== PostgreSQL Weekly News - July 11 2010 ==

== PostgreSQL Weekly News - July 11 2010 ==

PostgreSQL 9.0 beta 3 will be out soon. Get ready to test!
http://www.postgresql.org/developer/beta

PostgreSQL-PostGIS-Hoeck will be happening July 14th 2010, 6pm in
Zurich, Switzerland at the bQm kultur café & bar at the ETH Zurich.
Information and (informal) registration:
http://www.gis.hsr.ch/wiki/Agenda

Reuven Lerner will be teaching a 5-day course in PostgreSQL August
1-5, 2010 at the Hi-Tech College in Herzliya, Israel.
http://www.hi-tech.co.il/college/default.asp?PageID=12&CourseNum=4288

== PostgreSQL Product News ==

Benetl 3.5, an ETL tool for files using PostgreSQL, released.
http://www.benetl.net

DataArchitect 4.2, an ERD and reverse engineering tool which supports
PostgreSQL, released.
http://www.thekompany.com/products/dataarchitect/

PostgreSQL Maestro 10.7, a GUI admin tool for PostgreSQL, released.
http://www.sqlmaestro.com/products/postgresql/maestro/

Muldis-D 0.130.0, a specification for an object-relational language
intended to run atop, among other systems, PostgreSQL, released.
http://muldis.com/Muldis_D.html

RHQ 3.0.0, a server management and monitoring application, released.
http://rhq-project.org/

== PostgreSQL Jobs for July ==

http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-jobs/2010-07/threads.php

== PostgreSQL Local ==

PDXPUG Day will be July 18, 2010 at the Oregon Convention Center in
Portland, OR. For more information, see:
http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/PDXPUGDay2010

OSCON will take place in Portland, Oregon July 19-23, 2010.
http://www.oscon.com/oscon2010

FrOSCon 2010 will take place in St. Augustin, Germany on August 21-22,
2010. The German PostgreSQL User Group got his own devroom and is
looking for talks. More info:
http://andreas.scherbaum.la/blog/archives/711-FrOSCon-2010-PostgreSQL-devroom-Call-for-papers.html

== 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)

== Reviews ==

KaiGai Kohei reviewed Robert Haas's patch to add get_whatever_oid
functionality.
== Applied Patches ==

Tom Lane committed:

- Improve pg_dump's checkSeek() function to verify the functioning of
ftello as well as fseeko, and to not assume that fseeko(fp, 0,
SEEK_CUR) proves anything. Also improve some related comments. Per
my observation that the SEEK_CUR test didn't actually work on some
platforms, and subsequent discussion with Robert Haas. Back-patch
to 8.4. In earlier releases it's not that important whether we get
the hasSeek test right, but with parallel restore it matters.

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/release-9.0.sgml, add compatibility note
warning that plpgsql is now stricter about the column datatypes of
composite results, per gripe from Marcel Asio. Some desultory
copy-editing of plpgsql-related sections of the release notes.

- Get rid of some more stuff in pg_upgrade that duplicates c.h or
port.h.

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/datatype.sgml, fix assorted misstatements and
poor wording in the descriptions of the I/O formats for geometric
types. Per bug #5536 from Jon Strait, and my own testing.
Back-patch to all supported branches, since this doco has been wrong
right along -- we certainly haven't changed the I/O behavior of
these types in many years.

- Replace max_standby_delay with two parameters,
max_standby_archive_delay and max_standby_streaming_delay, and
revise the implementation to avoid assuming that timestamps found in
WAL records can meaningfully be compared to clock time on the
standby server. Instead, the delay limits are compared to the
elapsed time since we last obtained a new WAL segment from archive
or since we were last "caught up" to WAL data arriving via streaming
replication. This avoids problems with clock skew between primary
and standby, as well as other corner cases that the original coding
would misbehave in, such as the primary server having significant
idle time between transactions. Per my complaint some time ago and
considerable ensuing discussion. Do some desultory editing on the
hot standby documentation, too.

