== PostgreSQL Weekly News - March 03 2013 ==

== PostgreSQL Weekly News - March 03 2013 ==

== PostgreSQL Product News ==

pgBadger 3.0, a parallel PostgreSQL log analyzer written in Perl,
released:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/pgbadger/

PG Partition Manager v1.0.0, an automated partition management
extension for time & serial id based table partitioning, released.
https://github.com/keithf4/pg_partman

PostGIS 2.0.3, the industry standard geographic information system for
PostgreSQL, released.
http://svn.osgeo.org/postgis/tags/2.0.3/NEWS

RHQ 4.6, an open source management platform which includes support for
PostgreSQL, released.
https://docs.jboss.org/author/display/RHQ/Release+Notes+4.6.0

== PostgreSQL Local ==

PyPgDay will be held on March 13th at the Santa Clara Convention
Center, the first day of PyCon. Info here:
http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/PyPgDay2013

PGDay NYC 2013 will be held on March 22, 2013 in New York City.
http://pgday.nycpug.org/

PG Day France is the major French-speaking PostgreSQL community event.
The deadline for sending proposals is Saturday, March 24, 2013 at
23:59 CEST.
http://pgday.fr/call_for_papers

PostgreSQL Session will be held on March 28th, 2013 in Paris,
France. The Call for Papers is open.
http://www.postgresql-sessions.org/en/5/

PGCon 2013 will be held May 23-24 2013, in Ottawa at the University of
Ottawa.
http://www.pgcon.org/2013/

The 6th annual "Prague PostgreSQL Developers Day" conference,
organized by CSPUG (Czech and Slovak PostgreSQL Users Group), will be
held on May 30, 2013 at Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles
University (Malostranske namesti 25, Prague). The CfP is open until
April 14, 2013 <info AT p2d2 DOT cz>. More information in Czech is at
http://www.p2d2.cz/

The Call for Papers for PostgreSQL Brazil, to be held August 15-17,
2013 in Porto Velho, RO, Brazil, is open. Proposals are due by March
15, 2013.
http://pgbr.postgresql.org.br/2013/chamada.en.php

== 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
to pwn(at)pgug(dot)de, Italian language to pwn(at)itpug(dot)org(dot) Spanish language
to pwn(at)arpug(dot)com(dot)ar(dot)

== Applied Patches ==

Heikki Linnakangas pushed:

- Add -d option to pg_basebackup and pg_receivexlog, for connection
string. Without this, there's no way to pass arbitrary libpq
connection parameters to these applications. It's a bit strange that
the option is called -d/--dbname, when in fact you can *not* pass a
database name in it, but it's consistent with other client
applications where a connection string is also passed using -d.
Original patch by Amit Kapila, heavily modified by me.
http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/aa05c37e823a41056273e73f6b3d168009a67c3f

- Add -d/--dbname option to pg_dump. You could already pass a
database name just by passing it as the last option, without -d.
This is an alias for that, like the -d/--dbname option in psql and
many other client applications. For consistency.
http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/691e595dd9c7786d37d73ccd327f8c2b6f0dace6

- Add -d option to pg_dumpall, for specifying a connection string.
Like with pg_basebackup and pg_receivexlog, it's a bit strange to
call the option -d/--dbname, when in fact you cannot pass a database
name in it. Original patch by Amit Kapila, heavily modified by me.
http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/3dee636e0404885d07885d41c0d70e50c784f324

- Only quote libpq connection string values that need quoting.
There's no harm in excessive quoting per se, but it makes the
strings nicer to read. The values can get quite unwieldy, when
they're first quoted within within single-quotes when included in
the connection string, and then all the single-quotes are escaped
when the connection string is passed as a shell argument.
http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/2953cd6d17210935098c803c52c6df5b12a725b9

- Remove the check for COPY TO STDIN and COPY FROM STDOUT from ecpg.
The backend grammar treats STDIN and STDOUT completely
interchangeable, so that the above accepted. Arguably that was a
mistake the backend grammar, but it's not ecpg's business to second
guess that.
http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/0a4fe8a318ed37556dd019def073ccd956645e27

- Add standard file header comment to quotes.c.
http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/5ddf38f21d3f34c794de2d1c9b61ba92a7d6f39c

