--- /dev/null
+<!-- BEGIN page_title_block -->
+Weekly News - April 04 2010
+<!-- END page_title_block -->
+
+<h1>PostgreSQL Weekly News - April 04 2010</h1>
+
+<p>
+The CfP is open for CHAR(10) in Oxford, England on July 1-3 2010.
+Proposals are due April 20.
+<a href="http://www.char10.org">http://www.char10.org</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bruce Momjian will be speaking about PostgreSQL Replication Solutions
+at the NYPUG meeting on April 20th at 6:30-8:30pm at Penn Plaza.
+Details and RSVP below.
+<a href="http://postgresql.meetup.com/3/calendar/12788352/">http://postgresql.meetup.com/3/calendar/12788352/</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Southeast Linuxfest 2010 will take place in Spartanburg, SC, USA on
+June 12-13. Booths and sponsorships are still available.
+<a href="http://southeastlinuxfest.org/">http://southeastlinuxfest.org/</a>
+</p>
+
+<h2>PostgreSQL 9.0 Feature of the Week</h2>
+<p>
+There is now an ALTER DEFAULT PRIVILEGES command which allows you to
+adjust the privileges that will be applied to future objects.
+</p>
+
+<h2>PostgreSQL Jobs for April</h2>
+<p>
+<a href="http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-jobs/2010-04/threads.php">http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-jobs/2010-04/threads.php</a>
+</p>
+
+<h2>PostgreSQL Local</h2>
+<p>
+Linuxfest Northwest 2010 will take place in Bellingham, Washington,
+USA on April 24 and 25. Session, Booth and Sponsorship are available.
+<a href="http://linuxfestnorthwest.org/">http://linuxfestnorthwest.org/</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Andreas (ads) Scherbaum will be teaching a "PostgreSQL for Corporate
+Use" course at the adult education center in Magdeburg, Germany May
+3-7, 2010. Details below:
+<a href="http://andreas.scherbaum.la/blog/archives/650-PostgreSQL-Schulung-als-Bildungsurlaub-03.-07.05.2010-in-Magdeburg.html">http://andreas.scherbaum.la/blog/archives/650-PostgreSQL-Schulung-als-Bildungsurlaub-03.-07.05.2010-in-Magdeburg.html</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PgCon 2010 will be held May 20-21 2010 in Ottawa with tutorials before
+on the 18th and 19th.
+<a href="http://www.pgcon.org/2010/registration.php">http://www.pgcon.org/2010/registration.php</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The CfP for OSBridge is open! OSBridge will be June 1-4, 2010 in
+Portland, Oregon.
+<a href="http://opensourcebridge.org/events/2010/proposals/">http://opensourcebridge.org/events/2010/proposals/</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+OSCON will take place in Portland, Oregon July 19-23, 2010.
+<a href="http://www.oscon.com/oscon2010">http://www.oscon.com/oscon2010</a>
+</p>
+
+<h2>PostgreSQL in the News</h2>
+<p>
+Planet PostgreSQL: <a href="http://planet.postgresql.org/">http://planet.postgresql.org/</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PostgreSQL Weekly News is brought to you this week by David Fetter
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<h2>Applied Patches</h2>
+<p>
+Tom Lane committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Rework join-removal logic as per recent discussion. In particular
+ this fixes things so that it works for cases where nested removals
+ are possible. The overhead of the optimization should be
+ significantly less, as well.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Fix "constraint_exclusion = partition" logic so that it will also
+ attempt constraint exclusion on an inheritance set that is the
+ target of an UPDATE or DELETE query. Per gripe from Marc Cousin.
