Re: HISTORY file

[ Sorry I am two days late in responding to this.]

> I find the HISTORY file to be distressingly poor to peruse.  Reasons:

While I do my best to generate the HISTORY file, it is far from perfect.
I need comments like this to help me improve it.  Peter, glad you took
the time to review the list.  Let me address each one and modify the
HISTORY file accordingly:

> 
> A large proportion of the items don't convey any useful information.
> Examples:
> 
> | PLpgSQL fix for SELECT... FOR UPDATE (Tom)
> 
> What did this fix?  Does SELECT FOR UDPATE now work whereas it didn't use
> to? => "SELECT ... FOR UPDATE now works in PL/pgSQL"

Part of the problem here is that I have to guess from the commit message
as to what was actually changed.  The entries have to be:
o conciseo understandable to noviceso combine entries fixing the same problem

I could use some more information on this one.  I should add that
certain committers, particularly to interfaces, have commit messages
that just say "Committed patch from Fred" and this does not help me
generate a proper HISTORY file.  Usually, copying something from the
original message helps.

> 
> | Fix for PL/pgSQL PERFORM returning multiple rows (Tom)
> 
> What did this fix?  Can you return multiple rows now or does it merely
> give an error message that you cannot where it used to crash?

Again, I don't know.

> | Fix for inherited CHECK constraints (Stephan Szabo)
> 
> ditto

I don't know the details.  Can you give them to me?

> 
> | PL/pgSQL Allow IS and FOR in cursors (Bruce)
> 
> If I didn't happen to know exactly what this meant, I wouldn't have a
> clue.

I can fix this one:
 PL/pgSQL Allow IS and FOR keywords in cursors, for compatibility (Bruce)

> | Allow NULL to appear at beginning/end based on ORDER BY (Tom)
> 
> It doesn't "allow", it just "does".

Uh, yes, this is better:
  Make NULL appear at beginning/end based on ORDER BY (Tom)        

> | Pltcl add spi_lastoid capability (bob@redivi.com)
> 
> Capability = command, function, type, ...?

Got it, capability -> function:
  Pltcl add spi_lastoid function (bob@redivi.com)
> 
> | Allow column renaming in views
> 
> ALTER VIEW foo RENAME COLUMN -- huh?

Actually, yes, it modifies the AS label of the column.  Was that what
you meant?
create view x as select * from pg_class;alter table x rename column relname to jj;select jj from x;

I suppose it didn't work before.

> | New option to output SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION commands (Peter E)
> 
> Option to what to output where?

I now see the entire command was added in 7.2.  I missed the earlier CVS
commit:
New SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION command (Peter E)                 


> | New postgresql.conf option to enable/disable "col = NULL" comparisons
> 
> This is not correct.

Uh, it isn't?  Can you give me some new text?

> 
> | Cachability fixes (Thomas, Tom)
> 
> I don't think cachability as such was "fixed", or even "changed".  The
> item probably related to some iscacheable pg_proc entries which were
> temporarily broken.

Do you have other wording?  Seems there were was a cachability bug
report and we "fixed" it in the catalogs.


> The categories Bug Fixes, Enhancements, Types, Performance, Interfaces,
> Source Code could be split better, and they're not used very consistently.
> An example from each category that doesn't fit:
> 
> Bug Fixes: Disallow access to pg_statistic for non-super user (Tom)
> This was not a bug, but a consequence of a change.

I considered it a bug.  If there was a salary column, any user in 7.1
could see the max value in the column.  Seemed like a security bug to
me.

> 
> Enhancements: Fix TCL COPY TO/FROM (ljb)
> If it is "fixed" then it was broken before.

Now:
Add TCL COPY TO/FROM (ljb)   

Fixed.  :-)

> Types: New function bit_length() (Peter E)
> No comment.

Uh, I started to put some of the type-specific additions into Types.  Is
that OK?  Particularly the multi-byte ones so they are all in one place.

> 
> Performance: Dynahash portability improvements (Tom)

Good point.  Moved.

> 
> Interfaces: Obviously, anything done in the interfaces is also either a
> bug fix or an enhancement.  And what exactly constitutes an interface is
> not clear to me.

Not clear to me either.  I wanted to get jdbc and odbc into separate
lists because they are so large.  Seemed like a good idea.

> Source code: Remove OID's from some system tables (Tom)
> Maybe this is an enhancement.

Uh, yes.

> Some changes are "must know", because they are incompatible, such as
> 
> | Load pg_hba.conf only on startup and SIGHUP (Bruce)
> 
> This should be made clear somewhere.

Added to Migration section:
Also, pg_hba.conf only loads on SIGHUP now.

> Finally,
> 
> | Remove configure --enable-pltcl-utf option
> 
> There was never such an option in a previous release.

Oh, did that come in and out in 7.2?  Removed.

Let me know what else you see.  Thanks.

--  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610)
853-3000+  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill,
Pennsylvania19026
 
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