- Cannot use WL_SOCKET_WRITEABLE without WL_SOCKET_READABLE. In
copy-out mode, the frontend should not send any messages until the
backend has finished streaming, by sending a CopyDone message. I'm
not sure if it would be legal for the client to send a new query
before receiving the CopyDone message from the backend, but trying
to support that would require bigger changes to the backend code
structure. Fixes an assertion failure reported by Fujii Masao.
http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/3a9e64aa0d96c8ffb6c682b082d0f72b1d373327

- Fix typo in "pg_xlogdump --help" and error message. Fujii Masao and
me.
http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/26b45dc54f379c4e7b44b308584dc14d0ed17482

- Fix MSVC build. The new file in src/port needs to be listed in
Mkvcbuild.pm as well.
http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/f70b1b274824e5116c8e993d274629d3934b3978

- Remove spurious "the", and add a missing one. Thom Brown and me.
http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/7d6b8f7158f0ea2e55b42c1db1d31991e3c67572

- Add support for piping COPY to/from an external program. This
includes backend "COPY TO/FROM PROGRAM '...'" syntax, and
corresponding psql \copy syntax. Like with reading/writing files,
the backend version is superuser-only, and in the psql version, the
program is run in the client. In the passing, the psql \copy
STDIN/STDOUT syntax is subtly changed: if you the stdin/stdout is
quoted, it's now interpreted as a filename. For example, "\copy foo
from 'stdin'" now reads from a file called 'stdin', not from
standard input. Before this, there was no way to specify a filename
called stdin, stdout, pstdin or pstdout. This creates a new
function in pgport, wait_result_to_str(), which can be used to
convert the exit status of a process, as returned by wait(3), to a
human-readable string. Etsuro Fujita, reviewed by Amit Kapila.
http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/3d009e45bde2a2681826ef549637ada76508b597

Andrew Dunstan pushed:

- Redo MSVC build implementation for pg_xlogdump. The previous commit
didn't work on MSVC editions earlier than Visual Studio 2011,
apparently. This works by copying files into the contrib directory,
and making provision to clean them up, which should work on all
editions.
http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/a64e33f030f3ba379a0d3e22fe6bcda9dc3bbc60

Peter Eisentraut pushed:

- doc: Fix markup typo
http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/8337e3b4575b1588462c2d74135516fd22f60942

- Exclude utils/probes.h and pg_trace.h from cpluspluscheck. They can
include sys/sdt.h from SystemTap, which itself contains C++ code and
so won't compile with a C++ compiler under extern "C" linkage.
http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/1275b88f711c663e3b7a77c7526a934752efe52d

- doc: A few awkward phrasing fixes. Josh Kupershmidt
http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/743b73bdf57a21d39cf764d92536b4080fb2925a

- doc: Small tweak for consistency. submitted by "Lyle"
http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/891869c352160e480d4afdc2a3443035c2560282

- psql: Let \l accept a pattern. reviewed by Satoshi Nagayasu
http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/5db5974c692b0fc68e7608dd85a6b4e6173a0f28

Tom Lane pushed:

- Install headers from the new src/include/common subdirectory. This
got missed in commit 8396447cdbdff0b62914748de2fec04281dc9114.
Andres Freund
http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/c153530dc10bf5ff6dc5a89249f9cb596dd71a63

- Clean up "stopgap" implementation of timestamptz_to_str(). Use
correct type for "result", fix bogus strftime argument, don't use
unnecessary static variables, improve comments. Andres Freund and
Tom Lane
http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/1418e6e07b69766ea1e231917601f18fcf0c2624

- Add missing .gitignore file.
http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/08f9728057a485edf5b3a589e70548e1f0da4e53

- Add missing error check in regexp parser. parseqatom() failed to
check for an error return (NULL result) from its recursive call to
parsebranch(), and in consequence could crash with a null-pointer
dereference after an error return. This bug has been there since
day one, but wasn't noticed before, probably because most error
cases in parsebranch() didn't actually lead to returning NULL. Add
the missing error check, and also tweak parsebranch() to exit in a
less indirect fashion after a call to parseqatom() fails. Report by
Tomasz Karlik, fix by me.
http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/73dc003beef859e0b67da463c5e28f5468d3f17f

- Eliminate memory leaks in plperl's spi_prepare() function. Careless
use of TopMemoryContext for I/O function data meant that repeated
use of spi_prepare and spi_freeplan would leak memory at the session
level, as per report from Christian Schröder. In addition,
spi_prepare leaked a lot of transient data within the current plperl
function's SPI Proc context, which would be a problem for repeated
use of spi_prepare within a single plperl function call; and it
wasn't terribly careful about releasing permanent allocations in
event of an error, either. In passing, clean up some
copy-and-pasteos in query-lookup error messages. Alex Hunsaker and
Tom Lane
http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/a4d3a504e730c47ccee5082ee703082e42c8b5ce