+ Back-patch to 8.4 where the feature was introduced.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/contrib/pgstattuple/pgstattuple.c, ensure that
+ contrib/pgstattuple functions respond to cancel interrupts
+ reasonably promptly, by adding CHECK_FOR_INTERRUPTS in the per-page
+ loops. Tatsuhito Kasahara.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/bin/psql/command.c, \ddp should be recognized as such
+ even if user appends S or + to it. Those options do nothing right
+ now, but might be wanted later, and in any case it's confusing for
+ the command to be interpreted as \dd if anything is appended. Per
+ Jaime Casanova.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/ref/alter_default_privileges.sgml, minor
+ wording improvement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/backend/commands/async.c, improve phrasing of warning
+ message for NOTIFY queue getting too full. Per gripe from Peter
+ Eisentraut.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Fix updateAclDependencies() to not assume that ACL role dependencies
+ can only be added during GRANT and can only be removed during
+ REVOKE; and fix its callers to not lie to it about the existing set
+ of dependencies when instantiating a formerly-default ACL. The
+ previous coding accidentally failed to malfunction so long as
+ default ACLs contain only references to the object's owning role,
+ because that role is ignored by updateAclDependencies. However this
+ is obviously pretty fragile, as well as being an undocumented
+ assumption. The new coding is a few lines longer but IMO much
+ clearer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Arrange to remove pg_default_acl entries completely if their ACL
+ setting is changed to match the hard-wired default. This avoids
+ accumulating useless catalog entries, and also provides a path for
+ dropping the owning role without using DROP OWNED BY. Per
+ yesterday's complaint from Jaime Casanova, the need to use DROP
+ OWNED BY for that is less than obvious, so providing this
+ alternative method might save some user frustration.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/release-9.0.sgml, clean up description of
+ 9.0's incompatible changes in SIMILAR TO and SQL-style substring().
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon Riggs committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/backend/access/transam/recovery.conf.sample, edit
+ recovery.conf.sample so it matches docs. Change standby_mode
+ example to 'on or 'off' rather than 'true' or 'false', as shown in
+ docs. Add restartpoint_command. Add section header for recovery
+ target parameters, matching docs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/backend/access/transam/xlog.c, move system startup
+ message prior to any calls out of data directory. This allows us to
+ see what mode the server is in before it starts to perform actions
+ that can block or hang. Otherwise server messages may not appear
+ until after messages that say FATAL the database server is starting
+ up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Clarify some behaviours of REASSIGN OWNED and DROP OWNED BY.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/backend/access/transam/xlog.c, check compulsory
+ parameters in recovery.conf in standby_mode, per docs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/stylesheet-man.xsl, allow for more room in the
+ man page title, so that "CREATE TEXT SEARCH CONFIGURATION" is not
+ truncated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Peter Eisentraut committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/plpython.sgml, add some documentation about
+ PL/Python limitations. Suggested by Steve White (bug #5272)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/plpython.sgml, add some information about what
+ it means for PL/Python to be untrusted. Similar information already
+ appears in the PL/Perl and PL/Tcl chapters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/datatype.sgml, add note that XML Schema
+ validation is not supported. Requested by Andrew Lardinois.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Separate targets "make docs" and "make install-docs" for the
+ documentation. It is no longer installed by default, but included
+ in "make world"/"make install-world". Documentation updated
+ accordingly. Also, fix vpathsearch function to work when calling
+ make install-docs without previous make docs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/backend/libpq/auth.c, message tuning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/Makefile, fix the build and install rules for
+ man pages with SQL section != 7. The previous coding failed in
+ various scenarios possibly including vpath builds and doing make
+ install without preceding make all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Remove unnecessary xref endterm attributes and title ids. The
+ endterm attribute is mainly useful when the toolchain does not
+ support automatic link target text generation for a particular
+ situation. In the past, this was required by the man page tools for
+ all reference page links, but that is no longer the case, and it now
+ actually gets in the way of proper automatic link text generation.