- Make vacuum_defer_cleanup_age be PGC_SIGHUP level, since it's not
sensible to have different values in different processes of the
primary server. Also put it into the "Streaming Replication" GUC
category; it doesn't belong in "Standby Servers" because you use it
on the master not the standby. In passing also correct guc.c's idea
of wal_keep_segments' category.

- In pgsql/src/backend/access/transam/xlog.c, don't set
recoveryLastXTime when replaying a checkpoint --- that was a bogus
idea from the start since the variable is only meant to track
commit/abort events. This patch reverts the logic around the
variable to what it was in 8.4, except that the value is now kept in
shared memory rather than a static variable, so that it can be
reported correctly by CreateRestartPoint (which is executed in the
bgwriter).

- Split the LDFLAGS make variable into two parts: LDFLAGS is now used
for linking both executables and shared libraries, and we add on
LDFLAGS_EX when linking executables or LDFLAGS_SL when linking
shared libraries. This provides a significantly cleaner way of
dealing with link-time switches than the former behavior. Also,
make sure that the various platform-specific %.so: %.o rules
incorporate LDFLAGS and LDFLAGS_SL; most of them missed that before.
(I did not add these variables for the platforms that invoke $(LD)
directly, however. It's not clear if we can do that safely, since
for the most part we assume these variables use CC command-line
syntax.) Per gripe from Aaron Swenson and subsequent investigation.

- Fix a few single-file (MODULES, not MODULE_big) contrib makefiles
that were supposing that they should set SHLIB_LINK rather than
LDFLAGS_SL. Since these don't go through Makefile.shlib that was a
no-op on most platforms. Also regularize the few platform-specific
Makefiles that did pay attention to SHLIB_LINK: it seems that the
real value of that is to pull in BE_DLLLIBS, so do that instead.
Per buildfarm failures on cygwin.

- In pgsql/src/makefiles/pgxs.mk, make sure LDFLAGS come before LIBS
when linking contrib programs. Solaris, at least, seems to be
sensitive to the relative order of -L and -l switches, so this is
needed. Per buildfarm results.

- In pgsql/src/makefiles/pgxs.mk, dept. of third thoughts: PG_LIBS may
contain a -L switch, so it had better stay in front of LDFLAGS.

- In pgsql/src/makefiles/Makefile.aix, allow for LDFLAGS_SL already
having a value in Makefile.aix. Per buildfarm results.

- In pgsql/src/Makefile.shlib, still more third thoughts: when linking
shared libraries, LDFLAGS probably needs to appear before anything
placed in SHLIB_LINK. This is because SHLIB_LINK is typically a
subset of LIBS, and LIBS has to appear after LDFLAGS on platforms
that are sensitive to the relative order of -L and -l switches.

- In pgsql/src/backend/utils/mb/mbutils.c, undo pgindent breakage
(again). Per buildfarm.

- In pgsql/src/Makefile.global.in, accept slightly grotty coding in
Makefile.global in order to keep the -L flag for src/port/ in front
of any -L flags placed in LDFLAGS by configure. This undoes an
L-flag-ordering change that I had thought would be safe, but seems
to be making at least one buildfarm member fail --- the only theory
for orca's failure that I can think of is that it's got an old copy
of libpgport.a in /usr/lib. Also allow for LDFLAGS_SL to be set by
contrib makefiles before they invoke Makefile.global.

- In pgsql/src/backend/utils/mb/mbutils.c, adjust mbutils.c so it
won't get broken by future pgindent runs. To do that, replace L'\0'
by (WCHAR) 0. Perhaps someday we should teach pgindent about
wide-character literals, but so long as this is the only use-case in
the entire Postgres sources, a workaround seems easier.

- Fix "cannot handle unplanned sub-select" error that can occur when a
sub-select contains a join alias reference that expands into an
expression containing another sub-select. Per yesterday's report
from Merlin Moncure and subsequent off-list investigation.
Back-patch to 7.4. Older versions didn't attempt to flatten
sub-selects in ways that would trigger this problem.

- Fix variant float8 expected files to have exactly the expected
spacing. This wasn't important when we used diff's -w
(--ignore-all-space) option to compare regression result files, but
it is now. Per buildfarm member canary, which evidently has been
offline since we did that in November, but came to life again today.

