For character types with typmod, character_octet_length columns in the
information schema now show the maximum character length times the
maximum length of a character in the server encoding, instead of some
huge value as before.
In particular, always show 0 for the date type instead of null, and show
6 (the default) for time, timestamp, and interval without a declared
precision. This is now in fuller conformance with the SQL standard.
Also clarify the documentation about this.
discovered and analyzed by Konstantin Izmailov and Tom Lane
has_column_privilege and has_any_column_privilege SQL functions; fix the
information_schema views that are supposed to pay attention to column
privileges; adjust pg_stats to show stats for any column you have select
privilege on; and fix COPY to allow copying a subset of columns if the user
has suitable per-column privileges for all the columns.
To improve efficiency of some of the information_schema views, extend the
has_xxx_privilege functions to allow inquiring about the OR of a set of
privileges in just one call. This is just exposing capability that already
existed in the underlying aclcheck routines.
In passing, make the information_schema views report the owner's own
privileges as being grantable, since Postgres assumes this even when the grant
option bit is not set in the ACL. This is a longstanding oversight.
Also, make the new has_xxx_privilege functions for foreign data objects follow
the same coding conventions used by the older ones.
Stephen Frost and Tom Lane
CREATE/ALTER/DROP USER MAPPING are now allowed either by the server owner or
by a user with USAGE privileges for his own user name. This is more or less
what the SQL standard wants anyway (plus "implementation-defined")
Hide information_schema.user_mapping_options.option_value, unless the current
user is the one associated with the user mapping, or is the server owner and
the mapping is for PUBLIC, or is a superuser. This is to protect passwords.
Also, fix a bug in information_schema._pg_foreign_servers, which hid servers
using wrappers where the current user did not have privileges on the wrapper.
The correct behavior is to hide servers where the current user has no
privileges on the server.
This doesn't do any remote or external things yet, but it gives modules
like plproxy and dblink a standardized and future-proof system for
managing their connection information.
Martin Pihlak and Peter Eisentraut
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.
can create or modify rules for the table. Do setRuleCheckAsUser() while
loading rules into the relcache, rather than when defining a rule. This
ensures that permission checks for tables referenced in a rule are done with
respect to the current owner of the rule's table, whereas formerly ALTER TABLE
OWNER would fail to update the permission checking for associated rules.
Removal of separate RULE privilege is needed to prevent various scenarios
in which a grantee of RULE privilege could effectively have any privilege
of the table owner. For backwards compatibility, GRANT/REVOKE RULE is still
accepted, but it doesn't do anything. Per discussion here:
http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers/2006-04/msg01138.php
Peter Eisentraut
Tom Lane
Bruce Momjian
Neil Conway
PostgreSQL Daemon
Tatsuo Ishii