---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Fetter <david at fetter.org>
Date: Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 11:37 AM
Subject: [ANNOUNCE] == PostgreSQL Weekly News - October 26 2008 ==
To: PostgreSQL Announce <pgsql-announce at postgresql.org>


== PostgreSQL Weekly News - October 26 2008 ==

Bug fix releases 8.3.5, etc. will be out soon.  Get those last-minute
fixes in.

November's commitfest begins this coming week.  Watch for some great
new features.

== PostgreSQL Product News ==

check_postgres 2.3.10 released.
http://bucardo.org/check_postgres/

pgdview 0.3 released.
http://pgfoundry.org/projects/pg-rdump/

== PostgreSQL Jobs for October ==

http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-jobs/2008-10/threads.php

== PostgreSQL Local ==

Dickson Guedes is looking for volunteers to help with a PgMeeting in
Florianópolis.  Write to guediz AT gmail DOT com if you want to help.

PostgreSQL has a table at LinuxLive, Olympia, London, UK on 23-25
October, 2008.  Write to Dave Page to participate.
dpage AT pgadmin DOT org

There will be a PostgreSQL BoF at Ontario Linux fest October 25.
http://www.onlinux.ca/

David Fetter and Rober Treat will be speaking at the Beijing Perl
Workshop on November 8.
http://conference.perlchina.org/bjpw2008/schedule

PGDay Rio de la Plata will be in Buenos Aires November 22.
http://pgday.postgres-arg.org/

== PostgreSQL in the News ==

Planet PostgreSQL: http://planet.postgresql.org/

PostgreSQL Weekly News is brought to you this week by David Fetter

Submit news and announcements by Sunday at 3:00pm Pacific time.
Please send English language ones to david at fetter.org, German language
to pwn at pgug.de, Italian language to pwn at itpug.org.

== Applied Patches ==

Tom Lane committed:

- In pgsql/src/tools/findoidjoins/make_oidjoins_check, fix bogus
 comment emitted by make_oidjoins_check, per Greg Stark.

- Update oidjoins test to match CVS HEAD.

- Implement comparison of generic records (composite types), and
 invent a pseudo-type record[] to represent arrays of
 possibly-anonymous composite types.  Since composite datums carry
 their own type identification, no extra knowledge is needed at the
 array level.  The main reason for doing this right now is that it is
 necessary to support the general case of detection of cycles in
 recursive queries: if you need to compare more than one column to
 detect a cycle, you need to compare a ROW() to an array built from
 ROW()s, at least if you want to do it as the spec suggests.  Add
 some documentation and regression tests concerning the cycle
 detection issue.

- Eliminate unnecessary array[] decoration in examples of recursive
 cycle detection.

- Add docs and regression test about sorting the output of a recursive
 query in depth-first search order.  Upon close reading of SQL:2008,
 it seems that the spec's SEARCH DEPTH FIRST and SEARCH BREADTH FIRST
 options do not actually guarantee any particular result order: what
 they do is provide a constructed column that the user can then sort
 on in the outer query.  So this is actually just as much
 functionality ...

- In pgsql/src/backend/utils/adt/timestamp.c, fix
 EncodeSpecialTimestamp to throw error on unrecognized input, rather
 than returning a failure code that none of its callers bothered to
 check for.

- Extend the date type to support infinity and -infinity, analogously
 to the timestamp types.  Turns out this doesn't even reduce the
 available range of dates, since the restriction to dates that work
 for Julian-date arithmetic is much tighter than the int32 range
 anyway.  Per a longstanding TODO item.

- Update citext expected output for recent change in error message
 location pointers.  This is only a whitespace change, which ought to
 be ignored by regression testing, but for some reason buildfarm
 member spoonbill doesn't like it.

- In pgsql/src/backend/catalog/index.c, add a defense to prevent
 storing pseudo-type data into index columns.  Formerly, the lack of
 any opclasses that could accept such data was enough of a defense,
 but now with a "record" opclass we need to check more carefully.
 (You can still use that opclass for an index, but you have to store
 a named composite type not an anonymous one.)

- In pgsql/src/backend/catalog/heap.c, make the system-attributes loop
 in AddNewAttributeTuples depend on lengthof(SysAtt) not
 FirstLowInvalidHeapAttributeNumber, for consistency with the other
 uses of the SysAtt array, and to make it clearer that it doesn't
 walk off the end of that array.

