1 <!-- doc/src/sgml/release-8.4.sgml -->
2 <!-- See header comment in release.sgml about typical markup -->
4 <sect1 id="release-8-4-16">
5 <title>Release 8.4.16</title>
8 <title>Release Date</title>
9 <simpara>2013-02-07</simpara>
13 This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.4.15.
14 For information about new features in the 8.4 major release, see
15 <xref linkend="release-8-4">.
19 <title>Migration to Version 8.4.16</title>
22 A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.4.X.
26 However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.4.10,
27 see the release notes for 8.4.10.
33 <title>Changes</title>
39 Update minimum recovery point when truncating a relation file (Heikki
44 Once data has been discarded, it's no longer safe to stop recovery at
45 an earlier point in the timeline.
51 Fix SQL grammar to allow subscripting or field selection from a
52 sub-SELECT result (Tom Lane)
58 Protect against race conditions when scanning
59 <structname>pg_tablespace</> (Stephen Frost, Tom Lane)
63 <command>CREATE DATABASE</> and <command>DROP DATABASE</> could
64 misbehave if there were concurrent updates of
65 <structname>pg_tablespace</> entries.
71 Prevent <command>DROP OWNED</> from trying to drop whole databases or
72 tablespaces (Álvaro Herrera)
76 For safety, ownership of these objects must be reassigned, not dropped.
83 linkend="guc-vacuum-freeze-table-age"><varname>vacuum_freeze_table_age</></link>
84 implementation (Andres Freund)
88 The main consequence of this mistake is that lowering <link
89 linkend="guc-vacuum-freeze-min-age"><varname>vacuum_freeze_min_age</></link>
90 would cause full-table vacuuming scans to occur much more frequently
97 Prevent misbehavior when a <symbol>RowExpr</> or <symbol>XmlExpr</>
98 is parse-analyzed twice (Andres Freund, Tom Lane)
102 This mistake could be user-visible in contexts such as
103 <literal>CREATE TABLE LIKE INCLUDING INDEXES</>.
109 Improve defenses against integer overflow in hashtable sizing
110 calculations (Jeff Davis)
116 Reject out-of-range dates in <function>to_date()</> (Hitoshi Harada)
122 Ensure that non-ASCII prompt strings are translated to the correct
123 code page on Windows (Alexander Law, Noah Misch)
127 This bug affected <application>psql</> and some other client programs.
133 Fix possible crash in <application>psql</>'s <command>\?</> command
134 when not connected to a database (Meng Qingzhong)
140 Fix one-byte buffer overrun in <application>libpq</>'s
141 <function>PQprintTuples</> (Xi Wang)
145 This ancient function is not used anywhere by
146 <productname>PostgreSQL</> itself, but it might still be used by some
153 Make <application>ecpglib</> use translated messages properly
160 Properly install <application>ecpg_compat</> and
161 <application>pgtypes</> libraries on MSVC (Jiang Guiqing)
167 Rearrange configure's tests for supplied functions so it is not
168 fooled by bogus exports from libedit/libreadline (Christoph Berg)
174 Ensure Windows build number increases over time (Magnus Hagander)
180 Make <application>pgxs</> build executables with the right
181 <literal>.exe</> suffix when cross-compiling for Windows
188 Add new timezone abbreviation <literal>FET</> (Tom Lane)
192 This is now used in some eastern-European time zones.
201 <sect1 id="release-8-4-15">
202 <title>Release 8.4.15</title>
205 <title>Release Date</title>
206 <simpara>2012-12-06</simpara>
210 This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.4.14.
211 For information about new features in the 8.4 major release, see
212 <xref linkend="release-8-4">.
216 <title>Migration to Version 8.4.15</title>
219 A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.4.X.
223 However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.4.10,
224 see the release notes for 8.4.10.
230 <title>Changes</title>
236 Fix multiple bugs associated with <command>CREATE INDEX
237 CONCURRENTLY</> (Andres Freund, Tom Lane)
241 Fix <command>CREATE INDEX CONCURRENTLY</> to use
242 in-place updates when changing the state of an index's
243 <structname>pg_index</> row. This prevents race conditions that could
244 cause concurrent sessions to miss updating the target index, thus
245 resulting in corrupt concurrently-created indexes.
249 Also, fix various other operations to ensure that they ignore
250 invalid indexes resulting from a failed <command>CREATE INDEX
251 CONCURRENTLY</> command. The most important of these is
252 <command>VACUUM</>, because an auto-vacuum could easily be launched
253 on the table before corrective action can be taken to fix or remove
260 Avoid corruption of internal hash tables when out of memory
267 Fix planning of non-strict equivalence clauses above outer joins
272 The planner could derive incorrect constraints from a clause equating
273 a non-strict construct to something else, for example
274 <literal>WHERE COALESCE(foo, 0) = 0</>
275 when <literal>foo</> is coming from the nullable side of an outer join.
281 Improve planner's ability to prove exclusion constraints from
282 equivalence classes (Tom Lane)
288 Fix partial-row matching in hashed subplans to handle cross-type cases
293 This affects multicolumn <literal>NOT IN</> subplans, such as
294 <literal>WHERE (a, b) NOT IN (SELECT x, y FROM ...)</>
295 when for instance <literal>b</> and <literal>y</> are <type>int4</>
296 and <type>int8</> respectively. This mistake led to wrong answers
297 or crashes depending on the specific datatypes involved.
303 Acquire buffer lock when re-fetching the old tuple for an
304 <literal>AFTER ROW UPDATE/DELETE</> trigger (Andres Freund)
308 In very unusual circumstances, this oversight could result in passing
309 incorrect data to the precheck logic for a foreign-key enforcement
310 trigger. That could result in a crash, or in an incorrect decision
311 about whether to fire the trigger.
317 Fix <command>ALTER COLUMN TYPE</> to handle inherited check
318 constraints properly (Pavan Deolasee)
322 This worked correctly in pre-8.4 releases, and now works correctly
329 Fix <command>REASSIGN OWNED</> to handle grants on tablespaces
330 (Álvaro Herrera)
336 Ignore incorrect <structname>pg_attribute</> entries for system
337 columns for views (Tom Lane)
341 Views do not have any system columns. However, we forgot to
342 remove such entries when converting a table to a view. That's fixed
343 properly for 9.3 and later, but in previous branches we need to defend
344 against existing mis-converted views.
350 Fix rule printing to dump <literal>INSERT INTO <replaceable>table</>
351 DEFAULT VALUES</literal> correctly (Tom Lane)
357 Guard against stack overflow when there are too many
358 <literal>UNION</>/<literal>INTERSECT</>/<literal>EXCEPT</> clauses
359 in a query (Tom Lane)
365 Prevent platform-dependent failures when dividing the minimum possible
366 integer value by -1 (Xi Wang, Tom Lane)
372 Fix possible access past end of string in date parsing
379 Produce an understandable error message if the length of the path name
380 for a Unix-domain socket exceeds the platform-specific limit
381 (Tom Lane, Andrew Dunstan)
385 Formerly, this would result in something quite unhelpful, such as
386 <quote>Non-recoverable failure in name resolution</>.
392 Fix memory leaks when sending composite column values to the client
399 Make <application>pg_ctl</> more robust about reading the
400 <filename>postmaster.pid</> file (Heikki Linnakangas)
404 Fix race conditions and possible file descriptor leakage.
410 Fix possible crash in <application>psql</> if incorrectly-encoded data
411 is presented and the <varname>client_encoding</> setting is a
412 client-only encoding, such as SJIS (Jiang Guiqing)
418 Fix bugs in the <filename>restore.sql</> script emitted by
419 <application>pg_dump</> in <literal>tar</> output format (Tom Lane)
423 The script would fail outright on tables whose names include
424 upper-case characters. Also, make the script capable of restoring
425 data in <option>--inserts</> mode as well as the regular COPY mode.
431 Fix <application>pg_restore</> to accept POSIX-conformant
432 <literal>tar</> files (Brian Weaver, Tom Lane)
436 The original coding of <application>pg_dump</>'s <literal>tar</>
437 output mode produced files that are not fully conformant with the
438 POSIX standard. This has been corrected for version 9.3. This
439 patch updates previous branches so that they will accept both the
440 incorrect and the corrected formats, in hopes of avoiding
441 compatibility problems when 9.3 comes out.
447 Fix <application>pg_resetxlog</> to locate <filename>postmaster.pid</>
448 correctly when given a relative path to the data directory (Tom Lane)
452 This mistake could lead to <application>pg_resetxlog</> not noticing
453 that there is an active postmaster using the data directory.
459 Fix <application>libpq</>'s <function>lo_import()</> and
460 <function>lo_export()</> functions to report file I/O errors properly
467 Fix <application>ecpg</>'s processing of nested structure pointer
468 variables (Muhammad Usama)
474 Make <filename>contrib/pageinspect</>'s btree page inspection
475 functions take buffer locks while examining pages (Tom Lane)
481 Fix <application>pgxs</> support for building loadable modules on AIX
486 Building modules outside the original source tree didn't work on AIX.
492 Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2012j
493 for DST law changes in Cuba, Israel, Jordan, Libya, Palestine, Western
494 Samoa, and portions of Brazil.
503 <sect1 id="release-8-4-14">
504 <title>Release 8.4.14</title>
507 <title>Release Date</title>
508 <simpara>2012-09-24</simpara>
512 This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.4.13.
513 For information about new features in the 8.4 major release, see
514 <xref linkend="release-8-4">.
518 <title>Migration to Version 8.4.14</title>
521 A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.4.X.
525 However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.4.10,
526 see the release notes for 8.4.10.
532 <title>Changes</title>
538 Fix planner's assignment of executor parameters, and fix executor's
539 rescan logic for CTE plan nodes (Tom Lane)
543 These errors could result in wrong answers from queries that scan the
544 same <literal>WITH</> subquery multiple times.
550 Improve page-splitting decisions in GiST indexes (Alexander Korotkov,
551 Robert Haas, Tom Lane)
555 Multi-column GiST indexes might suffer unexpected bloat due to this
562 Fix cascading privilege revoke to stop if privileges are still held
567 If we revoke a grant option from some role <replaceable>X</>, but
568 <replaceable>X</> still holds that option via a grant from someone
569 else, we should not recursively revoke the corresponding privilege
570 from role(s) <replaceable>Y</> that <replaceable>X</> had granted it
577 Fix handling of <literal>SIGFPE</> when PL/Perl is in use (Andres Freund)
581 Perl resets the process's <literal>SIGFPE</> handler to
582 <literal>SIG_IGN</>, which could result in crashes later on. Restore
583 the normal Postgres signal handler after initializing PL/Perl.
589 Prevent PL/Perl from crashing if a recursive PL/Perl function is
590 redefined while being executed (Tom Lane)
596 Work around possible misoptimization in PL/Perl (Tom Lane)
600 Some Linux distributions contain an incorrect version of
601 <filename>pthread.h</> that results in incorrect compiled code in
602 PL/Perl, leading to crashes if a PL/Perl function calls another one
603 that throws an error.
609 Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2012f
610 for DST law changes in Fiji
619 <sect1 id="release-8-4-13">
620 <title>Release 8.4.13</title>
623 <title>Release Date</title>
624 <simpara>2012-08-17</simpara>
628 This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.4.12.
629 For information about new features in the 8.4 major release, see
630 <xref linkend="release-8-4">.
634 <title>Migration to Version 8.4.13</title>
637 A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.4.X.
641 However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.4.10,
642 see the release notes for 8.4.10.
648 <title>Changes</title>
654 Prevent access to external files/URLs via XML entity references
655 (Noah Misch, Tom Lane)
659 <function>xml_parse()</> would attempt to fetch external files or
660 URLs as needed to resolve DTD and entity references in an XML value,
661 thus allowing unprivileged database users to attempt to fetch data
662 with the privileges of the database server. While the external data
663 wouldn't get returned directly to the user, portions of it could be
664 exposed in error messages if the data didn't parse as valid XML; and
665 in any case the mere ability to check existence of a file might be
666 useful to an attacker. (CVE-2012-3489)
672 Prevent access to external files/URLs via <filename>contrib/xml2</>'s
673 <function>xslt_process()</> (Peter Eisentraut)
677 <application>libxslt</> offers the ability to read and write both
678 files and URLs through stylesheet commands, thus allowing
679 unprivileged database users to both read and write data with the
680 privileges of the database server. Disable that through proper use
681 of <application>libxslt</>'s security options. (CVE-2012-3488)
685 Also, remove <function>xslt_process()</>'s ability to fetch documents
686 and stylesheets from external files/URLs. While this was a
687 documented <quote>feature</>, it was long regarded as a bad idea.
688 The fix for CVE-2012-3489 broke that capability, and rather than
689 expend effort on trying to fix it, we're just going to summarily
696 Prevent too-early recycling of btree index pages (Noah Misch)
700 When we allowed read-only transactions to skip assigning XIDs, we
701 introduced the possibility that a deleted btree page could be
702 recycled while a read-only transaction was still in flight to it.
703 This would result in incorrect index search results. The probability
704 of such an error occurring in the field seems very low because of the
705 timing requirements, but nonetheless it should be fixed.
711 Fix crash-safety bug with newly-created-or-reset sequences (Tom Lane)
715 If <command>ALTER SEQUENCE</> was executed on a freshly created or
716 reset sequence, and then precisely one <function>nextval()</> call
717 was made on it, and then the server crashed, WAL replay would restore
718 the sequence to a state in which it appeared that no
719 <function>nextval()</> had been done, thus allowing the first
720 sequence value to be returned again by the next
721 <function>nextval()</> call. In particular this could manifest for
722 <type>serial</> columns, since creation of a serial column's sequence
723 includes an <command>ALTER SEQUENCE OWNED BY</> step.
729 Ensure the <filename>backup_label</> file is fsync'd after
730 <function>pg_start_backup()</> (Dave Kerr)
736 Back-patch 9.1 improvement to compress the fsync request queue
741 This improves performance during checkpoints. The 9.1 change
742 has now seen enough field testing to seem safe to back-patch.
748 Only allow autovacuum to be auto-canceled by a directly blocked
753 The original coding could allow inconsistent behavior in some cases;
754 in particular, an autovacuum could get canceled after less than
755 <literal>deadlock_timeout</> grace period.
761 Improve logging of autovacuum cancels (Robert Haas)
767 Fix log collector so that <literal>log_truncate_on_rotation</> works
768 during the very first log rotation after server start (Tom Lane)
774 Fix <literal>WITH</> attached to a nested set operation
775 (<literal>UNION</>/<literal>INTERSECT</>/<literal>EXCEPT</>)
782 Ensure that a whole-row reference to a subquery doesn't include any
783 extra <literal>GROUP BY</> or <literal>ORDER BY</> columns (Tom Lane)
789 Disallow copying whole-row references in <literal>CHECK</>
790 constraints and index definitions during <command>CREATE TABLE</>
795 This situation can arise in <command>CREATE TABLE</> with
796 <literal>LIKE</> or <literal>INHERITS</>. The copied whole-row
797 variable was incorrectly labeled with the row type of the original
798 table not the new one. Rejecting the case seems reasonable for
799 <literal>LIKE</>, since the row types might well diverge later. For
800 <literal>INHERITS</> we should ideally allow it, with an implicit
801 coercion to the parent table's row type; but that will require more
802 work than seems safe to back-patch.
