== PostgreSQL Weekly News - December 1st 2003 ==

== PostgreSQL Weekly News - December 1st 2003 ==

While this past week may have been a holiday for many
developers, there was still quite a bit of activity on the project.
While some people started to coordinate their efforts regarding new
features they plan to develop in 7.5, others kept an eye on
implementation issues arising out of 7.4. One particularly tricky issue
involved reports of improper timings being received from explain
analyze. After some digging, the problem seemed to center around an
implementation issue of the gettimeofday() function on BSD systems. At
last report this item was still being discussed on the BSD mailing list
with hope that a solution will be brought forth for PostgreSQL users; if
you use BSD you'll want to keep an eye out for this (and maybe check the
-hackers mailing list archives for more info). In all of that
commotion, the core team settled on this upcoming week to release 7.3.5,
which should be the final release in the 7.3 branch. Expect an
announcement possibly as early as Tuesday on the main website and
mailing lists which should have complete changelog for those who need
it.

While 7.3 is being put to bed, we've also had enough bugs
reported against 7.4 to warrant a 7.4.1 release in the near future, more
details on that once they are nailed down. Until then, let us run
through some of the bugs reported this week. Some obscure cases the
'variable not in subplan target lists' error were fixed. Some
discrepancies between PQescapeBytea and byteaout were fixed. A bug with
dblink_disconnect() was fixed where persistent_conn was left open after
a disconnect in the unnamed connection case, causing a subsequent
disconnect to crash the backend. Another dblink bug was resolved, adding
a missing SPI_finish() call to get_tuple_of_intrest() function. A fix
for a no-room-to-move-down PANIC issue in compact_fsm_storage was fixed.
A name clash between the --with-perl and --enable-thread-safety
configure options was sorted out. Finally, a solution for problems with
SubPlans used in hash join clauses which arose from the planner allowing
a Hash node's hashkeys to share substructure with the parent HashJoin
node's hashclauses was patched up.

With news of the older versions out of the way, here are some
quick updates on new items for 7.5. The main group of doc writers
recently upgraded to DocBook V4.2 SGML, with an eye toward making the
docs XML compatible. On the i18n front, the first pieces of NLS support
in the newly C coded initdb program were checked in, and the Russian FAQ
was updated, thanks to Viktor Vislobokov. Last, but not least, all of
the $Header and $Id tags were converted to $PostgreSQL$ tags inside CVS.
This should make it easier for folks to import the PostgreSQL code into
their own CVS servers for independent development without having to jump
through so many hoops to submit patches back for the main tree. For
anyone who has not updated their checkout since the weekend, you'll want
to do that before you start doing any serious development.

Rounding out this week were a couple of new TODO items: Have
pg_ctl look at PGHOST in case it is a socket directory, and Make
LENGTH() of CHAR() not count trailing spaces. We also want to give
special mention to the release of phpPgAdmin 3.2, the web based
PostgreSQL administration tool, which added more robust 7.4 and 7.5
support among a heap of new features. And one last note; with over 1000
votes in on the latest web poll "What is your favorite new feature of
PostgreSQL 7.4?", the autovacuum tool and improved IN queries leading
the specific features with 24% and 12%, respectively, while over 38%
copped out with the "I couldn't pick just one" option :-)

== PostgreSQL Product News ==

phpPgAdmin 3.2 Released
http://www.postgresql.org/news/162.html

PostgreSQL Replicator Released
http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2003/11/prweb91183.htm

== PostgreSQL In the News ==

A Tale of Two (Linux) Cities
http://www.linuxworld.com/story/34260.htm?DE=1

SRS source code to be offered free
http://www.computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/UNID/C3730F8A6BE9B8EACC256DEB00793487?OpenDocument

Open-source database advantages
http://www.databasejournal.com/news/article.php/3113441

Open to debate
http://www.itweb.co.za/sections/computing/2003/0311241050.asp?A=BAP&S=Business%20Applications&O=FPT

Oracle Update & PostgreSQL Plug (blog)
http://inukshuk.typepad.com/software/

PostgreSQL 7.4 (blog)
http://agentsmith.salzburgresearch.at/blog/archives/000033.html

PostgreSQL 7.4 (blog)
http://simon.incutio.com/archive/2003/11/25/postgres

== Upcoming Events ==

Several Talks: Japan: December 5, 8, 9
Bruce Momjian will be presenting various PostgreSQL talks in December.
http://www.postgresql.org/events/181.html

Linux.Conf.Au: Adelaide, Australia: January 12-17
BOF and Tutorials presented by Gavin Sherry
http://lca2004.linux.org.au.

NordU Usenix 2004: Denmark: January 28 - February 1
Bruce Momjian will be giving PostgreSQL several tutorials
http://www.nordu.org/NordU2004/

Linux Solutions 2004: Paris, France: February 4-6
Bruce Momjian will be presenting
http://www.linuxsolutions.fr/EN/home/index.php?site=default

== PostgreSQL Weekly News - December 1st 2003 ==
Don't forget to read Elein Mustain's Weekly Summary of the PostgreSQL
General Mailing List http://www.varlena.com/GeneralBits/

On the Web:
http://www.postgresql.org
http://advocacy.postgresql.org