== PostgreSQL Weekly News - August 29 2010 ==

== PostgreSQL Weekly News - August 29 2010 ==

PostgreSQL 9.0 RC1 out soon. The more you test, the sooner 9.0.0 comes out!
http://www.postgresql.org/developer/beta/

== PostgreSQL Product News ==

AnyDAC v 4.0.1, a toolkit for Delphi, released.
http://www.da-soft.com/anydac/

CSV Loader 2.1, a Java tool that loads and merges CSV files into
PostgreSQL, released.
http://csvloader.sourceforge.net/

pgpool-II 3.0beta2, a connection pooler and more, released.
http://pgfoundry.org/projects/pgpool/

PostgreSQL PHP Generator 10.8 a GUI frontend to generate PHP from
select PostgreSQL objects, released.
http://www.sqlmaestro.com/products/postgresql/phpgenerator/

== PostgreSQL Jobs for August ==

http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-jobs/2010-08/threads.php

== PostgreSQL Local ==

The Call for Papers for West is open until September 5, 2010. Details at:
http://www.postgresqlconference.org/

Call for Papers for PGDay.EU 2010 held on December 6-8 in Stuttgart,
Germany is open.
http://2010.pgday.eu/callforpapers

== 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(dot)org, German language
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== Reviews ==

== Applied Patches ==

Tom Lane committed:

- Make an editorial pass over the 9.0 release notes. This is mostly
about grammar, style, and presentation, though I did find a few
small factual errors.

- In pgsql/contrib/pg_archivecleanup/pg_archivecleanup.c, make
pg_archivecleanup log messages more consistent. Erik Rijkers

- Marginal code cleanup for streaming replication. There is no reason
that proc.c should have to get involved in this dirty hack for
letting the postmaster know which children are walsenders. Revert
that file to the way it was, and confine the kluge to pmsignal.c and
postmaster.c.

- In pgsql/src/backend/commands/explain.c, make EXPLAIN show the
function call expression of a FunctionScan plan node, but only in
VERBOSE mode. Per discussion.

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/release-9.0.sgml, further editing of release
notes.

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/release-9.0.sgml, update 9.0 release notes for
changes since beta4. Note: as usual, bug fixes that were also
applied in back branches are not considered material to include in a
new major release's notes.

- In pgsql/src/bin/psql/command.c, avoid passing signed chars to
<ctype.h> functions ... same old portability mistake as always. Per
buildfarm member pika.

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/unaccent.sgml, docs review for unaccent: fix
grammar, markup, etc.

- In pgsql/src/backend/port/sysv_shmem.c, improve hint message for
ENOMEM failure from shmget(). It turns out that some platforms
return ENOMEM for a request that violates SHMALL, whereas we were
assuming that ENOSPC would always be used for that. Apparently the
latter is a Linuxism while ENOMEM is the BSD tradition. Extend the
ENOMEM hint to suggest that raising SHMALL might be needed. Per
gripe from A.M. Backpatch to 9.0, but not further, because this
doesn't seem important enough to warrant creating extra translation
work in the stable branches. (If it were, we'd have figured this
out years ago.)

- In a bit more., document filtering dictionaries in textsearch.sgml.
While at it, copy-edit the description of prefix-match marker
support in synonym dictionaries, and clarify the description of the
default

- In pgsql/config/prep_buildtree, don't auto-create the subdirectories
holding built documentation in a VPATH build tree. If we actually
build the docs in the VPATH tree, those dirs will get created then;
but if they're present and empty, they capture the vpathsearch
searches in "make install", preventing installation of prebuilt docs
that might exist in the source tree. Per bug #5595 from Dmtiriy
Igrishin. Fix based on idea from Peter Eisentraut.

- In pgsql/src/backend/executor/execQual.c, fix
ExecMakeTableFunctionResult to verify that all rows returned by a
SRF returning "record" actually do have the same rowtype. This is
needed because the parser can't realistically enforce that they will
all have the same typmod, as seen in a recent example from David
Wheeler. Back-patch to 8.0, which is as far back as we have the
notion of RECORD subtypes being distinguished by typmod. Wheeler's
example depends on 8.4-and-up features, but I suspect there may be
ways to provoke similar failures before 8.4.

- Update time zone data files to tzdata release 2010l: DST law changes
in Egypt and Palestine. Added new names for two Micronesian
timezones: Pacific/Chuuk is now preferred over Pacific/Truk (and the
preferred abbreviation is CHUT not TRUT) and Pacific/Pohnpei is
preferred over Pacific/Ponape. Historical corrections for Finland.

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/ddl.sgml, explain automatic creation (or lack
of it) of indexes for the various types of constraints. Kevin
Grittner.

- Document the existence of the socket lock file under
unix_socket_directory, which is perhaps not a terribly good spot for
it but there doesn't seem to be a better place. Also add a
source-code comment pointing out a couple reasons for having a
separate lock file. Per suggestion from Greg Smith.