- In pgsql/src/backend/executor/spi.c, fix SPI_getvalue and
 SPI_getbinval to range-check the given attribute number according to
 the TupleDesc's natts, not the number of physical columns in the
 tuple.  The previous coding would do the wrong thing in cases where
 natts is different from the tuple's column count: either incorrectly
 report error when it should just treat the column as null, or
 actually crash due to indexing off the end of the TupleDesc's
 attribute array.  (The second case is probably not possible in
 modern PG versions, due to more careful handling of inheritance
 cases than we once had.  But it's still a clear lack of robustness
 here.) The incorrect error indication is ignored by all callers
 within the core PG distribution, so this bug has no symptoms visible
 within the core code, but it might well be an issue for add-on
 packages.  So patch all the way back.

- pgsql/src/port/win32error.c, reduce chatter from _dosmaperr() when
 used in FRONTEND code.  ITAGAKI Takahiro.

- In pgsql/src/include/nodes/relation.h, improve comments about
 RelOptInfo.reltargetlist.

- In pgsql/src/backend/optimizer/path/costsize.c, salvage a little bit
 of work from a failed patch: simplify and speed up set_rel_width().
 The code had been catering for the possibility of different varnos
 in the relation targetlist, but this is impossible for a base
 relation (and if it were possible, putting all the widths in the
 same RelOptInfo would be wrong anyway).

- Add a new column to pg_am to specify whether an index AM supports
 backward scanning; GiST and GIN do not, and it seems like too much
 trouble to make them do so.  By teaching ExecSupportsBackwardScan()
 about this restriction, we ensure that the planner will protect a
 scroll cursor from the problem by adding a Materialize node.  In
 passing, fix another longstanding bug in the same area: backwards
 scan of a plan with set-returning functions in the targetlist did
 not work either, since the TupFromTlist expansion code pays no
 attention to direction (and has no way to run a SRF backwards
 anyway).  Again the fix is to make ExecSupportsBackwardScan check
 this restriction.  Also adjust the index AM API specification to
 note that mark/restore support is unnecessary if the AM can't
 produce ordered output.

- Remove useless mark/restore support in hash index AM, per
 discussion.  (I'm leaving GiST/GIN cleanup to Teodor.)

- In pgsql/src/backend/catalog/sql_features.txt, fix broken SQL
 features data, per buildfarm results.

- Add a concept of "placeholder" variables to the planner.  These are
 variables that represent some expression that we desire to compute
 below the top level of the plan, and then let that value "bubble up"
 as though it were a plain Var (ie, a column value).  The immediate
 application is to allow sub-selects to be flattened even when they
 are below an outer join and have non-nullable output expressions.
 Formerly we couldn't flatten because such an expression wouldn't
 properly go to NULL when evaluated above the outer join.  Now, we
 wrap it in a PlaceHolderVar and arrange for the actual evaluation to
 occur below the outer join.  When the resulting Var bubbles up
 through the join, it will be set to NULL if necessary, yielding the
 correct results.  This fixes a planner limitation that's existed
 since 7.1.  In future we might want to use this mechanism to
 re-introduce some form of Hellerstein's "expensive functions"
 optimization, ie place the evaluation of an expensive function at
 the most suitable point in the plan tree.

- Dept of better ideas: refrain from creating the planner's
 placeholder_list until vars are distributed to rels during
 query_planner() startup.  We don't really need it before that, and
 not building it early has some advantages.  First, we don't need to
 put it through the various preprocessing steps, which saves some
 cycles and eliminates the need for a number of routines to support
 PlaceHolderInfo nodes at all.  Second, this means one less unused
 plan for any sub-SELECT appearing in a placeholder's expression,
 since we don't build placeholder_list until after sublink expansion
 is complete.

- When estimating without benefit of MCV lists (suggesting that one or
 both inputs is unique or nearly so), make eqjoinsel() clamp the
 ndistinct estimates to be not more than the estimated number of rows
 coming from the input relations.  This allows the estimate to change
 in response to the selectivity of restriction conditions on the
 inputs.  This is a pretty narrow patch and maybe we should be more
 aggressive about similarly clamping ndistinct in other cases; but
 I'm worried about double-counting the effects of the restriction
 conditions.  However, it seems to help for the case exhibited by
 Grzegorz Jaskiewicz (antijoin against a small subset of a relation),
 so let's try this for awhile.