808 Fix memory leak in <literal>ARRAY(SELECT ...)</> subqueries (Heikki
809 Linnakangas, Tom Lane)
815 Fix extraction of common prefixes from regular expressions (Tom Lane)
819 The code could get confused by quantified parenthesized
820 subexpressions, such as <literal>^(foo)?bar</>. This would lead to
821 incorrect index optimization of searches for such patterns.
827 Fix bugs with parsing signed
828 <replaceable>hh</><literal>:</><replaceable>mm</> and
829 <replaceable>hh</><literal>:</><replaceable>mm</><literal>:</><replaceable>ss</>
830 fields in <type>interval</> constants (Amit Kapila, Tom Lane)
836 Report errors properly in <filename>contrib/xml2</>'s
837 <function>xslt_process()</> (Tom Lane)
843 Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2012e
844 for DST law changes in Morocco and Tokelau
853 <sect1 id="release-8-4-12">
854 <title>Release 8.4.12</title>
857 <title>Release Date</title>
858 <simpara>2012-06-04</simpara>
862 This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.4.11.
863 For information about new features in the 8.4 major release, see
864 <xref linkend="release-8-4">.
868 <title>Migration to Version 8.4.12</title>
871 A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.4.X.
875 However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.4.10,
876 see the release notes for 8.4.10.
882 <title>Changes</title>
888 Fix incorrect password transformation in
889 <filename>contrib/pgcrypto</>'s DES <function>crypt()</> function
894 If a password string contained the byte value <literal>0x80</>, the
895 remainder of the password was ignored, causing the password to be much
896 weaker than it appeared. With this fix, the rest of the string is
897 properly included in the DES hash. Any stored password values that are
898 affected by this bug will thus no longer match, so the stored values may
899 need to be updated. (CVE-2012-2143)
905 Ignore <literal>SECURITY DEFINER</> and <literal>SET</> attributes for
906 a procedural language's call handler (Tom Lane)
910 Applying such attributes to a call handler could crash the server.
917 Allow numeric timezone offsets in <type>timestamp</> input to be up to
918 16 hours away from UTC (Tom Lane)
922 Some historical time zones have offsets larger than 15 hours, the
923 previous limit. This could result in dumped data values being rejected
930 Fix timestamp conversion to cope when the given time is exactly the
931 last DST transition time for the current timezone (Tom Lane)
935 This oversight has been there a long time, but was not noticed
936 previously because most DST-using zones are presumed to have an
937 indefinite sequence of future DST transitions.
943 Fix <type>text</> to <type>name</> and <type>char</> to <type>name</>
944 casts to perform string truncation correctly in multibyte encodings
951 Fix memory copying bug in <function>to_tsquery()</> (Heikki Linnakangas)
957 Fix planner's handling of outer PlaceHolderVars within subqueries (Tom
962 This bug concerns sub-SELECTs that reference variables coming from the
963 nullable side of an outer join of the surrounding query.
964 In 9.1, queries affected by this bug would fail with <quote>ERROR:
965 Upper-level PlaceHolderVar found where not expected</>. But in 9.0 and
966 8.4, you'd silently get possibly-wrong answers, since the value
967 transmitted into the subquery wouldn't go to null when it should.
973 Fix slow session startup when <structname>pg_attribute</> is very large
978 If <structname>pg_attribute</> exceeds one-fourth of
979 <varname>shared_buffers</>, cache rebuilding code that is sometimes
980 needed during session start would trigger the synchronized-scan logic,
981 causing it to take many times longer than normal. The problem was
982 particularly acute if many new sessions were starting at once.
988 Ensure sequential scans check for query cancel reasonably often (Merlin
993 A scan encountering many consecutive pages that contain no live tuples
994 would not respond to interrupts meanwhile.
1000 Ensure the Windows implementation of <function>PGSemaphoreLock()</>
1001 clears <varname>ImmediateInterruptOK</> before returning (Tom Lane)
1005 This oversight meant that a query-cancel interrupt received later
1006 in the same query could be accepted at an unsafe time, with
1007 unpredictable but not good consequences.
1013 Show whole-row variables safely when printing views or rules
1014 (Abbas Butt, Tom Lane)
1018 Corner cases involving ambiguous names (that is, the name could be
1019 either a table or column name of the query) were printed in an
1020 ambiguous way, risking that the view or rule would be interpreted
1021 differently after dump and reload. Avoid the ambiguous case by
1022 attaching a no-op cast.
1028 Fix <command>COPY FROM</> to properly handle null marker strings that
1029 correspond to invalid encoding (Tom Lane)
1033 A null marker string such as <literal>E'\\0'</> should work, and did
1034 work in the past, but the case got broken in 8.4.
1040 Ensure autovacuum worker processes perform stack depth checking
1041 properly (Heikki Linnakangas)
1045 Previously, infinite recursion in a function invoked by
1046 auto-<command>ANALYZE</> could crash worker processes.
1052 Fix logging collector to not lose log coherency under high load (Andrew
1057 The collector previously could fail to reassemble large messages if it
1064 Fix logging collector to ensure it will restart file rotation
1065 after receiving <systemitem>SIGHUP</> (Tom Lane)
1071 Fix WAL replay logic for GIN indexes to not fail if the index was
1072 subsequently dropped (Tom Lane)
1078 Fix memory leak in PL/pgSQL's <command>RETURN NEXT</> command (Joe
1085 Fix PL/pgSQL's <command>GET DIAGNOSTICS</> command when the target
1086 is the function's first variable (Tom Lane)
1092 Fix potential access off the end of memory in <application>psql</>'s
1093 expanded display (<command>\x</>) mode (Peter Eisentraut)
1099 Fix several performance problems in <application>pg_dump</> when
1100 the database contains many objects (Jeff Janes, Tom Lane)
1104 <application>pg_dump</> could get very slow if the database contained
1105 many schemas, or if many objects are in dependency loops, or if there
1106 are many owned sequences.
1112 Fix <filename>contrib/dblink</>'s <function>dblink_exec()</> to not leak
1113 temporary database connections upon error (Tom Lane)
1119 Fix <filename>contrib/dblink</> to report the correct connection name in
1120 error messages (Kyotaro Horiguchi)
1126 Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2012c
1127 for DST law changes in Antarctica, Armenia, Chile, Cuba, Falkland
1128 Islands, Gaza, Haiti, Hebron, Morocco, Syria, and Tokelau Islands;
1129 also historical corrections for Canada.
1138 <sect1 id="release-8-4-11">
1139 <title>Release 8.4.11</title>
1142 <title>Release Date</title>
1143 <simpara>2012-02-27</simpara>
1147 This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.4.10.
1148 For information about new features in the 8.4 major release, see
1149 <xref linkend="release-8-4">.
1153 <title>Migration to Version 8.4.11</title>
1156 A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.4.X.
1160 However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.4.10,
1161 see the release notes for 8.4.10.
1167 <title>Changes</title>
1173 Require execute permission on the trigger function for
1174 <command>CREATE TRIGGER</> (Robert Haas)
1178 This missing check could allow another user to execute a trigger
1179 function with forged input data, by installing it on a table he owns.
1180 This is only of significance for trigger functions marked
1181 <literal>SECURITY DEFINER</>, since otherwise trigger functions run
1182 as the table owner anyway. (CVE-2012-0866)
1188 Remove arbitrary limitation on length of common name in SSL
1189 certificates (Heikki Linnakangas)
1193 Both <application>libpq</> and the server truncated the common name
1194 extracted from an SSL certificate at 32 bytes. Normally this would
1195 cause nothing worse than an unexpected verification failure, but there
1196 are some rather-implausible scenarios in which it might allow one
1197 certificate holder to impersonate another. The victim would have to
1198 have a common name exactly 32 bytes long, and the attacker would have
1199 to persuade a trusted CA to issue a certificate in which the common
1200 name has that string as a prefix. Impersonating a server would also
1201 require some additional exploit to redirect client connections.
1208 Convert newlines to spaces in names written in <application>pg_dump</>
1209 comments (Robert Haas)
1213 <application>pg_dump</> was incautious about sanitizing object names
1214 that are emitted within SQL comments in its output script. A name
1215 containing a newline would at least render the script syntactically
1216 incorrect. Maliciously crafted object names could present a SQL
1217 injection risk when the script is reloaded. (CVE-2012-0868)
1223 Fix btree index corruption from insertions concurrent with vacuuming
1228 An index page split caused by an insertion could sometimes cause a
1229 concurrently-running <command>VACUUM</> to miss removing index entries
1230 that it should remove. After the corresponding table rows are removed,
1231 the dangling index entries would cause errors (such as <quote>could not
1232 read block N in file ...</>) or worse, silently wrong query results
1233 after unrelated rows are re-inserted at the now-free table locations.
1234 This bug has been present since release 8.2, but occurs so infrequently
1235 that it was not diagnosed until now. If you have reason to suspect
1236 that it has happened in your database, reindexing the affected index
1243 Update per-column permissions, not only per-table permissions, when
1244 changing table owner (Tom Lane)
1248 Failure to do this meant that any previously granted column permissions
1249 were still shown as having been granted by the old owner. This meant
1250 that neither the new owner nor a superuser could revoke the
1251 now-untraceable-to-table-owner permissions.
1257 Allow non-existent values for some settings in <command>ALTER
1258 USER/DATABASE SET</> (Heikki Linnakangas)
1262 Allow <varname>default_text_search_config</>,
1263 <varname>default_tablespace</>, and <varname>temp_tablespaces</> to be
1264 set to names that are not known. This is because they might be known
1265 in another database where the setting is intended to be used, or for the
1266 tablespace cases because the tablespace might not be created yet. The
1267 same issue was previously recognized for <varname>search_path</>, and
1268 these settings now act like that one.
1274 Avoid crashing when we have problems deleting table files post-commit
1279 Dropping a table should lead to deleting the underlying disk files only
1280 after the transaction commits. In event of failure then (for instance,
1281 because of wrong file permissions) the code is supposed to just emit a
1282 warning message and go on, since it's too late to abort the
1283 transaction. This logic got broken as of release 8.4, causing such
1284 situations to result in a PANIC and an unrestartable database.
1290 Track the OID counter correctly during WAL replay, even when it wraps
1295 Previously the OID counter would remain stuck at a high value until the
1296 system exited replay mode. The practical consequences of that are
1297 usually nil, but there are scenarios wherein a standby server that's
1298 been promoted to master might take a long time to advance the OID
1299 counter to a reasonable value once values are needed.
1305 Fix regular expression back-references with <literal>*</> attached
1310 Rather than enforcing an exact string match, the code would effectively
1311 accept any string that satisfies the pattern sub-expression referenced
1312 by the back-reference symbol.
1316 A similar problem still afflicts back-references that are embedded in a
1317 larger quantified expression, rather than being the immediate subject
1318 of the quantifier. This will be addressed in a future
1319 <productname>PostgreSQL</> release.
1325 Fix recently-introduced memory leak in processing of
1326 <type>inet</>/<type>cidr</> values (Heikki Linnakangas)
1330 A patch in the December 2011 releases of <productname>PostgreSQL</>
1331 caused memory leakage in these operations, which could be significant
1332 in scenarios such as building a btree index on such a column.
1338 Fix dangling pointer after <command>CREATE TABLE AS</>/<command>SELECT
1339 INTO</> in a SQL-language function (Tom Lane)
1343 In most cases this only led to an assertion failure in assert-enabled
1344 builds, but worse consequences seem possible.
1350 Avoid double close of file handle in syslogger on Windows (MauMau)
1354 Ordinarily this error was invisible, but it would cause an exception
1355 when running on a debug version of Windows.
1361 Fix I/O-conversion-related memory leaks in plpgsql
1362 (Andres Freund, Jan Urbanski, Tom Lane)
1366 Certain operations would leak memory until the end of the current
1373 Improve <application>pg_dump</>'s handling of inherited table columns
1378 <application>pg_dump</> mishandled situations where a child column has
1379 a different default expression than its parent column. If the default
1380 is textually identical to the parent's default, but not actually the
1381 same (for instance, because of schema search path differences) it would
1382 not be recognized as different, so that after dump and restore the
1383 child would be allowed to inherit the parent's default. Child columns
1384 that are <literal>NOT NULL</> where their parent is not could also be
1385 restored subtly incorrectly.
1391 Fix <application>pg_restore</>'s direct-to-database mode for
1392 INSERT-style table data (Tom Lane)
1396 Direct-to-database restores from archive files made with
1397 <option>--inserts</> or <option>--column-inserts</> options fail when
1398 using <application>pg_restore</> from a release dated September or
1399 December 2011, as a result of an oversight in a fix for another
1400 problem. The archive file itself is not at fault, and text-mode
1407 Allow <literal>AT</> option in <application>ecpg</>
1408 <literal>DEALLOCATE</> statements (Michael Meskes)
1412 The infrastructure to support this has been there for awhile, but
1413 through an oversight there was still an error check rejecting the case.
1419 Fix error in <filename>contrib/intarray</>'s <literal>int[] &
1420 int[]</> operator (Guillaume Lelarge)
1424 If the smallest integer the two input arrays have in common is 1,
1425 and there are smaller values in either array, then 1 would be
1426 incorrectly omitted from the result.
1432 Fix error detection in <filename>contrib/pgcrypto</>'s
1433 <function>encrypt_iv()</> and <function>decrypt_iv()</>
1438 These functions failed to report certain types of invalid-input errors,
1439 and would instead return random garbage values for incorrect input.
1445 Fix one-byte buffer overrun in <filename>contrib/test_parser</>
1450 The code would try to read one more byte than it should, which would
1451 crash in corner cases.
1452 Since <filename>contrib/test_parser</> is only example code, this is
1453 not a security issue in itself, but bad example code is still bad.
1459 Use <function>__sync_lock_test_and_set()</> for spinlocks on ARM, if
1460 available (Martin Pitt)
1464 This function replaces our previous use of the <literal>SWPB</>
1465 instruction, which is deprecated and not available on ARMv6 and later.
1466 Reports suggest that the old code doesn't fail in an obvious way on
1467 recent ARM boards, but simply doesn't interlock concurrent accesses,
1468 leading to bizarre failures in multiprocess operation.
1474 Use <option>-fexcess-precision=standard</> option when building with
1475 gcc versions that accept it (Andrew Dunstan)
1479 This prevents assorted scenarios wherein recent versions of gcc will
1480 produce creative results.
1486 Allow use of threaded Python on FreeBSD (Chris Rees)
1490 Our configure script previously believed that this combination wouldn't
1491 work; but FreeBSD fixed the problem, so remove that error check.