- In pgsql/src/backend/access/transam/xlogutils.c, update obsolete
comment. Noted by Josh Tolley.

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/ref/create_operator.sgml, add a
cross-reference to precedence information to CREATE OPERATOR's
documentation. Per suggestion from Marc Cousin.

- In pgsql/src/pl/plpython/plpython.c, minor kibitzing on previous
patch from Peter Eisentraut which guards against using PL/PythonU2
and PL/PythonU3 in the same session: no need to run check more than
once. (_PG_init should be called only once anyway, but as long as
it's got an internal guard against repeat calls, that should be in
front of the version check.)

- Stamp HEAD as 9.1devel. (And there was much rejoicing.)

- In pgsql/src/backend/utils/adt/ruleutils.c, fix ruleutils'
get_variable() to print something useful for Vars referencing
resjunk outputs of subquery tlists, instead of throwing an error.
Per bug #5548 from Daniel Grace. We might at some point find we
ought to back-patch this further than 9.0, but I think that such
Vars can only occur as resjunk members of upper-level tlists, in
which case the problem can't arise because prior versions didn't
print resjunk tlist items in EXPLAIN VERBOSE.

- In pgsql/src/backend/utils/cache/lsyscache.c, avoid an Assert
failure in deconstruct_array() by making get_attstatsslot() use the
actual element type of the array it's disassembling, rather than
trusting the type OID passed in by its caller. This is needed
because sometimes the planner passes in a type OID that's only
binary-compatible with the target column's type, rather than being
an exact match. Per an example from Bernd Helmle. Possibly we
should refactor get_attstatsslot/free_attstatsslot to not expect the
caller to supply type ID data at all, but for now I'll just do the
minimum-change fix. Back-patch to 7.4. Bernd's test case only
crashes back to 8.0, but since these subroutines are the same in
7.4, I suspect there may be variant cases that would crash 7.4 as
well.

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/sources.sgml, add a note about preferred
window width to the section about code formatting conventions.

Bruce Momjian committed:

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/high-availability.sgml, remove tab from SGML.

- Add new Non-Durable Settings documentation section. Document that
synchronous_commit can lose transactions in a db crash, not just a
OS crash.

- Fix doc double-wording in non-durable patch. Report from Thom Brown.

- In pgsql/src/backend/access/transam/xact.c, add C comment about why
synchronous_commit=off behavior can lose committed transactions in a
postmaster crash.

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/config.sgml, document that shared_preload_libraries
and local_preload_libraries lowercase the library names, unless
double-quoted.

- In documentation, use "lower case"/"upper case" consistently (use
space between words).

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/config.sgml, document that /bin/true on
Windows is implemented by 'REM'.

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/release-9.0.sgml, update 9.0 release notes so
streaming replication and hot standby is not assumed to require
continuous archiving. Per report from Fujii Masao.

- In pgsql/contrib/pg_upgrade/pg_upgrade.h, remove port.h prototypes
from pg_upgrade.h, per report from Robert Haas.

- In pgsql/src/backend/commands/tablespace.c, issue 'mkdir' hint when
replying CREATE TABLESPACE in recovery mode. Per idea from Fujii
Masao.

- Add CVS tags to pg_upgrade and pg_upgrade_support files, per request
from Tom Lane.

- Add copyrights to pg_upgrade and pg_upgrade_tools files, per Tom
Lane.

- Make pg_upgrade copyrights just 2010, not 2010-2010.

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/func.sgml, document more clearly on XML
namespaces inside xpath function. Nikolay Samokhvalov.

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/config.sgml, remove SGML tab.

- In pgsql/src/tools/fsync/test_fsync.c, report test_fynsc times in
tests per second, instead of total seconds.

- In pgsql/src/tools/fsync/test_fsync.c, simplify test_fsync duration
computation.

- Update pgindent testing instructions.

- pgindent run for 9.0, second run.

- In pgsql/src/tools/pgindent/README, mention why one C file fails
pgindent.

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/wal.sgml, document the interaction of
write-barrier-enabled file systems, and BBU caches, per June email
thread.