- Remove useless ps_OuterTupleSlot field from PlanState.  I suppose
 this was used long ago, but in the current code the ecxt_outertuple
 field of ExprContext is doing all the work.  Spotted by Ran Tang.

- Fix an oversight in two different recent patches: nodes that support
 SRFs in their targetlists had better reset ps_TupFromTlist during
 ReScan calls.  There's no need to back-patch here since nodeAgg and
 nodeGroup didn't even pretend to support SRFs in prior releases.

- Reduce the memory footprint of large pending-trigger-event lists, as
 per my recent proposal.  In typical cases, we now need 12 bytes per
 insert or delete event and 16 bytes per update event; previously we
 needed 40 bytes per event on 32-bit hardware and 80 bytes per event
 on 64-bit hardware.  Even in the worst case usage pattern with a
 large number of distinct triggers being fired in one query, usage is
 at most 32 bytes per event.  It seems to be a bit faster than the
 old code as well, due to reduction of palloc overhead.  This commit
 doesn't address the TODO item of allowing the event list to spill to
 disk; rather it's trying to stave off the need for that.  However,
 it probably makes that task a bit easier by reducing the data
 structure's dependency on pointers.  It would now be practical to
 dump an event list to disk by "chunks" instead of individual events.

- Fix an old bug in after-trigger handling: AfterTriggerEndQuery took
 the address of afterTriggers->query_stack[afterTriggers->query_depth]
 and hung onto it through all its firings of triggers.  However, if a
 trigger causes sufficiently many nested query executions, query_stack
 will get repalloc'd bigger, leaving AfterTriggerEndQuery --- and
 hence afterTriggerInvokeEvents --- using a stale pointer.  So far as
 I can find, the only consequence of this error is to stomp on a
 couple of words of already-freed memory; which would lead to a
 failure only if that chunk had already gotten re-allocated for
 something else.  So it's hard to exhibit a simple failure case, but
 this is surely a bug.  I noticed this while working on my recent
 patch to reduce pending-trigger space usage.  The present patch is
 mighty ugly, because it requires making afterTriggerInvokeEvents
 know about all the possible event lists it might get called on.
 Fortunately, this is only needed in back branches because CVS HEAD
 avoids the problem in a different way: afterTriggerInvokeEvents only
 touches the passed AfterTriggerEventList pointer once at startup.
 Back branches are stable enough that wiring in knowledge of all
 possible call usages doesn't seem like a killer problem.  Back-patch
 to 8.0.  7.4's trigger code is completely different and doesn't seem
 to have the problem (it doesn't even use repalloc).

- Add a heuristic to transformAExprIn() to make it prefer expanding "x
 IN (list)" into an OR of equality comparisons, rather than x =
 ANY(ARRAY[...]), when there are Vars in the right-hand side.  This
 avoids a performance regression compared to pre-8.2 releases, in
 cases where the OR form can be optimized into scans of multiple
 indexes.  Limit the possible downside by preferring this form only
 when the list isn't very long (I set the cutoff at 32 elements,
 which is a bit arbitrary but in the right ballpark).  Per discussion
 with Jim Nasby.  In passing, also make it try the OR form if it
 cannot select a common type for the array elements; we've seen a
 complaint or two about how the OR form worked for such cases and
 ARRAY doesn't.

- In pgsql/src/backend/optimizer/plan/initsplan.c, be a little smarter
 about qual handling for semi-joins: a qual that mentions only the
 outer side can be pushed down rather than having to be evaluated at
 the join.

- In pgsql/src/backend/parser/parse_expr.c, better solution to the
 IN-list issue: instead of having an arbitrary cutoff, treat Var and
 non-Var IN-list items differently.  Only non-Var items are
 candidates to go into an ANY(ARRAY) construct --- we put all Vars as
 separate OR conditions on the grounds that that leaves more scope
 for optimization.  Per suggestion from Robert Haas.

Heikki Linnakangas committed:

- In pgsql/src/backend/postmaster/bgwriter.c, fix oversight in the
 relation forks patch: forgot to copy fork number to fsync requests.
 This should fix the installcheck failure of the buildfarm member
 "kudu".