1500 <sect1 id="release-8-4-10">
1501 <title>Release 8.4.10</title>
1504 <title>Release Date</title>
1505 <simpara>2011-12-05</simpara>
1509 This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.4.9.
1510 For information about new features in the 8.4 major release, see
1511 <xref linkend="release-8-4">.
1515 <title>Migration to Version 8.4.10</title>
1518 A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.4.X.
1522 However, a longstanding error was discovered in the definition of the
1523 <literal>information_schema.referential_constraints</> view. If you
1524 rely on correct results from that view, you should replace its
1525 definition as explained in the first changelog item below.
1529 Also, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.4.8,
1530 see the release notes for 8.4.8.
1536 <title>Changes</title>
1542 Fix bugs in <literal>information_schema.referential_constraints</> view
1547 This view was being insufficiently careful about matching the
1548 foreign-key constraint to the depended-on primary or unique key
1549 constraint. That could result in failure to show a foreign key
1550 constraint at all, or showing it multiple times, or claiming that it
1551 depends on a different constraint than the one it really does.
1555 Since the view definition is installed by <application>initdb</>,
1556 merely upgrading will not fix the problem. If you need to fix this
1557 in an existing installation, you can (as a superuser) drop the
1558 <literal>information_schema</> schema then re-create it by sourcing
1559 <filename><replaceable>SHAREDIR</>/information_schema.sql</filename>.
1560 (Run <literal>pg_config --sharedir</> if you're uncertain where
1561 <replaceable>SHAREDIR</> is.) This must be repeated in each database
1568 Fix incorrect replay of WAL records for GIN index updates
1573 This could result in transiently failing to find index entries after
1574 a crash, or on a hot-standby server. The problem would be repaired
1575 by the next <command>VACUUM</> of the index, however.
1581 Fix TOAST-related data corruption during <literal>CREATE TABLE dest AS
1582 SELECT * FROM src</> or <literal>INSERT INTO dest SELECT * FROM src</>
1587 If a table has been modified by <command>ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN</>,
1588 attempts to copy its data verbatim to another table could produce
1589 corrupt results in certain corner cases.
1590 The problem can only manifest in this precise form in 8.4 and later,
1591 but we patched earlier versions as well in case there are other code
1592 paths that could trigger the same bug.
1598 Fix race condition during toast table access from stale syscache entries
1603 The typical symptom was transient errors like <quote>missing chunk
1604 number 0 for toast value NNNNN in pg_toast_2619</>, where the cited
1605 toast table would always belong to a system catalog.
1611 Track dependencies of functions on items used in parameter default
1612 expressions (Tom Lane)
1616 Previously, a referenced object could be dropped without having dropped
1617 or modified the function, leading to misbehavior when the function was
1618 used. Note that merely installing this update will not fix the missing
1619 dependency entries; to do that, you'd need to <command>CREATE OR
1620 REPLACE</> each such function afterwards. If you have functions whose
1621 defaults depend on non-built-in objects, doing so is recommended.
1627 Allow inlining of set-returning SQL functions with multiple OUT
1628 parameters (Tom Lane)
1634 Make <function>DatumGetInetP()</> unpack inet datums that have a 1-byte
1635 header, and add a new macro, <function>DatumGetInetPP()</>, that does
1636 not (Heikki Linnakangas)
1640 This change affects no core code, but might prevent crashes in add-on
1641 code that expects <function>DatumGetInetP()</> to produce an unpacked
1642 datum as per usual convention.
1648 Improve locale support in <type>money</> type's input and output
1653 Aside from not supporting all standard
1654 <link linkend="guc-lc-monetary"><varname>lc_monetary</></link>
1655 formatting options, the input and output functions were inconsistent,
1656 meaning there were locales in which dumped <type>money</> values could
1664 linkend="guc-transform-null-equals"><varname>transform_null_equals</></link>
1665 affect <literal>CASE foo WHEN NULL ...</> constructs
1666 (Heikki Linnakangas)
1670 <varname>transform_null_equals</> is only supposed to affect
1671 <literal>foo = NULL</> expressions written directly by the user, not
1672 equality checks generated internally by this form of <literal>CASE</>.
1678 Change foreign-key trigger creation order to better support
1679 self-referential foreign keys (Tom Lane)
1683 For a cascading foreign key that references its own table, a row update
1684 will fire both the <literal>ON UPDATE</> trigger and the
1685 <literal>CHECK</> trigger as one event. The <literal>ON UPDATE</>
1686 trigger must execute first, else the <literal>CHECK</> will check a
1687 non-final state of the row and possibly throw an inappropriate error.
1688 However, the firing order of these triggers is determined by their
1689 names, which generally sort in creation order since the triggers have
1690 auto-generated names following the convention
1691 <quote>RI_ConstraintTrigger_NNNN</>. A proper fix would require
1692 modifying that convention, which we will do in 9.2, but it seems risky
1693 to change it in existing releases. So this patch just changes the
1694 creation order of the triggers. Users encountering this type of error
1695 should drop and re-create the foreign key constraint to get its
1696 triggers into the right order.
1702 Avoid floating-point underflow while tracking buffer allocation rate
1707 While harmless in itself, on certain platforms this would result in
1708 annoying kernel log messages.
1714 Preserve configuration file name and line number values when starting
1715 child processes under Windows (Tom Lane)
1719 Formerly, these would not be displayed correctly in the
1720 <structname>pg_settings</> view.
1726 Preserve blank lines within commands in <application>psql</>'s command
1727 history (Robert Haas)
1731 The former behavior could cause problems if an empty line was removed
1732 from within a string literal, for example.
1738 Fix <application>pg_dump</> to dump user-defined casts between
1739 auto-generated types, such as table rowtypes (Tom Lane)
1745 Use the preferred version of <application>xsubpp</> to build PL/Perl,
1746 not necessarily the operating system's main copy
1747 (David Wheeler and Alex Hunsaker)
1753 Fix incorrect coding in <filename>contrib/dict_int</> and
1754 <filename>contrib/dict_xsyn</> (Tom Lane)
1758 Some functions incorrectly assumed that memory returned by
1759 <function>palloc()</> is guaranteed zeroed.
1765 Honor query cancel interrupts promptly in <function>pgstatindex()</>
1772 Ensure VPATH builds properly install all server header files
1779 Shorten file names reported in verbose error messages (Peter Eisentraut)
1783 Regular builds have always reported just the name of the C file
1784 containing the error message call, but VPATH builds formerly
1785 reported an absolute path name.
1791 Fix interpretation of Windows timezone names for Central America
1796 Map <quote>Central America Standard Time</> to <literal>CST6</>, not
1797 <literal>CST6CDT</>, because DST is generally not observed anywhere in
1804 Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2011n
1805 for DST law changes in Brazil, Cuba, Fiji, Palestine, Russia, and Samoa;
1806 also historical corrections for Alaska and British East Africa.
1815 <sect1 id="release-8-4-9">
1816 <title>Release 8.4.9</title>
1819 <title>Release Date</title>
1820 <simpara>2011-09-26</simpara>
1824 This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.4.8.
1825 For information about new features in the 8.4 major release, see
1826 <xref linkend="release-8-4">.
1830 <title>Migration to Version 8.4.9</title>
1833 A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.4.X.
1837 However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.4.8,
1838 see the release notes for 8.4.8.
1844 <title>Changes</title>
1850 Fix bugs in indexing of in-doubt HOT-updated tuples (Tom Lane)
1854 These bugs could result in index corruption after reindexing a system
1855 catalog. They are not believed to affect user indexes.
1861 Fix multiple bugs in GiST index page split processing (Heikki
1866 The probability of occurrence was low, but these could lead to index
1873 Fix possible buffer overrun in <function>tsvector_concat()</>
1878 The function could underestimate the amount of memory needed for its
1879 result, leading to server crashes.
1885 Fix crash in <function>xml_recv</> when processing a
1886 <quote>standalone</> parameter (Tom Lane)
1892 Make <function>pg_options_to_table</> return NULL for an option with no
1897 Previously such cases would result in a server crash.
1903 Avoid possibly accessing off the end of memory in <command>ANALYZE</>
1904 and in SJIS-2004 encoding conversion (Noah Misch)
1908 This fixes some very-low-probability server crash scenarios.
1914 Prevent intermittent hang in interactions of startup process with
1915 bgwriter process (Simon Riggs)
1919 This affected recovery in non-hot-standby cases.
1925 Fix race condition in relcache init file invalidation (Tom Lane)
1929 There was a window wherein a new backend process could read a stale init
1930 file but miss the inval messages that would tell it the data is stale.
1931 The result would be bizarre failures in catalog accesses, typically
1932 <quote>could not read block 0 in file ...</> later during startup.
1938 Fix memory leak at end of a GiST index scan (Tom Lane)
1942 Commands that perform many separate GiST index scans, such as
1943 verification of a new GiST-based exclusion constraint on a table
1944 already containing many rows, could transiently require large amounts of
1945 memory due to this leak.
1951 Fix incorrect memory accounting (leading to possible memory bloat) in
1952 tuplestores supporting holdable cursors and plpgsql's <literal>RETURN
1953 NEXT</> command (Tom Lane)
1959 Fix performance problem when constructing a large, lossy bitmap
1966 Fix join selectivity estimation for unique columns (Tom Lane)
1970 This fixes an erroneous planner heuristic that could lead to poor
1971 estimates of the result size of a join.
1977 Fix nested PlaceHolderVar expressions that appear only in sub-select
1978 target lists (Tom Lane)
1982 This mistake could result in outputs of an outer join incorrectly
1989 Allow nested <literal>EXISTS</> queries to be optimized properly (Tom
1996 Fix array- and path-creating functions to ensure padding bytes are
2001 This avoids some situations where the planner will think that
2002 semantically-equal constants are not equal, resulting in poor
2009 Fix <command>EXPLAIN</> to handle gating Result nodes within
2010 inner-indexscan subplans (Tom Lane)
2014 The usual symptom of this oversight was <quote>bogus varno</> errors.
2020 Work around gcc 4.6.0 bug that breaks WAL replay (Tom Lane)
2024 This could lead to loss of committed transactions after a server crash.
2030 Fix dump bug for <literal>VALUES</> in a view (Tom Lane)
2036 Disallow <literal>SELECT FOR UPDATE/SHARE</> on sequences (Tom Lane)
2040 This operation doesn't work as expected and can lead to failures.
2046 Fix <command>VACUUM</> so that it always updates
2047 <literal>pg_class</>.<literal>reltuples</>/<literal>relpages</> (Tom
2052 This fixes some scenarios where autovacuum could make increasingly poor
2053 decisions about when to vacuum tables.
2059 Defend against integer overflow when computing size of a hash table (Tom
2066 Fix cases where <command>CLUSTER</> might attempt to access
2067 already-removed TOAST data (Tom Lane)
2073 Fix portability bugs in use of credentials control messages for
2074 <quote>peer</> authentication (Tom Lane)
2080 Fix SSPI login when multiple roundtrips are required (Ahmed Shinwari,
2085 The typical symptom of this problem was <quote>The function requested is
2086 not supported</> errors during SSPI login.
2092 Throw an error if <filename>pg_hba.conf</> contains <literal>hostssl</>
2093 but SSL is disabled (Tom Lane)
2097 This was concluded to be more user-friendly than the previous behavior
2098 of silently ignoring such lines.
2104 Fix typo in <function>pg_srand48</> seed initialization (Andres Freund)
2108 This led to failure to use all bits of the provided seed. This function
2109 is not used on most platforms (only those without <function>srandom</>),
2110 and the potential security exposure from a less-random-than-expected
2111 seed seems minimal in any case.
2117 Avoid integer overflow when the sum of <literal>LIMIT</> and
2118 <literal>OFFSET</> values exceeds 2^63 (Heikki Linnakangas)
2124 Add overflow checks to <type>int4</> and <type>int8</> versions of
2125 <function>generate_series()</> (Robert Haas)
2131 Fix trailing-zero removal in <function>to_char()</> (Marti Raudsepp)
2135 In a format with <literal>FM</> and no digit positions
2136 after the decimal point, zeroes to the left of the decimal point could
2137 be removed incorrectly.
2143 Fix <function>pg_size_pretty()</> to avoid overflow for inputs close to
2150 Weaken plpgsql's check for typmod matching in record values (Tom Lane)
2154 An overly enthusiastic check could lead to discarding length modifiers
2155 that should have been kept.
2161 Correctly handle quotes in locale names during <application>initdb</>
2162 (Heikki Linnakangas)
2166 The case can arise with some Windows locales, such as <quote>People's
2167 Republic of China</>.
2173 Fix <application>pg_upgrade</> to preserve toast tables' relfrozenxids
2174 during an upgrade from 8.3 (Bruce Momjian)
2178 Failure to do this could lead to <filename>pg_clog</> files being
2179 removed too soon after the upgrade.
2185 In <application>pg_ctl</>, support silent mode for service registrations
2192 Fix <application>psql</>'s counting of script file line numbers during
2193 <literal>COPY</> from a different file (Tom Lane)
2199 Fix <application>pg_restore</>'s direct-to-database mode for
2200 <varname>standard_conforming_strings</> (Tom Lane)
2204 <application>pg_restore</> could emit incorrect commands when restoring
2205 directly to a database server from an archive file that had been made
2206 with <varname>standard_conforming_strings</> set to <literal>on</>.
2212 Be more user-friendly about unsupported cases for parallel
2213 <application>pg_restore</> (Tom Lane)
2217 This change ensures that such cases are detected and reported before
2218 any restore actions have been taken.
2224 Fix write-past-buffer-end and memory leak in <application>libpq</>'s
2225 LDAP service lookup code (Albe Laurenz)
2231 In <application>libpq</>, avoid failures when using nonblocking I/O
2232 and an SSL connection (Martin Pihlak, Tom Lane)
2238 Improve libpq's handling of failures during connection startup
2243 In particular, the response to a server report of <function>fork()</>
2244 failure during SSL connection startup is now saner.
2250 Improve <application>libpq</>'s error reporting for SSL failures (Tom
2257 Fix <function>PQsetvalue()</> to avoid possible crash when adding a new
2258 tuple to a <structname>PGresult</> originally obtained from a server
2259 query (Andrew Chernow)
2265 Make <application>ecpglib</> write <type>double</> values with 15 digits
2266 precision (Akira Kurosawa)
2272 In <application>ecpglib</>, be sure <literal>LC_NUMERIC</> setting is
2273 restored after an error (Michael Meskes)
2279 Apply upstream fix for blowfish signed-character bug (CVE-2011-2483)
2284 <filename>contrib/pg_crypto</>'s blowfish encryption code could give
2285 wrong results on platforms where char is signed (which is most),
2286 leading to encrypted passwords being weaker than they should be.
2292 Fix memory leak in <filename>contrib/seg</> (Heikki Linnakangas)
2298 Fix <function>pgstatindex()</> to give consistent results for empty
2305 Allow building with perl 5.14 (Alex Hunsaker)
2311 Update configure script's method for probing existence of system
2312 functions (Tom Lane)
2316 The version of autoconf we used in 8.3 and 8.2 could be fooled by
2317 compilers that perform link-time optimization.
