline are installed. + + + + + Derived files that are shipped in the distribution used to be + built in the source directory even for out-of-tree + builds. They are now also built in the build tree. This + should be more convenient for certain developers' workflows. + + + + + Translations were updated. + + Upgrade to Autoconf 2.63 (not relevant to users of distribution @@ -387,13 +677,6 @@ will let it be used directly by PL/pgSQL. - - - Fix backend startup to not depend on the flat-file copy of - pg_database. This is a first step towards eliminating the flat - files altogether. - -