+ The only remaining use cases are currently xrefs to refsects.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/func.sgml, clarify documentation of to_char
+ EEEE pattern.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/interfaces/ecpg/preproc/type.c, message quoting style
+ tuning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bruce Momjian committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/backend/utils/misc/postgresql.conf.sample, add comma
+ missing from postgresql.conf comment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/backend/access/nbtree/nbtxlog.c, properly initialize
+ local varaible in btree_xlog_delete_get_latestRemovedXid(). This
+ variable was only tested in assert builds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Change recovery.conf.sample to match postgresql.conf by showing only
+ default values, with example comments.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/backup.sgml, document why 'cp -i </dev/null'
+ is suggested for archive command.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/backup.sgml, clarify ellipses use in
+ archive_command example, per Josh Kupershmidt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/backup.sgml, Revert change that prevented
+ ellipses from looking like ../.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Improve 9.0 release notes by removing extra parentheses and linking
+ to a more appropriate place for exclusion constraints.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/backup.sgml, use test -e rather than test -f.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/release-9.0.sgml, add full names for release
+ note item authors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/ddl.sgml, add contraint exclusion section to
+ contraint docs. ITAGAKI Takahiro.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/backup.sgml, change test -e to test -f in
+ docs, for portability.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Heikki Linnakangas committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/backend/access/transam/xlog.c, change the retry-loop in
+ standby mode to also try restoring files from pg_xlog directory.
+ This is essential for replaying WAL records that were streamed from
+ the master, after a standby server restart. If a corrupt record is
+ seen in a file restored from the archive or streamed from the
+ master, log it as a WARNING and keep retrying. If the corruption is
+ permanent, and not just a glitch in the whatever copies the files to
+ the archive or a network error not caught by CRC checks in TCP for
+ example, we will keep retrying and logging the WARNING indefinitely.
+ But that's better than shutting down completely, the standby is
+ still useful for running read-only queries. In PITR the recovery
+ ends at such a corrupt record, which is a bit questionable, but
+ that's the behavior we had in previous releases and we don't feel
+ like chaning it now. It does make sense for tools like pg_standby.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/high-availability.sgml, enhance documentation
+ of the built-in standby mode, explaining the retry loop in standby
+ mode, trying to restore from archive, pg_xlog and streaming. Move
+ sections around to make the high availability chapter more coherent:
+ the most prominent part is now a "Log-Shipping Standby Servers"
+ section that describes what a standby server is (like the old "Warm
+ Standby Servers for High Availability" section), and how to set up a
+ warm standby server, including streaming replication, using the
+ built-in standby mode. The pg_standby method is described in
+ another section called "Alternative method for log shipping", with
+ the added caveat that it doesn't work with streaming replication.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/client-auth.sgml, mention that if special
+ keywords like "sameuser" and "replication" are quoted in
+ pg_hba.conf, they lose their special meaning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/high-availability.sgml, enhance standby
+ documentation. Original patch by Fujii Masao, with heavy editing
+ and bitrot-fixing after my other commit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/high-availability.sgml, fix typos, spotted by
+ Thom Brown.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/backend/postmaster/syslogger.c, don't pass an invalid
+ file handle to dup2(). That causes a crash on Windows, thanks to a
+ feature in CRT called Parameter Validation. Backpatch to 8.2, which
+ is the oldest version supported on Windows. In 8.2 and 8.3 also
+ backpatch the earlier change to use DEVNULL instead of NULL_DEV
+ #define for a /dev/null-like device. NULL_DEV was hard-coded to
+ "/dev/null" regardless of platform, which didn't work on Windows,
+ while DEVNULL works on all platforms. Restarting syslogger didn't
+ work on Windows on versions 8.3 and below because of that.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Michael Meskes committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Give a more precise error message if a variable is re-used as cursor
+ name in ecpg.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Applied Zoltan's patch to make ecpg spit out warnings if a local
+ variable hides a global one with the same name.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Zoltan Boszormenyi beautified his hidden-variable-patch for ecpg.
+ This also makes sure we get an error message instead of a warning if
+ the variable have different types.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/interfaces/ecpg/preproc/type.c, FATAL errors are meant
+ to stop ecpg immediately, e.g. because the syntax is corrupted.