2323 Fix assorted issues with build and install file paths containing spaces
2330 Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2011i
2331 for DST law changes in Canada, Egypt, Russia, Samoa, and South Sudan.
2340 <sect1 id="release-8-4-8">
2341 <title>Release 8.4.8</title>
2344 <title>Release Date</title>
2345 <simpara>2011-04-18</simpara>
2349 This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.4.7.
2350 For information about new features in the 8.4 major release, see
2351 <xref linkend="release-8-4">.
2355 <title>Migration to Version 8.4.8</title>
2358 A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.4.X.
2362 However, if your installation was upgraded from a previous major
2363 release by running <application>pg_upgrade</>, you should take
2364 action to prevent possible data loss due to a now-fixed bug in
2365 <application>pg_upgrade</>. The recommended solution is to run
2366 <command>VACUUM FREEZE</> on all TOAST tables.
2367 More information is available at <ulink
2368 url="http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/20110408pg_upgrade_fix">
2369 http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/20110408pg_upgrade_fix</ulink>.
2373 Also, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.4.2,
2374 see the release notes for 8.4.2.
2380 <title>Changes</title>
2386 Fix <application>pg_upgrade</>'s handling of TOAST tables
2391 The <structname>pg_class</>.<structfield>relfrozenxid</> value for
2392 TOAST tables was not correctly copied into the new installation
2393 during <application>pg_upgrade</>. This could later result in
2394 <literal>pg_clog</> files being discarded while they were still
2395 needed to validate tuples in the TOAST tables, leading to
2396 <quote>could not access status of transaction</> failures.
2400 This error poses a significant risk of data loss for installations
2401 that have been upgraded with <application>pg_upgrade</>. This patch
2402 corrects the problem for future uses of <application>pg_upgrade</>,
2403 but does not in itself cure the issue in installations that have been
2404 processed with a buggy version of <application>pg_upgrade</>.
2410 Suppress incorrect <quote>PD_ALL_VISIBLE flag was incorrectly set</>
2411 warning (Heikki Linnakangas)
2415 <command>VACUUM</> would sometimes issue this warning in cases that
2422 Disallow including a composite type in itself (Tom Lane)
2426 This prevents scenarios wherein the server could recurse infinitely
2427 while processing the composite type. While there are some possible
2428 uses for such a structure, they don't seem compelling enough to
2429 justify the effort required to make sure it always works safely.
2435 Avoid potential deadlock during catalog cache initialization
2440 In some cases the cache loading code would acquire share lock on a
2441 system index before locking the index's catalog. This could deadlock
2442 against processes trying to acquire exclusive locks in the other,
2443 more standard order.
2449 Fix dangling-pointer problem in <literal>BEFORE ROW UPDATE</> trigger
2450 handling when there was a concurrent update to the target tuple
2455 This bug has been observed to result in intermittent <quote>cannot
2456 extract system attribute from virtual tuple</> failures while trying to
2457 do <literal>UPDATE RETURNING ctid</>. There is a very small probability
2458 of more serious errors, such as generating incorrect index entries for
2465 Disallow <command>DROP TABLE</> when there are pending deferred trigger
2466 events for the table (Tom Lane)
2470 Formerly the <command>DROP</> would go through, leading to
2471 <quote>could not open relation with OID nnn</> errors when the
2472 triggers were eventually fired.
2478 Prevent crash triggered by constant-false WHERE conditions during
2479 GEQO optimization (Tom Lane)
2488 Improve planner's handling of semi-join and anti-join cases
2495 Fix selectivity estimation for text search to account for NULLs
2502 Improve PL/pgSQL's ability to handle row types with dropped columns
2507 This is a back-patch of fixes previously made in 9.0.
2513 Fix PL/Python memory leak involving array slices (Daniel Popowich)
2519 Fix <application>pg_restore</> to cope with long lines (over 1KB) in
2520 TOC files (Tom Lane)
2526 Put in more safeguards against crashing due to division-by-zero
2527 with overly enthusiastic compiler optimization (Aurelien Jarno)
2533 Support use of dlopen() in FreeBSD and OpenBSD on MIPS (Tom Lane)
2537 There was a hard-wired assumption that this system function was not
2538 available on MIPS hardware on these systems. Use a compile-time test
2539 instead, since more recent versions have it.
2545 Fix compilation failures on HP-UX (Heikki Linnakangas)
2551 Fix version-incompatibility problem with <application>libintl</> on
2552 Windows (Hiroshi Inoue)
2558 Fix usage of <application>xcopy</> in Windows build scripts to
2559 work correctly under Windows 7 (Andrew Dunstan)
2563 This affects the build scripts only, not installation or usage.
2569 Fix path separator used by <application>pg_regress</> on Cygwin
2576 Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2011f
2577 for DST law changes in Chile, Cuba, Falkland Islands, Morocco, Samoa,
2578 and Turkey; also historical corrections for South Australia, Alaska,
2588 <sect1 id="release-8-4-7">
2589 <title>Release 8.4.7</title>
2592 <title>Release Date</title>
2593 <simpara>2011-01-31</simpara>
2597 This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.4.6.
2598 For information about new features in the 8.4 major release, see
2599 <xref linkend="release-8-4">.
2603 <title>Migration to Version 8.4.7</title>
2606 A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.4.X.
2607 However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.4.2,
2608 see the release notes for 8.4.2.
2614 <title>Changes</title>
2620 Avoid failures when <command>EXPLAIN</> tries to display a simple-form
2621 <literal>CASE</> expression (Tom Lane)
2625 If the <literal>CASE</>'s test expression was a constant, the planner
2626 could simplify the <literal>CASE</> into a form that confused the
2627 expression-display code, resulting in <quote>unexpected CASE WHEN
2634 Fix assignment to an array slice that is before the existing range
2635 of subscripts (Tom Lane)
2639 If there was a gap between the newly added subscripts and the first
2640 pre-existing subscript, the code miscalculated how many entries needed
2641 to be copied from the old array's null bitmap, potentially leading to
2642 data corruption or crash.
2648 Avoid unexpected conversion overflow in planner for very distant date
2653 The <type>date</> type supports a wider range of dates than can be
2654 represented by the <type>timestamp</> types, but the planner assumed it
2655 could always convert a date to timestamp with impunity.
2661 Fix <application>pg_restore</>'s text output for large objects (BLOBs)
2662 when <varname>standard_conforming_strings</> is on (Tom Lane)
2666 Although restoring directly to a database worked correctly, string
2667 escaping was incorrect if <application>pg_restore</> was asked for
2668 SQL text output and <varname>standard_conforming_strings</> had been
2669 enabled in the source database.
2675 Fix erroneous parsing of <type>tsquery</> values containing
2676 <literal>... & !(subexpression) | ...</literal> (Tom Lane)
2680 Queries containing this combination of operators were not executed
2681 correctly. The same error existed in <filename>contrib/intarray</>'s
2682 <type>query_int</> type and <filename>contrib/ltree</>'s
2683 <type>ltxtquery</> type.
2689 Fix buffer overrun in <filename>contrib/intarray</>'s input function
2690 for the <type>query_int</> type (Apple)
2694 This bug is a security risk since the function's return address could
2695 be overwritten. Thanks to Apple Inc's security team for reporting this
2696 issue and supplying the fix. (CVE-2010-4015)
2702 Fix bug in <filename>contrib/seg</>'s GiST picksplit algorithm
2703 (Alexander Korotkov)
2707 This could result in considerable inefficiency, though not actually
2708 incorrect answers, in a GiST index on a <type>seg</> column.
2709 If you have such an index, consider <command>REINDEX</>ing it after
2710 installing this update. (This is identical to the bug that was fixed in
2711 <filename>contrib/cube</> in the previous update.)
2720 <sect1 id="release-8-4-6">
2721 <title>Release 8.4.6</title>
2724 <title>Release Date</title>
2725 <simpara>2010-12-16</simpara>
2729 This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.4.5.
2730 For information about new features in the 8.4 major release, see
2731 <xref linkend="release-8-4">.
2735 <title>Migration to Version 8.4.6</title>
2738 A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.4.X.
2739 However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.4.2,
2740 see the release notes for 8.4.2.
2746 <title>Changes</title>
2753 <link linkend="guc-wal-sync-method"><varname>wal_sync_method</></link>
2754 to be <literal>fdatasync</> on Linux (Tom Lane, Marti Raudsepp)
2758 The default on Linux has actually been <literal>fdatasync</> for many
2759 years, but recent kernel changes caused <productname>PostgreSQL</> to
2760 choose <literal>open_datasync</> instead. This choice did not result
2761 in any performance improvement, and caused outright failures on
2762 certain filesystems, notably <literal>ext4</> with the
2763 <literal>data=journal</> mount option.
2769 Fix assorted bugs in WAL replay logic for GIN indexes (Tom Lane)
2773 This could result in <quote>bad buffer id: 0</> failures or
2774 corruption of index contents during replication.
2780 Fix recovery from base backup when the starting checkpoint WAL record
2781 is not in the same WAL segment as its redo point (Jeff Davis)
2787 Fix persistent slowdown of autovacuum workers when multiple workers
2788 remain active for a long time (Tom Lane)
2792 The effective <varname>vacuum_cost_limit</> for an autovacuum worker
2793 could drop to nearly zero if it processed enough tables, causing it
2794 to run extremely slowly.
2800 Add support for detecting register-stack overrun on <literal>IA64</>
2805 The <literal>IA64</> architecture has two hardware stacks. Full
2806 prevention of stack-overrun failures requires checking both.
2812 Add a check for stack overflow in <function>copyObject()</> (Tom Lane)
2816 Certain code paths could crash due to stack overflow given a
2817 sufficiently complex query.
2823 Fix detection of page splits in temporary GiST indexes (Heikki
2828 It is possible to have a <quote>concurrent</> page split in a
2829 temporary index, if for example there is an open cursor scanning the
2830 index when an insertion is done. GiST failed to detect this case and
2831 hence could deliver wrong results when execution of the cursor
2838 Fix error checking during early connection processing (Tom Lane)
2842 The check for too many child processes was skipped in some cases,
2843 possibly leading to postmaster crash when attempting to add the new
2844 child process to fixed-size arrays.
2850 Improve efficiency of window functions (Tom Lane)
2854 Certain cases where a large number of tuples needed to be read in
2855 advance, but <varname>work_mem</> was large enough to allow them all
2856 to be held in memory, were unexpectedly slow.
2857 <function>percent_rank()</>, <function>cume_dist()</> and
2858 <function>ntile()</> in particular were subject to this problem.
2864 Avoid memory leakage while <command>ANALYZE</>'ing complex index
2865 expressions (Tom Lane)
2871 Ensure an index that uses a whole-row Var still depends on its table
2876 An index declared like <literal>create index i on t (foo(t.*))</>
2877 would not automatically get dropped when its table was dropped.
2883 Do not <quote>inline</> a SQL function with multiple <literal>OUT</>
2884 parameters (Tom Lane)
2888 This avoids a possible crash due to loss of information about the
2889 expected result rowtype.
2895 Behave correctly if <literal>ORDER BY</>, <literal>LIMIT</>,
2896 <literal>FOR UPDATE</>, or <literal>WITH</> is attached to the
2897 <literal>VALUES</> part of <literal>INSERT ... VALUES</> (Tom Lane)
2903 Fix constant-folding of <literal>COALESCE()</> expressions (Tom Lane)
2907 The planner would sometimes attempt to evaluate sub-expressions that
2908 in fact could never be reached, possibly leading to unexpected errors.
2914 Fix postmaster crash when connection acceptance
2915 (<function>accept()</> or one of the calls made immediately after it)
2916 fails, and the postmaster was compiled with GSSAPI support (Alexander
2923 Fix missed unlink of temporary files when <varname>log_temp_files</>
2924 is active (Tom Lane)
2928 If an error occurred while attempting to emit the log message, the
2929 unlink was not done, resulting in accumulation of temp files.
2935 Add print functionality for <structname>InhRelation</> nodes (Tom Lane)
2939 This avoids a failure when <varname>debug_print_parse</> is enabled
2940 and certain types of query are executed.
2946 Fix incorrect calculation of distance from a point to a horizontal
2947 line segment (Tom Lane)
2951 This bug affected several different geometric distance-measurement
2958 Fix incorrect calculation of transaction status in
2959 <application>ecpg</> (Itagaki Takahiro)
2965 Fix <application>PL/pgSQL</>'s handling of <quote>simple</>
2966 expressions to not fail in recursion or error-recovery cases (Tom Lane)
2972 Fix <application>PL/Python</>'s handling of set-returning functions
2977 Attempts to call SPI functions within the iterator generating a set
2984 Fix bug in <filename>contrib/cube</>'s GiST picksplit algorithm
2985 (Alexander Korotkov)
2989 This could result in considerable inefficiency, though not actually
2990 incorrect answers, in a GiST index on a <type>cube</> column.
2991 If you have such an index, consider <command>REINDEX</>ing it after
2992 installing this update.
2998 Don't emit <quote>identifier will be truncated</> notices in
2999 <filename>contrib/dblink</> except when creating new connections
3006 Fix potential coredump on missing public key in
3007 <filename>contrib/pgcrypto</> (Marti Raudsepp)
3013 Fix memory leak in <filename>contrib/xml2</>'s XPath query functions
3020 Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2010o
3021 for DST law changes in Fiji and Samoa;
3022 also historical corrections for Hong Kong.
3031 <sect1 id="release-8-4-5">
3032 <title>Release 8.4.5</title>
3035 <title>Release Date</title>
3036 <simpara>2010-10-04</simpara>
3040 This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.4.4.
3041 For information about new features in the 8.4 major release, see
3042 <xref linkend="release-8-4">.
3046 <title>Migration to Version 8.4.5</title>
3049 A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.4.X.
3050 However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.4.2,
3051 see the release notes for 8.4.2.
3057 <title>Changes</title>
3063 Use a separate interpreter for each calling SQL userid in PL/Perl and
3068 This change prevents security problems that can be caused by subverting
3069 Perl or Tcl code that will be executed later in the same session under
3070 another SQL user identity (for example, within a <literal>SECURITY
3071 DEFINER</> function). Most scripting languages offer numerous ways that
3072 that might be done, such as redefining standard functions or operators
3073 called by the target function. Without this change, any SQL user with
3074 Perl or Tcl language usage rights can do essentially anything with the
3075 SQL privileges of the target function's owner.
3079 The cost of this change is that intentional communication among Perl
3080 and Tcl functions becomes more difficult. To provide an escape hatch,
3081 PL/PerlU and PL/TclU functions continue to use only one interpreter
3082 per session. This is not considered a security issue since all such
3083 functions execute at the trust level of a database superuser already.