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/wal.sgml, doc change: effected -> affected,
per correction from Matthew Wakeling.

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/release-9.0.sgml, update release notes for 9.0
beta 3.

- Properly report errno/out-of-disk-space error from pg_upgrade when
in copy mode, per report from depstein(at)alliedtesting(dot)com(dot) Patch
suggestion from Magnus. Backpatch to 9.0.X.

Peter Eisentraut committed:

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/sources.sgml, add guidelines for formatting
errcontext strings

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/datatype.sgml, add note clarifying that XML
fragments don't accept DTDs, per complaint from Craig Ringer.

- Use different function names for plpython3 handlers, to avoid
clashes in pg_pltemplate. This should have a catversion bump, but
it's still being debated whether it's worth it during beta.

- Message tuning.

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/plpython.sgml, add note that using PL/Python 2
and 3 in the same session will probably crash.

- Install safeguard against running PL/Python 2 and 3 in the same
session.

- Translation updates for 9.0beta3.

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/plperl.sgml, some small changes: wrapped long
code-lines for pdf, fix typo. Erik Rijkers

Robert Haas committed:

- In pgsql/src/backend/access/transam/xlog.c, emode_for_corrupt_record
shouldn't reduce LOG messages to WARNING. In non-interactive
sessions, WARNING sorts below LOG.

- In pgsql/src/backend/commands/tablecmds.c, allow ALTER TABLE .. SET
TABLESPACE to be interrupted. Backpatch to 8.0, where tablespaces
were introduced. Guillaume Lelarge

- In pgsql/src/port/copydir.c, allow copydir() to be interrupted.
This makes ALTER DATABASE .. SET TABLESPACE and CREATE DATABASE more
sensitive to interrupts. Backpatch to 8.4, where ALTER DATABASE ..
SET TABLESPACE was introduced. We could go back further, but in the
absence of complaints about the CREATE DATABASE case it doesn't seem
worth it. Guillaume Lelarge, with a small correction by me.

- Move copydir.c from src/port to src/backend/storage/file. The
previous commit to make copydir() interruptible prevented
postgres.exe from linking on MinGW and Cygwin, because on those
platforms libpgport_srv.a can't freely reference symbols defined by
the backend. Since that code is already backend-specific anyway,
just move the whole file into the backend rather than adding further
kludges to deal with the symbols needed by CHECK_FOR_INTERRUPTS().
This probably needs some further cleanup, but this commit just moves
the file as-is, which should hopefully be enough to turn the
buildfarm green again.

- Remove hstore % text[] operator; use slice() function instead.
David Wheeler, with one small correction by me.

- Additional cross-references to window functions documentation. Erik
Rijkers.

- Allow REASSIGNED OWNED to handle opclasses and opfamilies.
Backpatch to 8.3, which is as far back as we have opfamilies. The
opclass portion could probably be backpatched to 8.2, when REASSIGN
OWNED was added, but for now I have not done that. Asko Tiidumaa,
with minor adjustments by me.

- Support setting the keepalive idle time on MacOS X. MacOS X uses
TCP_KEEPALIVE rather than TCP_KEEPIDLE for this purpose. Thanks to
Fujii Masao for the review.

- Make log_temp_files based on kB, and revert docs & comments to
match. Per extensive discussion on pgsql-hackers. We are
deliberately not back-patching this even though the behavior of 8.3
and 8.4 is unquestionably broken, for fear of breaking existing
users of this parameter. This incompatibility should be
release-noted.

- Add a hook in ExecCheckRTPerms(). This hook allows a loadable
module to gain control when table permissions are checked. It is
expected to be used by an eventual SE-PostgreSQL implementation, but
there are other possible applications as well. A sample contrib
module can be found in the archives at:
http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers/2010-05/msg01095.php
Robert Haas and Stephen Frost.

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/ref/psql-ref.sgml, clarify that "psql -c"
ignores psqlrc files. Tim Landscheidt

Andrew Dunstan committed:

- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/release-9.0.sgml, correct missing/misspelled
surname.