+ This error, however, does is not a compilation problem but a runtime
+ one, so we can keep compiling but still have to declare ERROR.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/interfaces/ecpg/preproc/ecpg.c, make ecpg in line with
+ other compilers in that it deletes its output if there was an error
+ processing the input file. Work done by Zoltan Boszormenyi.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Robert Haas committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Refer to max_wal_senders in a more consistent fashion. The error
+ message now makes explicit reference to the GUC that must be changed
+ to fix the problem, using wording suggested by Tom Lane. Along the
+ way, rename the GUC from MaxWalSenders to max_wal_senders for
+ consistency and grep-ability.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Version stamp 9.0alpha5.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Andrew Dunstan committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Use a file of patterns of filenames to exclude from pgindent runs,
+ instead if using multiple invocations of egrep. Add perl ppport.h
+ to the current list.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Sync perl's ppport.h on all branches back to 7.4 with recent update
+ on HEAD, ensuring we can build older branches with modern Perl
+ installations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/contrib/fuzzystrmatch/dmetaphone.c, make dmetaphone.c safe
+ for pgindent and fussy compilers. Still to do: make it properly
+ encoding aware w.r.t. chars U+00C7 and U+00D1.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/tools/pgindent/pgindent, exclude unwanted typedef
+ symbols in pgindent, including FD_SET which is found on some Windows
+ platforms. Also, silence unnecessary messages and +make awk happier
+ about literal '*' on some platforms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Magnus Hagander committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/contrib/pageinspect/heapfuncs.c, fix minor typos in
+ comments. Josh Kupershmidt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Update a number of broken links in comments. Josh Kupershmidt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ITAGAKI Takahiro committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/bin/pg_ctl/pg_ctl.c, use a new API rather than a
+ deprecated one in in cygwin. cygwin_conv_to_full_win32_path should
+ be replaced with cygwin_conv_path.
+</p>
+
+<h2>Rejected Patches (for now)</h2>
+<p>
+No one was disappointed this week :-)
+</p>
+
+<h2>Pending Patches</h2>
+<p>
+David Christensen sent in a patch for 9.1 to add a -C option to
+initdb, which would then allow people to set various postgresql.conf
+directives.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Robert Haas sent in a patch to add the maximum number of keys for a
+syscache from 4 to 5. This is support infrastructure, at first, for
+K-Nearest Neighbor GiST searches.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ITAGAKI Takahiro sent in a patch to fix an issue with PG_MODULE_MAGIC
+on Windows builds with MSVC.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pavel Stehule sent in a patch to allow psql's \ef (edit function) to
+take an optional "lines offset" option, and adds a \sf[+] to show the
+body.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fujii Masao sent in a doc patch for streaming replication.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fujii Masao sent in two updated patches to add a new smart shutdown
+mode for hot standby and streaming replication.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fujii Masao sent in another revision of a patch for streaming
+replication which adds handling for timeline and location to
+pg_xlogfile_name().
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mike Lewis sent in two revisions of a patch to detoast the headers for
+arrays in contrib/intarray before detoasting what's needed of the
+rest. This makes accesses to large arrays faster.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fujii Masao and Thom Brown traded patches to clarify messages around
+error conditions for streaming replication.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ITAGAKI Takahiro sent in a doc patch which adds exclusion constraints
+as a primary index term.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Zoltan Boszormenyi sent in a patch for ECPG intended to resolve an
+issue with standard DECLARE behavior on cursors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pavel Stehule sent in two more revisions of the fulltext dictionary
+preload patch using mmap().
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Zoltan Boszormenyi sent in another revision of the ECPG patch to check
+for variables hidden by local ones.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Peter Eisentraut sent in a patch to change casts and operators to
+include pg_catalog qualification.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fujii Masao sent in a patch per Heikki Linnakangas's suggestion to
+make ReservedBackends = superuser_reserved_connections +
+max_wal_senders and MaxBackends = max_connections +
+autovacuum_max_workers + max_wal_senders + 1.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yeb Havinga sent in another version of the patch to make EXPLAIN's
+subplans clearer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Zoltan Boszormenyi sent in a WIP patch for ECPG which deletes the
+output file when certain kinds of error occur.
+
+</p>
+
projects / pgweb-old.git / commitdiff