3087 It is likely that third-party procedural languages that claim to offer
3088 trusted execution have similar security issues. We advise contacting
3089 the authors of any PL you are depending on for security-critical
3094 Our thanks to Tim Bunce for pointing out this issue (CVE-2010-3433).
3100 Prevent possible crashes in <function>pg_get_expr()</> by disallowing
3101 it from being called with an argument that is not one of the system
3102 catalog columns it's intended to be used with
3103 (Heikki Linnakangas, Tom Lane)
3109 Treat exit code 128 (<literal>ERROR_WAIT_NO_CHILDREN</>) as non-fatal on
3110 Windows (Magnus Hagander)
3114 Under high load, Windows processes will sometimes fail at startup with
3115 this error code. Formerly the postmaster treated this as a panic
3116 condition and restarted the whole database, but that seems to be
3123 Fix incorrect placement of placeholder evaluation (Tom Lane)
3127 This bug could result in query outputs being non-null when they
3128 should be null, in cases where the inner side of an outer join
3129 is a sub-select with non-strict expressions in its output list.
3135 Fix possible duplicate scans of <literal>UNION ALL</> member relations
3142 Fix <quote>cannot handle unplanned sub-select</quote> error (Tom Lane)
3146 This occurred when a sub-select contains a join alias reference that
3147 expands into an expression containing another sub-select.
3153 Fix mishandling of whole-row Vars that reference a view or sub-select
3154 and appear within a nested sub-select (Tom Lane)
3160 Fix mishandling of cross-type <literal>IN</> comparisons (Tom Lane)
3164 This could result in failures if the planner tried to implement an
3165 <literal>IN</> join with a sort-then-unique-then-plain-join plan.
3171 Fix computation of <command>ANALYZE</> statistics for <type>tsvector</>
3172 columns (Jan Urbanski)
3176 The original coding could produce incorrect statistics, leading to
3177 poor plan choices later.
3183 Improve planner's estimate of memory used by <function>array_agg()</>,
3184 <function>string_agg()</>, and similar aggregate functions
3189 The previous drastic underestimate could lead to out-of-memory failures
3190 due to inappropriate choice of a hash-aggregation plan.
3196 Fix failure to mark cached plans as transient (Tom Lane)
3200 If a plan is prepared while <command>CREATE INDEX CONCURRENTLY</> is
3201 in progress for one of the referenced tables, it is supposed to be
3202 re-planned once the index is ready for use. This was not happening
3209 Reduce PANIC to ERROR in some occasionally-reported btree failure cases,
3210 and provide additional detail in the resulting error messages
3215 This should improve the system's robustness with corrupted indexes.
3221 Fix incorrect search logic for partial-match queries with GIN indexes
3226 Cases involving AND/OR combination of several GIN index conditions
3227 didn't always give the right answer, and were sometimes much slower
3234 Prevent show_session_authorization() from crashing within autovacuum
3235 processes (Tom Lane)
3241 Defend against functions returning setof record where not all the
3242 returned rows are actually of the same rowtype (Tom Lane)
3248 Fix possible corruption of pending trigger event lists during
3249 subtransaction rollback (Tom Lane)
3253 This could lead to a crash or incorrect firing of triggers.
3259 Fix possible failure when hashing a pass-by-reference function result
3266 Improve merge join's handling of NULLs in the join columns (Tom Lane)
3270 A merge join can now stop entirely upon reaching the first NULL,
3271 if the sort order is such that NULLs sort high.
3277 Take care to fsync the contents of lockfiles (both
3278 <filename>postmaster.pid</> and the socket lockfile) while writing them
3283 This omission could result in corrupted lockfile contents if the
3284 machine crashes shortly after postmaster start. That could in turn
3285 prevent subsequent attempts to start the postmaster from succeeding,
3286 until the lockfile is manually removed.
3292 Avoid recursion while assigning XIDs to heavily-nested
3293 subtransactions (Andres Freund, Robert Haas)
3297 The original coding could result in a crash if there was limited
3304 Avoid holding open old WAL segments in the walwriter process
3305 (Magnus Hagander, Heikki Linnakangas)
3309 The previous coding would prevent removal of no-longer-needed segments.
3315 Fix <varname>log_line_prefix</>'s <literal>%i</> escape,
3316 which could produce junk early in backend startup (Tom Lane)
3322 Prevent misinterpretation of partially-specified relation options
3323 for TOAST tables (Itagaki Takahiro)
3327 In particular, <literal>fillfactor</> would be read as zero if any
3328 other reloption had been set for the table, leading to serious bloat.
3334 Fix inheritance count tracking in <command>ALTER TABLE ... ADD
3335 CONSTRAINT</> (Robert Haas)
3341 Fix possible data corruption in <command>ALTER TABLE ... SET
3342 TABLESPACE</> when archiving is enabled (Jeff Davis)
3348 Allow <command>CREATE DATABASE</> and <command>ALTER DATABASE ... SET
3349 TABLESPACE</> to be interrupted by query-cancel (Guillaume Lelarge)
3355 Improve <command>CREATE INDEX</>'s checking of whether proposed index
3356 expressions are immutable (Tom Lane)
3362 Fix <command>REASSIGN OWNED</> to handle operator classes and families
3369 Fix possible core dump when comparing two empty <type>tsquery</> values
3376 Fix <literal>LIKE</>'s handling of patterns containing <literal>%</>
3377 followed by <literal>_</> (Tom Lane)
3381 We've fixed this before, but there were still some incorrectly-handled
3388 Re-allow input of Julian dates prior to 0001-01-01 AD (Tom Lane)
3392 Input such as <literal>'J100000'::date</> worked before 8.4,
3393 but was unintentionally broken by added error-checking.
3399 Fix PL/pgSQL to throw an error, not crash, if a cursor is closed within
3400 a <literal>FOR</> loop that is iterating over that cursor
3401 (Heikki Linnakangas)
3407 In PL/Python, defend against null pointer results from
3408 <function>PyCObject_AsVoidPtr</> and <function>PyCObject_FromVoidPtr</>
3415 In <application>libpq</>, fix full SSL certificate verification for the
3416 case where both <literal>host</> and <literal>hostaddr</> are specified
3423 Make psql recognize <command>DISCARD ALL</> as a command that should
3424 not be encased in a transaction block in autocommit-off mode
3431 Fix some issues in <application>pg_dump</>'s handling of SQL/MED objects
3436 Notably, <application>pg_dump</> would always fail if run by a
3437 non-superuser, which was not intended.
3443 Improve <application>pg_dump</> and <application>pg_restore</>'s
3444 handling of non-seekable archive files (Tom Lane, Robert Haas)
3448 This is important for proper functioning of parallel restore.
3454 Improve parallel pg_restore's ability to cope with selective restore
3455 (<literal>-L</> option) (Tom Lane)
3459 The original code tended to fail if the <literal>-L</> file commanded
3460 a non-default restore ordering.
3466 Fix <application>ecpg</> to process data from <literal>RETURNING</>
3467 clauses correctly (Michael Meskes)
3473 Fix some memory leaks in <application>ecpg</> (Zoltan Boszormenyi)
3479 Improve <filename>contrib/dblink</>'s handling of tables containing
3480 dropped columns (Tom Lane)
3486 Fix connection leak after <quote>duplicate connection name</quote>
3487 errors in <filename>contrib/dblink</> (Itagaki Takahiro)
3493 Fix <filename>contrib/dblink</> to handle connection names longer than
3494 62 bytes correctly (Itagaki Takahiro)
3500 Add <function>hstore(text, text)</>
3501 function to <filename>contrib/hstore</> (Robert Haas)
3505 This function is the recommended substitute for the now-deprecated
3506 <literal>=></> operator. It was back-patched so that future-proofed
3507 code can be used with older server versions. Note that the patch will
3508 be effective only after <filename>contrib/hstore</> is installed or
3509 reinstalled in a particular database. Users might prefer to execute
3510 the <command>CREATE FUNCTION</> command by hand, instead.
3516 Update build infrastructure and documentation to reflect the source code
3517 repository's move from CVS to Git (Magnus Hagander and others)
3523 Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2010l
3524 for DST law changes in Egypt and Palestine; also historical corrections
3529 This change also adds new names for two Micronesian timezones:
3530 Pacific/Chuuk is now preferred over Pacific/Truk (and the preferred
3531 abbreviation is CHUT not TRUT) and Pacific/Pohnpei is preferred over
3538 Make Windows' <quote>N. Central Asia Standard Time</> timezone map to
3539 Asia/Novosibirsk, not Asia/Almaty (Magnus Hagander)
3543 Microsoft changed the DST behavior of this zone in the timezone update
3544 from KB976098. Asia/Novosibirsk is a better match to its new behavior.
3553 <sect1 id="release-8-4-4">
3554 <title>Release 8.4.4</title>
3557 <title>Release Date</title>
3558 <simpara>2010-05-17</simpara>
3562 This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.4.3.
3563 For information about new features in the 8.4 major release, see
3564 <xref linkend="release-8-4">.
3568 <title>Migration to Version 8.4.4</title>
3571 A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.4.X.
3572 However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.4.2,
3573 see the release notes for 8.4.2.
3579 <title>Changes</title>
3585 Enforce restrictions in <literal>plperl</> using an opmask applied to
3586 the whole interpreter, instead of using <filename>Safe.pm</>
3587 (Tim Bunce, Andrew Dunstan)
3591 Recent developments have convinced us that <filename>Safe.pm</> is too
3592 insecure to rely on for making <literal>plperl</> trustable. This
3593 change removes use of <filename>Safe.pm</> altogether, in favor of using
3594 a separate interpreter with an opcode mask that is always applied.
3595 Pleasant side effects of the change include that it is now possible to
3596 use Perl's <literal>strict</> pragma in a natural way in
3597 <literal>plperl</>, and that Perl's <literal>$a</> and <literal>$b</>
3598 variables work as expected in sort routines, and that function
3599 compilation is significantly faster. (CVE-2010-1169)
3605 Prevent PL/Tcl from executing untrustworthy code from
3606 <structname>pltcl_modules</> (Tom)
3610 PL/Tcl's feature for autoloading Tcl code from a database table
3611 could be exploited for trojan-horse attacks, because there was no
3612 restriction on who could create or insert into that table. This change
3613 disables the feature unless <structname>pltcl_modules</> is owned by a
3614 superuser. (However, the permissions on the table are not checked, so
3615 installations that really need a less-than-secure modules table can
3616 still grant suitable privileges to trusted non-superusers.) Also,
3617 prevent loading code into the unrestricted <quote>normal</> Tcl
3618 interpreter unless we are really going to execute a <literal>pltclu</>
3619 function. (CVE-2010-1170)
3625 Fix data corruption during WAL replay of
3626 <literal>ALTER ... SET TABLESPACE</> (Tom)
3630 When <varname>archive_mode</> is on, <literal>ALTER ... SET TABLESPACE</>
3631 generates a WAL record whose replay logic was incorrect. It could write
3632 the data to the wrong place, leading to possibly-unrecoverable data
3633 corruption. Data corruption would be observed on standby slaves, and
3634 could occur on the master as well if a database crash and recovery
3635 occurred after committing the <literal>ALTER</> and before the next
3642 Fix possible crash if a cache reset message is received during
3643 rebuild of a relcache entry (Heikki)
3647 This error was introduced in 8.4.3 while fixing a related failure.
3653 Apply per-function GUC settings while running the language validator
3654 for the function (Itagaki Takahiro)
3658 This avoids failures if the function's code is invalid without the
3659 setting; an example is that SQL functions may not parse if the
3660 <varname>search_path</> is not correct.
3666 Do constraint exclusion for inherited <command>UPDATE</> and
3667 <command>DELETE</> target tables when
3668 <varname>constraint_exclusion</> = <literal>partition</> (Tom)
3672 Due to an oversight, this setting previously only caused constraint
3673 exclusion to be checked in <command>SELECT</> commands.
3679 Do not allow an unprivileged user to reset superuser-only parameter
3684 Previously, if an unprivileged user ran <literal>ALTER USER ... RESET
3685 ALL</> for himself, or <literal>ALTER DATABASE ... RESET ALL</> for
3686 a database he owns, this would remove all special parameter settings
3687 for the user or database, even ones that are only supposed to be
3688 changeable by a superuser. Now, the <command>ALTER</> will only
3689 remove the parameters that the user has permission to change.
3695 Avoid possible crash during backend shutdown if shutdown occurs
3696 when a <literal>CONTEXT</> addition would be made to log entries (Tom)
3700 In some cases the context-printing function would fail because the
3701 current transaction had already been rolled back when it came time
3702 to print a log message.
3708 Fix erroneous handling of <literal>%r</> parameter in
3709 <varname>recovery_end_command</> (Heikki)
3713 The value always came out zero.
3719 Ensure the archiver process responds to changes in
3720 <varname>archive_command</> as soon as possible (Tom)
3726 Fix pl/pgsql's <literal>CASE</> statement to not fail when the
3727 case expression is a query that returns no rows (Tom)
3733 Update pl/perl's <filename>ppport.h</> for modern Perl versions
3740 Fix assorted memory leaks in pl/python (Andreas Freund, Tom)
3746 Handle empty-string connect parameters properly in ecpg (Michael)
3752 Prevent infinite recursion in <application>psql</> when expanding
3753 a variable that refers to itself (Tom)
3759 Fix <application>psql</>'s <literal>\copy</> to not add spaces around
3760 a dot within <literal>\copy (select ...)</> (Tom)
3764 Addition of spaces around the decimal point in a numeric literal would
3765 result in a syntax error.
3771 Avoid formatting failure in <application>psql</> when running in a
3772 locale context that doesn't match the <varname>client_encoding</>
3779 Fix unnecessary <quote>GIN indexes do not support whole-index scans</>
3780 errors for unsatisfiable queries using <filename>contrib/intarray</>
3787 Ensure that <filename>contrib/pgstattuple</> functions respond to cancel
3788 interrupts promptly (Tatsuhito Kasahara)
3794 Make server startup deal properly with the case that
3795 <function>shmget()</> returns <literal>EINVAL</> for an existing
3796 shared memory segment (Tom)
3800 This behavior has been observed on BSD-derived kernels including OS X.
3801 It resulted in an entirely-misleading startup failure complaining that
3802 the shared memory request size was too large.
3808 Avoid possible crashes in syslogger process on Windows (Heikki)
3814 Deal more robustly with incomplete time zone information in the
3815 Windows registry (Magnus)
3821 Update the set of known Windows time zone names (Magnus)
3827 Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2010j
3828 for DST law changes in Argentina, Australian Antarctic, Bangladesh,
3829 Mexico, Morocco, Pakistan, Palestine, Russia, Syria, Tunisia;
3830 also historical corrections for Taiwan.
3834 Also, add <literal>PKST</> (Pakistan Summer Time) to the default set of
3835 timezone abbreviations.
3844 <sect1 id="release-8-4-3">
3845 <title>Release 8.4.3</title>
3848 <title>Release Date</title>
3849 <simpara>2010-03-15</simpara>
3853 This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.4.2.
3854 For information about new features in the 8.4 major release, see
3855 <xref linkend="release-8-4">.