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/libpq.sgml, remove obsolete remark that
PQprepare() is more flexible than PREPARE. Spotted by Dmitriy
Igrishin. Back-patch to 8.2, which is when the PREPARE statement
was improved to allow parameter types to be omitted.

- Reduce PANIC to ERROR in some occasionally-reported btree failure
cases. This patch changes _bt_split() and _bt_pagedel() to throw a
plain ERROR, rather than PANIC, for several cases that are reported
from the field from time to time: 1. right sibling's left-link
doesn't match; 2. PageAddItem failure during _bt_split(); 3. parent
page's next child isn't right sibling during _bt_pagedel(). In
addition the error messages for these cases have been made a bit
more verbose, with additional values included. The original
motivation for PANIC here was to capture core dumps for subsequent
analysis. But with so many users whose platforms don't capture core
dumps by default, or who are unprepared to analyze them anyway, it's
hard to justify a forced database restart when we can fairly easily
detect the problems before we've reached the critical sections where
PANIC would be necessary. It is not currently known whether the
reports of these messages indicate well-hidden bugs in Postgres, or
are a result of storage-level malfeasance; the latter possibility
suggests that we ought to try to be more robust even if there is a
bug here that's ultimately found. Backpatch to 8.2. The code
before that is sufficiently different that it doesn't seem worth the
trouble to back-port further.

ITAGAKI Takahiro committed:

- Add string functions: concat(), concat_ws(), left(), right(), and
reverse(). Pavel Stehule, reviewed by me.

Bruce Momjian committed:

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/config.sgml, update autovacuum_freeze_max_age
documentation to mention that the default is low because of pg_clog
file removal. Backpatch to 9.0.X.

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/release-9.0.sgml, clarifications for 9.0
release notes Josh Berkus

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/high-availability.sgml, fix awkward wording in
Incrementally Updated Backups docs. Backpatch to 9.0.X.

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/release-9.0.sgml, update release notes, per
comments from Simon Riggs.

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/high-availability.sgml, remove docs for
"Incrementally Updated Backups" because it was of questionable
reliability; information moved to a wiki:
http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Incrementally_Updated_Backups
Backpatch to 9.0.

Peter Eisentraut committed:

- In pgsql/src/Makefile.global.in, when in automatic dependency mode,
never delete any intermediate files automatically. Otherwise, the
following could happen: When starting from a clean source tree, the
first build would delete the intermediate file, but also create the
dependency file, which mentions the intermediate file, thus making
it non-intermediate. The second build will then need to rebuild the
now non-intermediate missing file. So the second build will do work
even though nothing had changed. One place where this happens is
the .c -> .o -> .so chain for some contrib modules.

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/catalogs.sgml, add missing description of
reloftype field.

- In pgsql/src/pl/plpython/plpython.c, catch null pointer returns from
PyCObject_AsVoidPtr and PyCObject_FromVoidPtr. This is reproducibly
possible in Python 2.7 if the user turned PendingDeprecationWarning
into an error, but it's theoretically also possible in earlier
versions in case of exceptional conditions. Backpatched to 8.0.

- Translation updates for 9.0rc1.

- Small refactoring of makeVar() from a TargetEntry.

Alvaro Herrera committed:

- In pgsql/src/backend/access/transam/xlog.c, remove duplicate
translatable phrase.

- Improve wording for privilege description on certain failure
messages; the original misleadingly suggests that only access is
meant, causing confusion. Per recent trouble report by Robert
McGehee on pgsql-admin.

Marc Fournier committed:

- tag rc1 ... final stretch ...

Robert Haas committed:

- Rewrite comment code for better modularity, and add necessary
locking. Review by Alvaro Herrera, KaiGai Kohei, and Tom Lane.

- In pgsql/src/backend/catalog/objectaddress.c, insert additional
compiler placation into objectaddress.c. Peter Eisentraut reports
that some bits of the "address" variable in get_object_address()
give "may be used uninitialized" warnings; this likes the only
excuse his compiler could have for thinking that's possible.

== Rejected Patches (for now) ==

No one was disappointed this week :-)

== Pending Patches ==

Andrew Dunstan sent in a WIP patch to allow enums to be extended.

Boxuan Zhai sent in another revisions of the patch to add MERGE, this
time with support for table inheritance.

Bruce Momjian sent in a doc patch for incrementally updated backups.

Magnus Hagander sent in a patch which handles a Windows failure case.

KaiGai Kohei sent in another revision of the patch to add a security
hook on authorization.

Zoltan Boszormenyi sent in a patch to fix ECPG's handling of
mixed-case cursor names.

Heikki Linnakangas sent in a patch to add latches to the back-end.

Andrew Dunstan sent in another WIP patch to implement extensible
enums.

Heikki Linnakangas sent in a patch intended to speed up parts of COPY.

Alexander Korotkov sent in a patch to add a levenshtein_less_equal
function to contrib/fuzzystrmatch.

Thom Brown sent in a doc patch to fix some inconsistent markup.

Kevin Grittner sent in another revision of the SIREAD patch for true
serializability, along with one which enables true serializability for
GiST indexes.