- In pgsql/src/tools/msvc/Mkvcbuild.pm, unbreak MSVC builds by
removing copydir.c from list of libpgport files

Heikki Linnakangas committed:

- stringToNode() and deparse_expression_pretty() crash on invalid
input, but we have nevertheless exposed them to users via
pg_get_expr(). It would be too much maintenance effort to
rigorously check the input, so put a hack in place instead to
restrict pg_get_expr() so that the argument must come from one of
the system catalog columns known to contain valid expressions. Per
report from Rushabh Lathia. Backpatch to 7.4 which is the oldest
supported version at the moment.

- The previous fix in CVS HEAD and 8.4 for handling the case where a
cursor being used in a PL/pgSQL FOR loop is closed was inadequate,
as Tom Lane pointed out. The bug affects FOR statement variants
too, because you can close an implicitly created cursor too by
guessing the "<unnamed portal X>" name created for it. To fix that,
"pin" the portal to prevent it from being dropped while it's being
used in a PL/pgSQL FOR loop. Backpatch all the way to 7.4 which is
the oldest supported version.

Magnus Hagander committed:

- Add support for TCP keepalives on Windows, both for backend and the
new libpq support.

- Make the Windows tcp keepalive support depend on the existance of
the SIO_KEEPALIVE_VALS define instead of just WIN32, since MingW
doesn't support this API (yet?).

Marc Fournier committed:

- tag beta3

== Rejected Patches (for now) ==

No one was disappointed this week :-)

== Pending Patches ==

Robert Haas sent in another revision of the patch to suppress
automatic recovery after backend crash. This is for a volatile
caching version of PostgreSQL.

Robert Haas sent in another revision of the patch to add
get_whatever_oid functionality.

Magnus Hagander sent in two revisions of a patch to fix keepalives on
Win32.

Robert Haas sent in a patch to implmenet a warning message in
pg_standby.

Mike Fowler sent in another revision of the xpath_exists patch.

Peter Eisentraut sent in another revision of the patch to allow server
authentication over Unix-domain sockets.

Mike Fowler sent in another revision of patch to add XMLEXISTS to the
grammar.

Robert Haas sent in two revisions of a patch to fix keepalives on OSX.

Bruce Momjian sent in a patch to show a hint only in recovery after a
crash of Hot Standby/Streaming Replication.

Fujii Masao sent in an updated patch to fix the docs re:
checkpoint_segments and keep_wal_segments for Hot Standby/Streaming
Replication.

Martin Pihlak sent in two revisions of a patch to add a GUC
log_file_mode which allows specifying the creation mode for log files.
This would enable, for example, permitting readers other than the
system PostgreSQL user to read the log files PostgreSQL generates.

Teodor Sigaev sent in a patch to implement more accurate cost
estimation function for GIN index scans.

Markus Shiltknecht sent in a patch to add a lock-based dynamic shared
memory allocator, which lets components delay memory allocation rather
than allocate all needed memory in advance.

Pavel Stehule sent in a patch to add parameters to DO statements.

Robert Haas sent in three more revisions of a patch to implement
get_whatever_oid, a refactoring which to a large extent centralizes
get_*_oid logic.

Robert Haas sent in a patch to fix log_temp_files docs and comments to
say kilobytes rather than bytes.

Greg Smith sent in another revision of the patch to make pgbench more
64-bit-clean.

ITAGAKI Takahiro sent in another revision of the patch to help make
CLUSTER behave better.

Mike Fowler sent in two more revisions of a patch to add an
xml_is_well_formed function.

Rajanikant Chirmade sent in a patch to make downcase_truncate_identifier()
multibyte-character-aware.

Pavel Stehule sent in two more revisions of the string functions for
9.1.

Robert Haas sent in another revision of the patch to include the
backend ID in relpath of temp rels.

Pavel Baros sent in another revision of the patch to add materialized
views.

Kevin Grittner sent in another revision of the patch to implement
predicate locking, in part a prerequisite for better serialization.

Robert Haas sent in a patch to slim down the representation of
numerics by about two bytes.

Zhai Boxuan sent in a patch to implement a MERGE command.

Erik Rijkers sent in a patch to fix the contrib makefile to include
the stringfunc patch.