3859 <title>Migration to Version 8.4.3</title>
3862 A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.4.X.
3863 However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.4.2,
3864 see the release notes for 8.4.2.
3870 <title>Changes</title>
3876 Add new configuration parameter <varname>ssl_renegotiation_limit</> to
3877 control how often we do session key renegotiation for an SSL connection
3882 This can be set to zero to disable renegotiation completely, which may
3883 be required if a broken SSL library is used. In particular, some
3884 vendors are shipping stopgap patches for CVE-2009-3555 that cause
3885 renegotiation attempts to fail.
3891 Fix possible deadlock during backend startup (Tom)
3897 Fix possible crashes due to not handling errors during relcache reload
3904 Fix possible crash due to use of dangling pointer to a cached plan
3911 Fix possible crash due to overenthusiastic invalidation of cached
3912 plan for <command>ROLLBACK</> (Tom)
3918 Fix possible crashes when trying to recover from a failure in
3919 subtransaction start (Tom)
3925 Fix server memory leak associated with use of savepoints and a client
3926 encoding different from server's encoding (Tom)
3932 Fix incorrect WAL data emitted during end-of-recovery cleanup of a GIST
3933 index page split (Yoichi Hirai)
3937 This would result in index corruption, or even more likely an error
3938 during WAL replay, if we were unlucky enough to crash during
3939 end-of-recovery cleanup after having completed an incomplete GIST
3946 Fix bug in WAL redo cleanup method for GIN indexes (Heikki)
3952 Fix incorrect comparison of scan key in GIN index search (Teodor)
3958 Make <function>substring()</> for <type>bit</> types treat any negative
3959 length as meaning <quote>all the rest of the string</> (Tom)
3963 The previous coding treated only -1 that way, and would produce an
3964 invalid result value for other negative values, possibly leading to
3965 a crash (CVE-2010-0442).
3971 Fix integer-to-bit-string conversions to handle the first fractional
3972 byte correctly when the output bit width is wider than the given
3973 integer by something other than a multiple of 8 bits (Tom)
3979 Fix some cases of pathologically slow regular expression matching (Tom)
3985 Fix bug occurring when trying to inline a SQL function that returns
3986 a set of a composite type that contains dropped columns (Tom)
3992 Fix bug with trying to update a field of an element of a
3993 composite-type array column (Tom)
3999 Avoid failure when <command>EXPLAIN</> has to print a FieldStore or
4000 assignment ArrayRef expression (Tom)
4004 These cases can arise now that <command>EXPLAIN VERBOSE</> tries to
4005 print plan node target lists.
4011 Avoid an unnecessary coercion failure in some cases where an undecorated
4012 literal string appears in a subquery within
4013 <command>UNION</>/<command>INTERSECT</>/<command>EXCEPT</> (Tom)
4017 This fixes a regression for some cases that worked before 8.4.
4023 Avoid undesirable rowtype compatibility check failures in some cases
4024 where a whole-row Var has a rowtype that contains dropped columns (Tom)
4030 Fix the <literal>STOP WAL LOCATION</> entry in backup history files to
4031 report the next WAL segment's name when the end location is exactly at a
4032 segment boundary (Itagaki Takahiro)
4038 Always pass the catalog ID to an option validator function specified in
4039 <command>CREATE FOREIGN DATA WRAPPER</> (Martin Pihlak)
4045 Fix some more cases of temporary-file leakage (Heikki)
4049 This corrects a problem introduced in the previous minor release.
4050 One case that failed is when a plpgsql function returning set is
4051 called within another function's exception handler.
4057 Add support for doing <literal>FULL JOIN ON FALSE</> (Tom)
4061 This prevents a regression from pre-8.4 releases for some queries that
4062 can now be simplified to a constant-false join condition.
4068 Improve constraint exclusion processing of boolean-variable cases,
4069 in particular make it possible to exclude a partition that has a
4070 <quote>bool_column = false</> constraint (Tom)
4076 Prevent treating an <literal>INOUT</> cast as representing binary
4077 compatibility (Heikki)
4083 Include column name in the message when warning about inability to
4084 grant or revoke column-level privileges (Stephen Frost)
4088 This is more useful than before and helps to prevent confusion when
4089 a <command>REVOKE</> generates multiple messages, which formerly
4090 appeared to be duplicates.
4096 When reading <filename>pg_hba.conf</> and related files, do not treat
4097 <literal>@something</> as a file inclusion request if the <literal>@</>
4098 appears inside quote marks; also, never treat <literal>@</> by itself
4099 as a file inclusion request (Tom)
4103 This prevents erratic behavior if a role or database name starts with
4104 <literal>@</>. If you need to include a file whose path name
4105 contains spaces, you can still do so, but you must write
4106 <literal>@"/path to/file"</> rather than putting the quotes around
4107 the whole construct.
4113 Prevent infinite loop on some platforms if a directory is named as
4114 an inclusion target in <filename>pg_hba.conf</> and related files
4121 Fix possible infinite loop if <function>SSL_read</> or
4122 <function>SSL_write</> fails without setting <varname>errno</> (Tom)
4126 This is reportedly possible with some Windows versions of
4127 <application>openssl</>.
4133 Disallow <acronym>GSSAPI</> authentication on local connections,
4134 since it requires a hostname to function correctly (Magnus)
4140 Protect <application>ecpg</> against applications freeing strings
4141 unexpectedly (Michael)
4147 Make <application>ecpg</> report the proper SQLSTATE if the connection
4148 disappears (Michael)
4154 Fix translation of cell contents in <application>psql</> <literal>\d</>
4161 Fix <application>psql</>'s <literal>numericlocale</> option to not
4162 format strings it shouldn't in latex and troff output formats (Heikki)
4168 Fix a small per-query memory leak in <application>psql</> (Tom)
4174 Make <application>psql</> return the correct exit status (3) when
4175 <literal>ON_ERROR_STOP</> and <literal>--single-transaction</> are
4176 both specified and an error occurs during the implied <command>COMMIT</>
4183 Fix <application>pg_dump</>'s output of permissions for foreign servers
4190 Fix possible crash in parallel <application>pg_restore</> due to
4191 out-of-range dependency IDs (Tom)
4197 Fix plpgsql failure in one case where a composite column is set to NULL
4204 Fix possible failure when calling PL/Perl functions from PL/PerlU
4205 or vice versa (Tim Bunce)
4211 Add <literal>volatile</> markings in PL/Python to avoid possible
4212 compiler-specific misbehavior (Zdenek Kotala)
4218 Ensure PL/Tcl initializes the Tcl interpreter fully (Tom)
4222 The only known symptom of this oversight is that the Tcl
4223 <literal>clock</> command misbehaves if using Tcl 8.5 or later.
4229 Prevent <function>ExecutorEnd</> from being run on portals created
4230 within a failed transaction or subtransaction (Tom)
4234 This is known to cause issues when using
4235 <filename>contrib/auto_explain</>.
4241 Prevent crash in <filename>contrib/dblink</> when too many key
4242 columns are specified to a <function>dblink_build_sql_*</> function
4243 (Rushabh Lathia, Joe Conway)
4249 Allow zero-dimensional arrays in <filename>contrib/ltree</> operations
4254 This case was formerly rejected as an error, but it's more convenient to
4255 treat it the same as a zero-element array. In particular this avoids
4256 unnecessary failures when an <type>ltree</> operation is applied to the
4257 result of <literal>ARRAY(SELECT ...)</> and the sub-select returns no
4264 Fix assorted crashes in <filename>contrib/xml2</> caused by sloppy
4265 memory management (Tom)
4271 Make building of <filename>contrib/xml2</> more robust on Windows
4278 Fix race condition in Windows signal handling (Radu Ilie)
4282 One known symptom of this bug is that rows in <structname>pg_listener</>
4283 could be dropped under heavy load.
4289 Make the configure script report failure if the C compiler does
4290 not provide a working 64-bit integer datatype (Tom)
4294 This case has been broken for some time, and no longer seems worth
4295 supporting, so just reject it at configure time instead.
4301 Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2010e
4302 for DST law changes in Bangladesh, Chile, Fiji, Mexico, Paraguay, Samoa.
4311 <sect1 id="release-8-4-2">
4312 <title>Release 8.4.2</title>
4315 <title>Release Date</title>
4316 <simpara>2009-12-14</simpara>
4320 This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.4.1.
4321 For information about new features in the 8.4 major release, see
4322 <xref linkend="release-8-4">.
4326 <title>Migration to Version 8.4.2</title>
4329 A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.4.X.
4330 However, if you have any hash indexes,
4331 you should <command>REINDEX</> them after updating to 8.4.2,
4332 to repair possible damage.
4338 <title>Changes</title>
4344 Protect against indirect security threats caused by index functions
4345 changing session-local state (Gurjeet Singh, Tom)
4349 This change prevents allegedly-immutable index functions from possibly
4350 subverting a superuser's session (CVE-2009-4136).
4356 Reject SSL certificates containing an embedded null byte in the common
4357 name (CN) field (Magnus)
4361 This prevents unintended matching of a certificate to a server or client
4362 name during SSL validation (CVE-2009-4034).
4368 Fix hash index corruption (Tom)
4372 The 8.4 change that made hash indexes keep entries sorted by hash value
4373 failed to update the bucket splitting and compaction routines to
4374 preserve the ordering. So application of either of those operations
4375 could lead to permanent corruption of an index, in the sense that
4376 searches might fail to find entries that are present. To deal with
4377 this, it is recommended to <literal>REINDEX</> any hash indexes you may
4378 have after installing this update.
4384 Fix possible crash during backend-startup-time cache initialization (Tom)
4390 Avoid crash on empty thesaurus dictionary (Tom)
4396 Prevent signals from interrupting <literal>VACUUM</> at unsafe times
4401 This fix prevents a PANIC if a <literal>VACUUM FULL</> is canceled
4402 after it's already committed its tuple movements, as well as transient
4403 errors if a plain <literal>VACUUM</> is interrupted after having
4404 truncated the table.
4410 Fix possible crash due to integer overflow in hash table size
4415 This could occur with extremely large planner estimates for the size of
4416 a hashjoin's result.
4422 Fix crash if a <literal>DROP</> is attempted on an internally-dependent
4429 Fix very rare crash in <type>inet</>/<type>cidr</> comparisons (Chris
4436 Ensure that shared tuple-level locks held by prepared transactions are
4437 not ignored (Heikki)
4443 Fix premature drop of temporary files used for a cursor that is accessed
4444 within a subtransaction (Heikki)
4450 Fix memory leak in syslogger process when rotating to a new CSV logfile
4457 Fix memory leak in postmaster when re-parsing <filename>pg_hba.conf</>
4464 Fix Windows permission-downgrade logic (Jesse Morris)
4468 This fixes some cases where the database failed to start on Windows,
4469 often with misleading error messages such as <quote>could not locate
4470 matching postgres executable</quote>.
4476 Make <literal>FOR UPDATE/SHARE</> in the primary query not propagate
4477 into <literal>WITH</> queries (Tom)
4483 WITH w AS (SELECT * FROM foo) SELECT * FROM w, bar ... FOR UPDATE
4485 the <literal>FOR UPDATE</> will now affect <literal>bar</> but not
4486 <literal>foo</>. This is more useful and consistent than the original
4487 8.4 behavior, which tried to propagate <literal>FOR UPDATE</> into the
4488 <literal>WITH</> query but always failed due to assorted implementation
4489 restrictions. It also follows the design rule that <literal>WITH</>
4490 queries are executed as if independent of the main query.
4496 Fix bug with a <literal>WITH RECURSIVE</> query immediately inside
4503 Fix concurrency bug in hash indexes (Tom)
4507 Concurrent insertions could cause index scans to transiently report
4514 Fix incorrect logic for GiST index page splits, when the split depends
4515 on a non-first column of the index (Paul Ramsey)
4521 Fix wrong search results for a multi-column GIN index with
4522 <literal>fastupdate</> enabled (Teodor)
4528 Fix bugs in WAL entry creation for GIN indexes (Tom)
4532 These bugs were masked when <varname>full_page_writes</> was on, but
4533 with it off a WAL replay failure was certain if a crash occurred before
4534 the next checkpoint.
4540 Don't error out if recycling or removing an old WAL file fails at the
4541 end of checkpoint (Heikki)
4545 It's better to treat the problem as non-fatal and allow the checkpoint
4546 to complete. Future checkpoints will retry the removal. Such problems
4547 are not expected in normal operation, but have been seen to be
4548 caused by misdesigned Windows anti-virus and backup software.
4554 Ensure WAL files aren't repeatedly archived on Windows (Heikki)
4558 This is another symptom that could happen if some other process
4559 interfered with deletion of a no-longer-needed file.
4565 Fix PAM password processing to be more robust (Tom)
4569 The previous code is known to fail with the combination of the Linux
4570 <literal>pam_krb5</> PAM module with Microsoft Active Directory as the
4571 domain controller. It might have problems elsewhere too, since it was
4572 making unjustified assumptions about what arguments the PAM stack would
4579 Raise the maximum authentication token (Kerberos ticket) size in GSSAPI
4580 and SSPI authentication methods (Ian Turner)
4584 While the old 2000-byte limit was more than enough for Unix Kerberos
4585 implementations, tickets issued by Windows Domain Controllers can be
4592 Ensure that domain constraints are enforced in constructs like
4593 <literal>ARRAY[...]::domain</>, where the domain is over an array type
4600 Fix foreign-key logic for some cases involving composite-type columns
4601 as foreign keys (Tom)
4607 Ensure that a cursor's snapshot is not modified after it is created
4612 This could lead to a cursor delivering wrong results if later operations
4613 in the same transaction modify the data the cursor is supposed to return.
4619 Fix <literal>CREATE TABLE</> to properly merge default expressions
4620 coming from different inheritance parent tables (Tom)
4624 This used to work but was broken in 8.4.
4630 Re-enable collection of access statistics for sequences (Akira Kurosawa)
4634 This used to work but was broken in 8.3.
4640 Fix processing of ownership dependencies during <literal>CREATE OR
4641 REPLACE FUNCTION</> (Tom)
4647 Fix incorrect handling of <literal>WHERE</>
4648 <replaceable>x</>=<replaceable>x</> conditions (Tom)
4652 In some cases these could get ignored as redundant, but they aren't
4653 — they're equivalent to <replaceable>x</> <literal>IS NOT NULL</>.
4659 Fix incorrect plan construction when using hash aggregation to implement
4660 <literal>DISTINCT</> for textually identical volatile expressions (Tom)
4666 Fix Assert failure for a volatile <literal>SELECT DISTINCT ON</>
4673 Fix <function>ts_stat()</> to not fail on an empty <type>tsvector</>
4680 Make text search parser accept underscores in XML attributes (Peter)
4686 Fix encoding handling in <type>xml</> binary input (Heikki)
4690 If the XML header doesn't specify an encoding, we now assume UTF-8 by
4691 default; the previous handling was inconsistent.