Michael Meskes committed:

- In ECPG, fixed parsing of parameters.  Added regression test for
 this.

Alvaro Herrera committed:

- In pgsql/src/backend/commands/cluster.c, ensure that CLUSTER leaves
 the toast table and index with consistent names, by renaming the new
 copies after the catalog games.

- In pgsql/src/backend/utils/error/elog.c, refactor some duplicate
 code to set up formatted_log_time and formatted_start_time.

- Rework subtransaction commit protocol for hot standby.  This patch
 eliminates the marking of subtransactions as SUBCOMMITTED in pg_clog
 during their commit; instead they remain in-progress until main
 transaction commit.  At main transaction commit, the commit protocol
 is atomic-by-page instead of one transaction at a time.  To avoid a
 race condition with some subtransactions appearing committed before
 others in the case where they span more than one pg_clog page, we
 conserve the logic that marks them subcommitted before marking the
 parent committed.  Simon Riggs with minor help from me

- In pgsql/src/backend/access/transam/transam.c, these functions no
 longer return a value, per complaint from gothic_moth via Zdenek
 Kotala.

- In pgsql/src/backend/storage/buffer/bufmgr.c, properly access a
 buffer's LSN using existing access macros instead of abusing
 knowledge of page layout.  Stolen from Jonah Harris' CRC patch

Neil Conway committed:

- In pgsql/src/backend/executor/nodeAgg.c, fix a small memory leak in
 ExecReScanAgg() in the hashed aggregation case.  In the previous
 coding, the list of columns that needed to be hashed on was
 allocated in the per-query context, but we reallocated every time
 the Agg node was rescanned. Since this information doesn't change
 over a rescan, just construct the list of columns once during
 ExecInitAgg().

Teodor Sigaev committed:

- During repeated rescan of GiST index it's possible that scan key is
 NULL but SK_SEARCHNULL is not set. Add checking IS NULL of keys to
 set during key initialization. If key is NULL and SK_SEARCHNULL is
 not set then nothnig can be satisfied.  With assert-enabled
 compilation that causes coredump.  Bug was introduced in 8.3 by
 support of IS NULL index scan.

- In pgsql/src/backend/tsearch/wparser_def.c, fix small bug in
 headline generation.  Patch from Sushant Sinha.

- Improve headeline generation. Now headline can contain several
 fragments a-la Google.  Sushant Sinha.

- Remove mark/restore support in GIN and GiST indexes.  Per Tom's
 comment.  Also revome useless GISTScanOpaque->flags field.

- In pgsql/src/backend/access/gist/gistget.c, remove support of
 backward scan in GiST per discussion.

- Fix GiST's killing tuple: GISTScanOpaque->curpos wasn't correctly
 set.  As result, killtuple() marks as dead wrong tuple on page.  Bug
 was introduced by me while fixing possible duplicates during GiST
 index scan.

Peter Eisentraut committed:

- In pgsql/src/backend/catalog/sql_features.txt, small correction SQL
 feature table.

- Update feature list for SQL:2008.

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/ref/truncate.sgml, update compatibility
 section of TRUNCATE for SQL:2008 final.

- In pgsql/src/backend/catalog/sql_features.txt, AS is no longer
 required in SELECT list.

- In pgsql/src/backend/catalog/sql_features.txt, feature F402 "Named
 column joins for LOBs, arrays, and multisets" is supported, to the
 extent that LOBs, arrays, and multisets are supported.

- In pgsql/src/backend/catalog/sql_features.txt, feature T152
 "DISTINCT predicate with negation" is supported.

- In pgsql/src/backend/catalog/sql_features.txt, Feature T411 is not
 found in SQL:2003 or 2008 anymore, so it must have been dropped or
 it was a mistake.

- In pgsql/src/backend/parser/gram.y, SQL 200N -> SQL:2003.

- Allow SQL:2008 syntax ALTER TABLE ... ALTER COLUMN ... SET DATA TYPE
 alongside our traditional syntax.

- Use format_type_be() instead of TypeNameToString() for some more
 user-facing error messages where the type existence is established.

- In pgsql/src/interfaces/ecpg/test/Makefile, clean regression.out.