- Fix SQL function execution to be safe with long-lived FmgrInfos.
fmgr_sql had been designed on the assumption that the FmgrInfo it's
called with has only query lifespan. This is demonstrably unsafe in
connection with range types, as shown in bug #7881 from Andrew
Gierth. Fix things so that we re-generate the function's cache data
if the (sub)transaction it was made in is no longer active.
Back-patch to 9.2. This might be needed further back, but it's not
clear whether the case can realistically arise without range types,
so for now I'll desist from back-patching further.
http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/2b78d101d1d6b1d8533a7b7aeff4d82b10a915f8

- Get rid of any toast table when converting a table to a view. Also
make sure other fields of the view's pg_class entry are appropriate
for a view; it shouldn't have relfrozenxid set for instance. This
ancient omission isn't believed to have any serious consequences in
versions 8.4-9.2, so no backpatch. But let's fix it before it does
bite us in some serious way. It's just luck that the case doesn't
cause problems for autovacuum. (It did cause problems in 8.3, but
that's out of support.) Andres Freund
http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/b15a6da29217b14f02895af1d9271e84415a91ae

- Fix map_sql_value_to_xml_value() to treat domains like their base
types. This was already the case for domains over arrays, but not
for domains over certain built-in types such as boolean. The
special formatting rules for those types should apply to domains
over them as well. Per discussion. While this is a bug fix, it's
also a behavioral change that seems likely to trip up some
applications. So no back-patch. Pavel Stehule
http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/bc61878682051678ade5f59da7bfd90ab72ce13b

Alvaro Herrera pushed:

- Improve pg_upgrade commentary on multixact change. Per gripe from
Andres Freund
http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/cd7d00ad65fab11496ad9990cfc145c06c6ee53d

Kevin Grittner pushed:

- Add a materialized view relations. A materialized view has a rule
just like a view and a heap and other physical properties like a
table. The rule is only used to populate the table, references in
queries refer to the materialized data. This is a minimal
implementation, but should still be useful in many cases. Currently
data is only populated "on demand" by the CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW
and REFRESH MATERIALIZED VIEW statements. It is expected that
future releases will add incremental updates with various timings,
and that a more refined concept of defining what is "fresh" data
will be developed. At some point it may even be possible to have
queries use a materialized in place of references to underlying
tables, but that requires the other above-mentioned features to be
working first. Much of the documentation work by Robert Haas.
Review by Noah Misch, Thom Brown, Robert Haas, Marko Tiikkaja
Security review by KaiGai Kohei, with a decision on how best to
implement sepgsql still pending.
http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/3bf3ab8c563699138be02f9dc305b7b77a724307

- Remove accidentally-committed .orig file.
http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/d63977eea3ab18fdec05e370b633d10b9fd20179

== Rejected Patches (for now) ==

No one was disappointed this week :-)

== Pending Patches ==

Greg Smith sent in two more revisions of a patch to add page
checksums.

Andres Freund sent in an RfC patch to extend namespace of valid GUC
names.

Andrew Dunstan sent in another revision of a patch to enhance JSON
generation.

Ivan Lezhov sent in another revision of a patch to clarify the
documentation on custom format pg_dump backups.

Jonathan Rogers sent in another revision of a patch to allow using
filesystem-level cloning to speed up operations like CREATE DATABASE.

Kyotaro HORIGUCHI and Pavel Stehule traded patches to enhance the
format function.

Michael Paquier sent in another revision of a patch to add REINDEX
CONCURRENTLY.

Zoltan Boszormenyi sent in another revision of a patch to fix
lock_timeout on Windows.

Alexander Korotkov sent in another revision of a patch to improve
selectivity for ranges in GIN.

Heikki Linnakangas sent in a patch to help make the LZ compressor work
faster.

Alvaro Herrera sent in another revision of a patch to support dropped
objects in event triggers.

Heikki Linnakangas sent in a patch to make the scanner and parser more
efficient by adding some flex states to help with the UESCAPE cases.

Satoshi Nagayasu sent in another revision of a patch to fix
pgstattuple/pgstatindex to use regclass-type as the argument.

Laurenz Albe sent in a documentation patch to clarify the use of
floating point.

Greg Smith sent in another revision of a patch to catch a buffer
assertion issue under certain pgbench loads.