A transaction can export a snapshot with pg_export_snapshot(), and then
others can import it with SET TRANSACTION SNAPSHOT. The data does not
leave the server so there are not security issues. A snapshot can only
be imported while the exporting transaction is still running, and there
are some other restrictions.
I'm not totally convinced that we've covered all the bases for SSI (true
serializable) mode, but it works fine for lesser isolation modes.
Joachim Wieland, reviewed by Marko Tiikkaja, and rather heavily modified
by Tom Lane
Until now, our Serializable mode has in fact been what's called Snapshot
Isolation, which allows some anomalies that could not occur in any
serialized ordering of the transactions. This patch fixes that using a
method called Serializable Snapshot Isolation, based on research papers by
Michael J. Cahill (see README-SSI for full references). In Serializable
Snapshot Isolation, transactions run like they do in Snapshot Isolation,
but a predicate lock manager observes the reads and writes performed and
aborts transactions if it detects that an anomaly might occur. This method
produces some false positives, ie. it sometimes aborts transactions even
though there is no anomaly.
To track reads we implement predicate locking, see storage/lmgr/predicate.c.
Whenever a tuple is read, a predicate lock is acquired on the tuple. Shared
memory is finite, so when a transaction takes many tuple-level locks on a
page, the locks are promoted to a single page-level lock, and further to a
single relation level lock if necessary. To lock key values with no matching
tuple, a sequential scan always takes a relation-level lock, and an index
scan acquires a page-level lock that covers the search key, whether or not
there are any matching keys at the moment.
A predicate lock doesn't conflict with any regular locks or with another
predicate locks in the normal sense. They're only used by the predicate lock
manager to detect the danger of anomalies. Only serializable transactions
participate in predicate locking, so there should be no extra overhead for
for other transactions.
Predicate locks can't be released at commit, but must be remembered until
all the transactions that overlapped with it have completed. That means that
we need to remember an unbounded amount of predicate locks, so we apply a
lossy but conservative method of tracking locks for committed transactions.
If we run short of shared memory, we overflow to a new "pg_serial" SLRU
pool.
We don't currently allow Serializable transactions in Hot Standby mode.
That would be hard, because even read-only transactions can cause anomalies
that wouldn't otherwise occur.
Serializable isolation mode now means the new fully serializable level.
Repeatable Read gives you the old Snapshot Isolation level that we have
always had.
Kevin Grittner and Dan Ports, reviewed by Jeff Davis, Heikki Linnakangas and
Anssi Kääriäinen
The endterm attribute is mainly useful when the toolchain does not support
automatic link target text generation for a particular situation. In the
past, this was required by the man page tools for all reference page links,
but that is no longer the case, and it now actually gets in the way of
proper automatic link text generation. The only remaining use cases are
currently xrefs to refsects.
Instead of requiring translators to translate the entire SQL command
synopses, change create_help.pl to only require them to translate the
placeholders, and paste those into the synopsis using a printf mechanism.
Make some small updates to the markup to make it easier to parse.
Note: This causes msgmerge of gettext 0.17 to segfault. You will need
the patch from https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?27474 to make it work.
msgmerge usually only runs on babel.postgresql.org, however.
another section if required by the platform (instead of the old way of
building them in section "l" and always transforming them to the
platform-specific section).
This speeds up the installation on common platforms, and it avoids some
funny business with the man page tools and build process.
by the SQL standard. For backwards compatibility, however, continue to
accept the syntax without. Minor editorialization in the reference pages
for these commands, too.
including:
- replacing all the appropriate usages of <citetitle>PostgreSQL
...</citetitle> with &cite-user;, &cite-admin;, and so on
- fix an omission in the EXECUTE documentation
- add some more text to the EXPLAIN documentation
- improve the PL/PgSQL RETURN NEXT documentation (more work to do here)
- minor markup fixes
Neil Conway
functionality of the command is basically identical to that of
BEGIN; it just accepts a few extra options (only one of which
PostgreSQL currently implements), and is standards-compliant.
The patch includes a simple regression test and documentation.
[ Regression tests removed, per Peter.]
Neil Conway
reference page to new configuration system. Big update to administrator's
guide, chapters Runtime environment, Client authentication, and User
management, the latter two were part of the old Security chapter.