4697 Fix bug with calling <literal>plperl</> from <literal>plperlu</> or vice
4702 An error exit from the inner function could result in crashes due to
4703 failure to re-select the correct Perl interpreter for the outer function.
4709 Fix session-lifespan memory leak when a PL/Perl function is redefined
4716 Ensure that Perl arrays are properly converted to
4717 <productname>PostgreSQL</> arrays when returned by a set-returning
4718 PL/Perl function (Andrew Dunstan, Abhijit Menon-Sen)
4722 This worked correctly already for non-set-returning functions.
4728 Fix rare crash in exception processing in PL/Python (Peter)
4734 Fix <application>ecpg</> problem with comments in <literal>DECLARE
4735 CURSOR</> statements (Michael)
4741 Fix <application>ecpg</> to not treat recently-added keywords as
4742 reserved words (Tom)
4746 This affected the keywords <literal>CALLED</>, <literal>CATALOG</>,
4747 <literal>DEFINER</>, <literal>ENUM</>, <literal>FOLLOWING</>,
4748 <literal>INVOKER</>, <literal>OPTIONS</>, <literal>PARTITION</>,
4749 <literal>PRECEDING</>, <literal>RANGE</>, <literal>SECURITY</>,
4750 <literal>SERVER</>, <literal>UNBOUNDED</>, and <literal>WRAPPER</>.
4756 Re-allow regular expression special characters in <application>psql</>'s
4757 <literal>\df</> function name parameter (Tom)
4763 In <filename>contrib/fuzzystrmatch</>, correct the calculation of
4764 <function>levenshtein</> distances with non-default costs (Marcin Mank)
4770 In <filename>contrib/pg_standby</>, disable triggering failover with a
4771 signal on Windows (Fujii Masao)
4775 This never did anything useful, because Windows doesn't have Unix-style
4776 signals, but recent changes made it actually crash.
4782 Put <literal>FREEZE</> and <literal>VERBOSE</> options in the right
4783 order in the <literal>VACUUM</> command that
4784 <filename>contrib/vacuumdb</> produces (Heikki)
4790 Fix possible leak of connections when <filename>contrib/dblink</>
4791 encounters an error (Tatsuhito Kasahara)
4797 Ensure <application>psql</>'s flex module is compiled with the correct
4798 system header definitions (Tom)
4802 This fixes build failures on platforms where
4803 <literal>--enable-largefile</> causes incompatible changes in the
4810 Make the postmaster ignore any <literal>application_name</> parameter in
4811 connection request packets, to improve compatibility with future libpq
4818 Update the timezone abbreviation files to match current reality (Joachim
4823 This includes adding <literal>IDT</> to the default
4824 timezone abbreviation set.
4830 Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2009s
4831 for DST law changes in Antarctica, Argentina, Bangladesh, Fiji,
4832 Novokuznetsk, Pakistan, Palestine, Samoa, Syria; also historical
4833 corrections for Hong Kong.
4842 <sect1 id="release-8-4-1">
4843 <title>Release 8.4.1</title>
4846 <title>Release Date</title>
4847 <simpara>2009-09-09</simpara>
4851 This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.4.
4852 For information about new features in the 8.4 major release, see
4853 <xref linkend="release-8-4">.
4857 <title>Migration to Version 8.4.1</title>
4860 A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.4.X.
4866 <title>Changes</title>
4872 Fix WAL page header initialization at the end of archive recovery
4877 This could lead to failure to process the WAL in a subsequent
4884 Fix <quote>cannot make new WAL entries during recovery</> error (Tom)
4890 Fix problem that could make expired rows visible after a crash (Tom)
4894 This bug involved a page status bit potentially not being set
4895 correctly after a server crash.
4901 Disallow <command>RESET ROLE</> and <command>RESET SESSION
4902 AUTHORIZATION</> inside security-definer functions (Tom, Heikki)
4906 This covers a case that was missed in the previous patch that
4907 disallowed <command>SET ROLE</> and <command>SET SESSION
4908 AUTHORIZATION</> inside security-definer functions.
4915 Make <command>LOAD</> of an already-loaded loadable module
4920 Formerly, <command>LOAD</> would attempt to unload and re-load the
4921 module, but this is unsafe and not all that useful.
4927 Make window function <literal>PARTITION BY</> and <literal>ORDER BY</>
4928 items always be interpreted as simple expressions (Tom)
4932 In 8.4.0 these lists were parsed following the rules used for
4933 top-level <literal>GROUP BY</> and <literal>ORDER BY</> lists.
4934 But this was not correct per the SQL standard, and it led to possible
4941 Fix several errors in planning of semi-joins (Tom)
4945 These led to wrong query results in some cases where <literal>IN</>
4946 or <literal>EXISTS</> was used together with another join.
4952 Fix handling of whole-row references to subqueries that are within
4958 <literal>SELECT COUNT(ss.*) FROM ... LEFT JOIN (SELECT ...) ss ON ...</>.
4959 Here, <literal>ss.*</> would be treated as <literal>ROW(NULL,NULL,...)</>
4960 for null-extended join rows, which is not the same as a simple NULL.
4961 Now it is treated as a simple NULL.
4967 Fix Windows shared-memory allocation code (Tsutomu Yamada, Magnus)
4971 This bug led to the often-reported <quote>could not reattach
4972 to shared memory</> error message.
4978 Fix locale handling with plperl (Heikki)
4982 This bug could cause the server's locale setting to change when a
4983 plperl function is called, leading to data corruption.
4989 Fix handling of reloptions to ensure setting one option doesn't
4990 force default values for others (Itagaki Takahiro)
4996 Ensure that a <quote>fast shutdown</> request will forcibly terminate
4997 open sessions, even if a <quote>smart shutdown</> was already in progress
5004 Avoid memory leak for <function>array_agg()</> in <literal>GROUP BY</>
5011 Treat <function>to_char(..., 'TH')</> as an uppercase ordinal
5012 suffix with <literal>'HH'</>/<literal>'HH12'</> (Heikki)
5016 It was previously handled as <literal>'th'</> (lowercase).
5022 Include the fractional part in the result of
5023 <function>EXTRACT(second)</> and
5024 <function>EXTRACT(milliseconds)</> for
5025 <type>time</> and <type>time with time zone</> inputs (Tom)
5029 This has always worked for floating-point datetime configurations,
5030 but was broken in the integer datetime code.
5036 Fix overflow for <literal>INTERVAL '<replaceable>x</> ms'</literal>
5037 when <replaceable>x</> is more than 2 million and integer
5038 datetimes are in use (Alex Hunsaker)
5044 Improve performance when processing toasted values in index scans (Tom)
5048 This is particularly useful for <ulink
5049 url="http://postgis.refractions.net/">PostGIS</ulink>.
5055 Fix a typo that disabled <varname>commit_delay</> (Jeff Janes)
5061 Output early-startup messages to <filename>postmaster.log</> if the
5062 server is started in silent mode (Tom)
5066 Previously such error messages were discarded, leading to
5067 difficulty in debugging.
5073 Remove translated FAQs (Peter)
5077 They are now on the <ulink
5078 url="http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/FAQ">wiki</ulink>. The
5079 main FAQ was moved to the wiki some time ago.
5085 Fix <application>pg_ctl</> to not go into an infinite loop if
5086 <filename>postgresql.conf</> is empty (Jeff Davis)
5092 Fix several errors in <application>pg_dump</>'s
5093 <literal>--binary-upgrade</> mode (Bruce, Tom)
5097 <literal>pg_dump --binary-upgrade</> is used by pg_migrator.
5103 Fix <filename>contrib/xml2</>'s <function>xslt_process()</> to
5104 properly handle the maximum number of parameters (twenty) (Tom)
5110 Improve robustness of <application>libpq</>'s code to recover
5111 from errors during <command>COPY FROM STDIN</> (Tom)
5117 Avoid including conflicting readline and editline header files
5118 when both libraries are installed (Zdenek Kotala)
5124 Work around gcc bug that causes <quote>floating-point exception</>
5125 instead of <quote>division by zero</> on some platforms (Tom)
5131 Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2009l
5132 for DST law changes in Bangladesh, Egypt, Mauritius.
5141 <sect1 id="release-8-4">
5142 <title>Release 8.4</title>
5145 <title>Release Date</title>
5146 <simpara>2009-07-01</simpara>
5150 <title>Overview</title>
5153 After many years of development, <productname>PostgreSQL</> has
5154 become feature-complete in many areas. This release shows a
5155 targeted approach to adding features (e.g., authentication,
5156 monitoring, space reuse), and adds capabilities defined in the
5157 later SQL standards. The major areas of enhancement are:
5162 <!-- This list duplicates items below, but without authors or details-->
5172 Common Table Expressions and Recursive Queries
5178 Default and variadic parameters for functions
5196 Per-database locale settings
5202 Improved hash indexes
5208 Improved join performance for <literal>EXISTS</> and <literal>NOT EXISTS</> queries
5214 Easier-to-use Warm Standby
5220 Automatic sizing of the Free Space Map
5226 Visibility Map (greatly reduces vacuum overhead for slowly-changing tables)
5232 Version-aware psql (backslash commands work against older servers)
5238 Support SSL certificates for user authentication
5244 Per-function runtime statistics
5250 Easy editing of functions in psql
5256 New contrib modules: pg_stat_statements, auto_explain, citext, btree_gin
5263 The above items are explained in more detail in the sections below.
5269 <title>Migration to Version 8.4</title>
5272 A dump/restore using <application>pg_dump</application> is
5273 required for those wishing to migrate data from any previous
5278 Observe the following incompatibilities:
5282 <title>General</title>
5287 Use 64-bit integer datetimes by default (Neil Conway)
5291 Previously this was selected by <application>configure</>'s
5292 <option>--enable-integer-datetimes</> option. To retain
5293 the old behavior, build with <option>--disable-integer-datetimes</>.
5299 Remove <application>ipcclean</> utility command (Bruce)
5303 The utility only worked on a few platforms. Users should use
5304 their operating system tools instead.
5313 <title>Server Settings</title>
5318 Change default setting for
5319 <literal>log_min_messages</> to <literal>warning</> (previously
5320 it was <literal>notice</>) to reduce log file volume (Tom)
5326 Change default setting for <literal>max_prepared_transactions</> to
5327 zero (previously it was 5) (Tom)
5333 Make <literal>debug_print_parse</>, <literal>debug_print_rewritten</>,
5334 and <literal>debug_print_plan</>
5335 output appear at <literal>LOG</> message level, not
5336 <literal>DEBUG1</> as formerly (Tom)
5342 Make <literal>debug_pretty_print</> default to <literal>on</> (Tom)
5348 Remove <varname>explain_pretty_print</> parameter (no longer needed) (Tom)
5354 Make <varname>log_temp_files</> settable by superusers only, like other
5355 logging options (Simon Riggs)
5361 Remove automatic appending of the epoch timestamp when no <literal>%</>
5362 escapes are present in <literal>log_filename</> (Robert Haas)
5366 This change was made because some users wanted a fixed log filename,
5367 for use with an external log rotation tool.
5373 Remove <varname>log_restartpoints</> from <filename>recovery.conf</>;
5374 instead use <varname>log_checkpoints</> (Simon)
5380 Remove <varname>krb_realm</> and <varname>krb_server_hostname</>;
5381 these are now set in <filename>pg_hba.conf</> instead (Magnus)
5387 There are also significant changes in <link
5388 linkend="release-8-4-pg-hba-conf"><filename>pg_hba.conf</></link>,
5398 <title>Queries</title>
5404 Change <command>TRUNCATE</> and <command>LOCK</> to
5405 apply to child tables of the specified table(s) (Peter)
5409 These commands now accept an <literal>ONLY</> option that prevents
5410 processing child tables; this option must be used if the old
5417 <command>SELECT DISTINCT</> and
5418 <literal>UNION</>/<literal>INTERSECT</>/<literal>EXCEPT</>
5419 no longer always produce sorted output (Tom)
5423 Previously, these types of queries always removed duplicate rows
5424 by means of Sort/Unique processing (i.e., sort then remove adjacent
5425 duplicates). Now they can be implemented by hashing, which will not
5426 produce sorted output. If an application relied on the output being
5427 in sorted order, the recommended fix is to add an <literal>ORDER BY</>
5428 clause. As a short-term workaround, the previous behavior can be
5429 restored by disabling <literal>enable_hashagg</>, but that is a very
5430 performance-expensive fix. <literal>SELECT DISTINCT ON</> never uses
5431 hashing, however, so its behavior is unchanged.
5437 Force child tables to inherit <literal>CHECK</> constraints from parents
5438 (Alex Hunsaker, Nikhil Sontakke, Tom)
5442 Formerly it was possible to drop such a constraint from a child
5443 table, allowing rows that violate the constraint to be visible
5444 when scanning the parent table. This was deemed inconsistent,
5445 as well as contrary to SQL standard.
5451 Disallow negative <literal>LIMIT</> or <literal>OFFSET</>
5452 values, rather than treating them as zero (Simon)
5458 Disallow <command>LOCK TABLE</> outside a transaction block
5463 Such an operation is useless because the lock would be released
5470 Sequences now contain an additional <structfield>start_value</> column
5471 (Zoltan Boszormenyi)
5475 This supports <command>ALTER SEQUENCE ... RESTART</>.
5485 <title>Functions and Operators</title>
5491 Make <type>numeric</> zero raised to a fractional power return
5492 <literal>0</>, rather than throwing an error, and make
5493 <type>numeric</> zero raised to the zero power return <literal>1</>,
5494 rather than error (Bruce)
5498 This matches the longstanding <type>float8</> behavior.
5504 Allow unary minus of floating-point values to produce minus zero (Tom)
5508 The changed behavior is more <acronym>IEEE</>-standard
5515 Throw an error if an escape character is the last character in
5516 a <literal>LIKE</> pattern (i.e., it has nothing to escape) (Tom)
5520 Previously, such an escape character was silently ignored,
5521 thus possibly masking application logic errors.
5527 Remove <literal>~=~</> and <literal>~<>~</> operators
5528 formerly used for <literal>LIKE</> index comparisons (Tom)
5532 Pattern indexes now use the regular equality operator.
5538 <function>xpath()</> now passes its arguments to <application>libxml</>
5539 without any changes (Andrew)
5543 This means that the XML argument must be a well-formed XML document.
5544 The previous coding attempted to allow XML fragments, but it did not
5551 Make <function>xmlelement()</> format attribute values just like
5552 content values (Peter)
5556 Previously, attribute values were formatted according to the
5557 normal SQL output behavior, which is sometimes at odds with
5564 Rewrite memory management for <application>libxml</>-using functions
5569 This change should avoid some compatibility problems with use of
5570 <application>libxml</> in PL/Perl and other add-on code.
5576 Adopt a faster algorithm for hash functions (Kenneth Marshall,
5577 based on work of Bob Jenkins)
5581 Many of the built-in hash functions now deliver different results on
5582 little-endian and big-endian platforms.