- SQL:2008 alternative syntax for LIMIT/OFFSET: OFFSET num {ROW|ROWS}
 FETCH {FIRST|NEXT} [num] {ROW|ROWS} ONLY

- In pgsql/src/backend/catalog/sql_features.txt, feature T401 is not
 listed in the SQL standard.  Must have been a mistake.

- In pgsql/src/backend/catalog/sql_features.txt, feature T173
 "Extended LIKE clause in table definition" is supported
 (INCLUDING/EXCLUDING DEFAULTS)

- In pgsql/src/backend/catalog/sql_features.txt, on second thought,
 let's not get involved in correcting the feature list in 8.3.  The
 list is quite outdated, and fixing it up would require more effort.
 Plus, we don't want diverging information schema contents.

Magnus Hagander committed:

- Make pg_hba authoption be a set of 0 or more name=value pairs.  Make
 LDAP use this instead of the hacky previous method to specify the DN
 to bind as.  Make all auth options behave the same when they are not
 compiled into the server.  Rename "ident maps" to "user name maps",
 and support them for all auth methods that provide an external
 username.  This makes a backwards incompatible change in the format
 of pg_hba.conf for the ident, PAM and LDAP authentication methods.

- In pgsql/src/interfaces/libpq/fe-connect.c, fix memory leak when
 using gsslib parameter in libpq connections.

- In pgsql/src/backend/libpq/README.SSL, remove large parts of the old
 SSL readme, that consisted of a couple of copy/paste:d emails. Much
 of the contents had already been migrated into the main
 documentation, some was out of date and some just plain wrong.  Keep
 the "protocol-flowchart" which can still be useful.

- In pgsql/src/backend/libpq/be-secure.c, remove a "TODO-list"
 structure at the top of the file, referring back to the old set of
 SSL patches. Hasn't been updated since, and we keep the TODOs in the
 "real" TODO list, really...

- In pgsql/src/interfaces/libpq/fe-secure.c, remove notes from the
 frontend SSL source that are incorrect or end-user documentation
 that lives in the actual documentation.

- In pgsql/src/backend/libpq/hba.c, replace now unnecessary goto
 statements by using return directly.

== Rejected Patches (for now) ==

No one was disappointed this week :-)

== Pending Patches ==

KaiGai Kohei sent in another revision of his SE-PostgreSQL patches.

Jim Cox sent in another revision of his patch to add a VERBOSE option
to CLUSTER.

Euler Taveira de Oliveira sent in another revision of his reloptions
patch.

Simon Riggs sent in two revisions of a full-on Hot Standby patch.

Pavel Stehule sent in another WIP revision of his GROUPING SETS patch.

Ian Caulfield and Robert Haas each sent in a patch to implement
array_agg.

Guillaume Lelarge sent in a patch to enable people to change a
database's tablespace.

Jim Nasby sent in a patch to implement array_length().

KaiGai Kohei sent in another set of revisions to his SE-PostgreSQL
patches.

Magnus Hagander sent in another patch to clean up SSL.

Simon Riggs sent in rework of his subtransaction commit patch.

Charles Duffy sent in a patch which makes WAL segments more
compressible in some cases.

Magnus Hagander sent in a patch which adds a configuration option to
pg_hba.conf for "clientcert".

Peter Eisentraut sent in a patch to implement CURRENT_CATALOG and
CURRENT_SCHEMA.

Alvaro Herrera sent in a patch to double-buffer page writes in
preparation for block-level CRC checks.

Ramon Lawrence sent in a patch intended to improve the performance of
hybrid hash joins for large multi-batch joins where the probe relation
has skew.

Simon Riggs sent in another patch intended to make queries safe during
recovery.

Andrew Dunstan sent in a patch to implement a trigger function which
drops updates which would have no effect.

Simon Riggs sent in a patch to reduce some DDL locks to ShareLock.

Guillaume Lelarge sent in another revision of his patch to implement
ALTER DATABASE WITH TABLESPACE.

Robert Haas sent in a patch to refactor BufferAccessStrategy for bulk
inserts.

Pavel Stehule sent in a WIP patch to allow functions to have default
values for their parameters.

Jeff Davis sent in a WIP patch to implement ARRAY_AGG() and
ARRAY_ACCUM().

Tom Lane sent in a WIP patch which converts SQL-language functions to
return tuplestores.


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-- 
夏清然
Xia Qingran
qingran.xia at gmail.com
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