== 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@fetter.org, German language
to pwn@pgug.de, Italian language to pwn@itpug.org.  Spanish language
to pwn@arpug.com.ar.

== 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.