The previous naming broke the query that libpq's lo_initialize() uses
to collect the OIDs of the server-side functions it requires, because
that query effectively assumes that there is only one function named
lo_create in the pg_catalog schema (and likewise only one lo_open, etc).
While we should certainly make libpq more robust about this, the naive
query will remain in use in the field for the foreseeable future, so it
seems the only workable choice is to use a different name for the new
function. lo_from_bytea() won a small straw poll.
Back-patch into 9.4 where the new function was introduced.
We don't need two index entries for lo_create pointing at the same section.
It's a bit pedantic for the toolchain to warn about this, but warn it does.
With these, one need no longer manipulate large object descriptors and
extract numeric constants from header files in order to read and write
large object contents from SQL.
Pavel Stehule, reviewed by Rushabh Lathia.
libpq defines these functions as accepting "size_t" lengths ... but the
underlying backend functions expect signed int32 length parameters, and so
will misinterpret any value exceeding INT_MAX. Fix the libpq side to throw
error rather than possibly doing something unexpected.
This is a bug of long standing, but I doubt it's worth back-patching. The
problem is really pretty academic anyway with lo_read/lo_write, since any
caller expecting sane behavior would have to have provided a multi-gigabyte
buffer. It's slightly more pressing with lo_truncate, but still we haven't
supported large objects over 2GB until now.
Copy-editing for previous patch, plus fixing some longstanding markup
issues and oversights (like not mentioning that failures will set the
PQerrorMessage string).
4TB large objects (standard 8KB BLCKSZ case). For this purpose new
libpq API lo_lseek64, lo_tell64 and lo_truncate64 are added. Also
corresponding new backend functions lo_lseek64, lo_tell64 and
lo_truncate64 are added. inv_api.c is changed to handle 64-bit
offsets.
Patch contributed by Nozomi Anzai (backend side) and Yugo Nagata
(frontend side, docs, regression tests and example program). Reviewed
by Kohei Kaigai. Committed by Tatsuo Ishii with minor editings.
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.
Rewrite the documentation in more idiomatic English, and in the process make
it somewhat more succinct. Move the discussion of specific large object
privileges out of the "server-side functions" section, where it certainly
doesn't belong, and into "implementation features". That might not be
exactly right either, but it doesn't seem worth creating a new section for
this amount of information. Fix a few spelling and layout problems, too.
Standard English uses "may", "can", and "might" in different ways:
may - permission, "You may borrow my rake."
can - ability, "I can lift that log."
might - possibility, "It might rain today."
Unfortunately, in conversational English, their use is often mixed, as
in, "You may use this variable to do X", when in fact, "can" is a better
choice. Similarly, "It may crash" is better stated, "It might crash".
Standard English uses "may", "can", and "might" in different ways:
may - permission, "You may borrow my rake."
can - ability, "I can lift that log."
might - possibility, "It might rain today."
Unfortunately, in conversational English, their use is often mixed, as
in, "You may use this variable to do X", when in fact, "can" is a better
choice. Similarly, "It may crash" is better stated, "It might crash".
Also update two error messages mentioned in the documenation to match.
compatibility for release 7.2 and earlier. I have not altered any
mentions of release 7.3 or later. The release notes were not modified,
so the changes are still documented, just not in the main docs.
a descriptor that uses the current transaction snapshot, rather than
SnapshotNow as it did before (and still does if INV_WRITE is set).
This means pg_dump will now dump a consistent snapshot of large object
contents, as it never could do before. Also, add a lo_create() function
that is similar to lo_creat() but allows the desired OID of the large
object to be specified. This will simplify pg_restore considerably
(but I'll fix that in a separate commit).