5589 <title>Temporal Functions and Operators</title>
5595 <varname>DateStyle</> no longer controls <type>interval</> output
5596 formatting; instead there is a new variable <varname>IntervalStyle</>
5603 Improve consistency of handling of fractional seconds in
5604 <type>timestamp</> and <type>interval</> output (Ron Mayer)
5608 This may result in displaying a different number of fractional
5609 digits than before, or rounding instead of truncating.
5615 Make <function>to_char()</>'s localized month/day names depend
5616 on <varname>LC_TIME</>, not <varname>LC_MESSAGES</> (Euler
5617 Taveira de Oliveira)
5623 Cause <function>to_date()</> and <function>to_timestamp()</>
5624 to more consistently report errors for invalid input (Brendan
5629 Previous versions would often ignore or silently misread input
5630 that did not match the format string. Such cases will now
5637 Fix <function>to_timestamp()</> to not require upper/lower case
5638 matching for meridian (<literal>AM</>/<literal>PM</>) and era
5639 (<literal>BC</>/<literal>AD</>) format designations (Brendan
5644 For example, input value <literal>ad</> now matches the format
5645 string <literal>AD</>.
5658 <title>Changes</title>
5661 Below you will find a detailed account of the changes between
5662 <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> 8.4 and the previous major
5667 <title>Performance</title>
5672 Improve optimizer statistics calculations (Jan Urbanski, Tom)
5676 In particular, estimates for full-text-search operators are
5683 Allow <command>SELECT DISTINCT</> and
5684 <literal>UNION</>/<literal>INTERSECT</>/<literal>EXCEPT</> to
5689 This means that these types of queries no longer automatically
5690 produce sorted output.
5696 Create explicit concepts of semi-joins and anti-joins (Tom)
5700 This work formalizes our previous ad-hoc treatment of <literal>IN
5701 (SELECT ...)</> clauses, and extends it to <literal>EXISTS</> and
5702 <literal>NOT EXISTS</> clauses. It should result in significantly
5703 better planning of <literal>EXISTS</> and <literal>NOT EXISTS</>
5704 queries. In general, logically equivalent <literal>IN</> and
5705 <literal>EXISTS</> clauses should now have similar performance,
5706 whereas previously <literal>IN</> often won.
5712 Improve optimization of sub-selects beneath outer joins (Tom)
5716 Formerly, a sub-select or view could not be optimized very well if it
5717 appeared within the nullable side of an outer join and contained
5718 non-strict expressions (for instance, constants) in its result list.
5724 Improve the performance of <function>text_position()</> and
5725 related functions by using Boyer-Moore-Horspool searching (David
5730 This is particularly helpful for long search patterns.
5736 Reduce I/O load of writing the statistics collection file
5737 by writing the file only when requested (Martin Pihlak)
5743 Improve performance for bulk inserts (Robert Haas, Simon)
5749 Increase the default value of <varname>default_statistics_target</>
5750 from <literal>10</> to <literal>100</> (Greg Sabino Mullane,
5755 The maximum value was also increased from <literal>1000</> to
5762 Perform <varname>constraint_exclusion</> checking by default
5763 in queries involving inheritance or <literal>UNION ALL</> (Tom)
5767 A new <varname>constraint_exclusion</> setting,
5768 <literal>partition</>, was added to specify this behavior.
5774 Allow I/O read-ahead for bitmap index scans (Greg Stark)
5778 The amount of read-ahead is controlled by
5779 <varname>effective_io_concurrency</>. This feature is available only
5780 if the kernel has <function>posix_fadvise()</> support.
5786 Inline simple set-returning <acronym>SQL</> functions in
5787 <literal>FROM</> clauses (Richard Rowell)
5793 Improve performance of multi-batch hash joins by providing a special
5794 case for join key values that are especially common in the outer
5795 relation (Bryce Cutt, Ramon Lawrence)
5801 Reduce volume of temporary data in multi-batch hash joins
5802 by suppressing <quote>physical tlist</> optimization (Michael
5803 Henderson, Ramon Lawrence)
5809 Avoid waiting for idle-in-transaction sessions during
5810 <command>CREATE INDEX CONCURRENTLY</> (Simon)
5816 Improve performance of shared cache invalidation (Tom)
5825 <title>Server</title>
5828 <title>Settings</title>
5834 Convert many <filename>postgresql.conf</> settings to enumerated
5835 values so that <literal>pg_settings</> can display the valid
5842 Add <varname>cursor_tuple_fraction</> parameter to control the
5843 fraction of a cursor's rows that the planner assumes will be
5844 fetched (Robert Hell)
5850 Allow underscores in the names of custom variable
5851 classes in <filename>postgresql.conf</> (Tom)
5860 <title>Authentication and security</title>
5865 Remove support for the (insecure) <literal>crypt</> authentication method
5870 This effectively obsoletes pre-<productname>PostgreSQL</> 7.2 client
5871 libraries, as there is no longer any non-plaintext password method that
5878 Support regular expressions in <filename>pg_ident.conf</>
5885 Allow <productname>Kerberos</>/<acronym>GSSAPI</> parameters
5886 to be changed without restarting the postmaster (Magnus)
5892 Support <acronym>SSL</> certificate chains in server certificate
5893 file (Andrew Gierth)
5897 Including the full certificate chain makes the client able
5898 to verify the certificate without having all intermediate CA
5899 certificates present in the local store, which is often the case for
5906 Report appropriate error message for combination of <literal>MD5</>
5907 authentication and <varname>db_user_namespace</> enabled (Bruce)
5914 <sect4 id="release-8-4-pg-hba-conf">
5915 <title><filename>pg_hba.conf</></title>
5920 Change all authentication options to use <literal>name=value</>
5925 This makes incompatible changes to the <literal>ldap</>,
5926 <literal>pam</> and <literal>ident</> authentication methods. All
5927 <filename>pg_hba.conf</> entries with these methods need to be
5928 rewritten using the new format.
5934 Remove the <literal>ident sameuser</> option, instead making that
5935 behavior the default if no usermap is specified (Magnus)
5941 Allow a usermap parameter for all external authentication methods
5946 Previously a usermap was only supported for <literal>ident</>
5953 Add <literal>clientcert</> option to control requesting of a
5954 client certificate (Magnus)
5958 Previously this was controlled by the presence of a root
5959 certificate file in the server's data directory.
5965 Add <literal>cert</> authentication method to allow
5966 <emphasis>user</> authentication via <acronym>SSL</> certificates
5971 Previously <acronym>SSL</> certificates could only verify that
5972 the client had access to a certificate, not authenticate a
5979 Allow <literal>krb5</>, <literal>gssapi</> and <literal>sspi</>
5980 realm and <literal>krb5</> host settings to be specified in
5981 <filename>pg_hba.conf</> (Magnus)
5985 These override the settings in <filename>postgresql.conf</>.
5991 Add <varname>include_realm</> parameter for <literal>krb5</>,
5992 <literal>gssapi</>, and <literal>sspi</> methods (Magnus)
5996 This allows identical usernames from different realms to be
5997 authenticated as different database users using usermaps.
6003 Parse <filename>pg_hba.conf</> fully when it is loaded,
6004 so that errors are reported immediately (Magnus)
6008 Previously, most errors in the file wouldn't be detected until clients
6009 tried to connect, so an erroneous file could render the system
6010 unusable. With the new behavior, if an error is detected during
6011 reload then the bad file is rejected and the postmaster continues
6012 to use its old copy.
6018 Show all parsing errors in <filename>pg_hba.conf</> instead of
6019 aborting after the first one (Selena Deckelmann)
6025 Support <literal>ident</> authentication over Unix-domain sockets
6026 on <productname>Solaris</> (Garick Hamlin)
6035 <title>Continuous Archiving</title>
6040 Provide an option to <function>pg_start_backup()</> to force its
6041 implied checkpoint to finish as quickly as possible (Tom)
6045 The default behavior avoids excess I/O consumption, but that is
6046 pointless if no concurrent query activity is going on.
6052 Make <function>pg_stop_backup()</> wait for modified <acronym>WAL</>
6053 files to be archived (Simon)
6057 This guarantees that the backup is valid at the time
6058 <function>pg_stop_backup()</> completes.
6064 When archiving is enabled, rotate the last WAL segment at shutdown
6065 so that all transactions can be archived immediately
6066 (Guillaume Smet, Heikki)
6072 Delay <quote>smart</> shutdown while a continuous archiving base backup
6073 is in progress (Laurenz Albe)
6079 Cancel a continuous archiving base backup if <quote>fast</> shutdown
6080 is requested (Laurenz Albe)
6086 Allow <filename>recovery.conf</> boolean variables to take the
6087 same range of string values as <filename>postgresql.conf</>
6098 <title>Monitoring</title>
6103 Add <function>pg_conf_load_time()</> to report when
6104 the <productname>PostgreSQL</> configuration files were last loaded
6111 Add <function>pg_terminate_backend()</> to safely terminate a
6112 backend (the <literal>SIGTERM</> signal works also) (Tom, Bruce)
6116 While it's always been possible to <literal>SIGTERM</> a single
6117 backend, this was previously considered unsupported; and testing
6118 of the case found some bugs that are now fixed.
6124 Add ability to track user-defined functions' call counts and
6125 runtimes (Martin Pihlak)
6129 Function statistics appear in a new system view,
6130 <literal>pg_stat_user_functions</>. Tracking is controlled
6131 by the new parameter <varname>track_functions</>.
6137 Allow specification of the maximum query string size in
6138 <literal>pg_stat_activity</> via new
6139 <varname>track_activity_query_size</> parameter (Thomas Lee)
6145 Increase the maximum line length sent to <application>syslog</>, in
6146 hopes of improving performance (Tom)
6152 Add read-only configuration variables <varname>segment_size</>,
6153 <varname>wal_block_size</>, and <varname>wal_segment_size</>
6160 When reporting a deadlock, report the text of all queries involved
6161 in the deadlock to the server log (Itagaki Takahiro)
6167 Add <function>pg_stat_get_activity(pid)</> function to return
6168 information about a specific process id (Magnus)
6174 Allow the location of the server's statistics file to be specified
6175 via <varname>stats_temp_directory</> (Magnus)
6179 This allows the statistics file to be placed in a
6180 <acronym>RAM</>-resident directory to reduce I/O requirements.
6181 On startup/shutdown, the file is copied to its traditional location
6182 (<literal>$PGDATA/global/</>) so it is preserved across restarts.
6193 <title>Queries</title>
6198 Add support for <literal>WINDOW</> functions (Hitoshi Harada)
6204 Add support for <literal>WITH</> clauses (CTEs), including <literal>WITH
6205 RECURSIVE</> (Yoshiyuki Asaba, Tatsuo Ishii, Tom)
6211 Add <command>TABLE</> command (Peter)
6215 <literal>TABLE tablename</> is a SQL standard short-hand for
6216 <literal>SELECT * FROM tablename</>.
6222 Allow <literal>AS</> to be optional when specifying a
6223 <command>SELECT</> (or <literal>RETURNING</>) column output
6224 label (Hiroshi Saito)
6228 This works so long as the column label is not any
6229 <productname>PostgreSQL</> keyword; otherwise <literal>AS</> is still
6236 Support set-returning functions in <command>SELECT</> result lists
6237 even for functions that return their result via a tuplestore (Tom)
6241 In particular, this means that functions written in PL/pgSQL
6242 and other PL languages can now be called this way.
6248 Support set-returning functions in the output of aggregation
6249 and grouping queries (Tom)
6255 Allow <command>SELECT FOR UPDATE</>/<literal>SHARE</> to work
6256 on inheritance trees (Tom)
6262 Add infrastructure for <acronym>SQL/MED</> (Martin Pihlak,
6267 There are no remote or external <acronym>SQL/MED</> capabilities
6268 yet, but this change provides a standardized and future-proof
6269 system for managing connection information for modules like
6270 <filename>dblink</> and <filename>plproxy</>.
6276 Invalidate cached plans when referenced schemas, functions, operators,
6277 or operator classes are modified (Martin Pihlak, Tom)
6281 This improves the system's ability to respond to on-the-fly
6287 Allow comparison of composite types and allow arrays of
6288 anonymous composite types (Tom)
6292 This allows constructs such as
6293 <literal>row(1, 1.1) = any (array[row(7, 7.7), row(1, 1.0)])</>.
6294 This is particularly useful in recursive queries.
6300 Add support for Unicode string literal and identifier specifications
6301 using code points, e.g. <literal>U&'d\0061t\+000061'</>
6308 Reject <literal>\000</> in string literals and <command>COPY</> data
6313 Previously, this was accepted but had the effect of terminating
6314 the string contents.
6320 Improve the parser's ability to report error locations (Tom)
6324 An error location is now reported for many semantic errors,
6325 such as mismatched datatypes, that previously could not be localized.
6332 <title><command>TRUNCATE</></title>
6337 Support statement-level <literal>ON TRUNCATE</> triggers (Simon)
6343 Add <literal>RESTART</>/<literal>CONTINUE IDENTITY</> options
6344 for <command>TRUNCATE TABLE</>
6345 (Zoltan Boszormenyi)
6349 The start value of a sequence can be changed by <command>ALTER
6350 SEQUENCE START WITH</>.
6356 Allow <command>TRUNCATE tab1, tab1</> to succeed (Bruce)
6362 Add a separate <command>TRUNCATE</> permission (Robert Haas)
6371 <title><command>EXPLAIN</></title>
6376 Make <command>EXPLAIN VERBOSE</> show the output columns of each
6381 Previously <command>EXPLAIN VERBOSE</> output an internal
6382 representation of the query plan. (That behavior is now
6383 available via <varname>debug_print_plan</>.)
6389 Make <command>EXPLAIN</> identify subplans and initplans with
6390 individual labels (Tom)
6396 Make <command>EXPLAIN</> honor <varname>debug_print_plan</> (Tom)
6402 Allow <command>EXPLAIN</> on <command>CREATE TABLE AS</> (Peter)
6411 <title><literal>LIMIT</>/<literal>OFFSET</></title>
6416 Allow sub-selects in <literal>LIMIT</> and <literal>OFFSET</> (Tom)
6422 Add <acronym>SQL</>-standard syntax for
6423 <literal>LIMIT</>/<literal>OFFSET</> capabilities (Peter)
6428 <literal>OFFSET num {ROW|ROWS} FETCH {FIRST|NEXT} [num] {ROW|ROWS}
6440 <title>Object Manipulation</title>
6445 Add support for column-level privileges (Stephen Frost, KaiGai
6452 Refactor multi-object <command>DROP</> operations to reduce the
6453 need for <literal>CASCADE</> (Alex Hunsaker)
6457 For example, if table <literal>B</> has a dependency on table
6458 <literal>A</>, the command <literal>DROP TABLE A, B</> no longer
6459 requires the <literal>CASCADE</> option.
6465 Fix various problems with concurrent <command>DROP</> commands
6466 by ensuring that locks are taken before we begin to drop dependencies
6473 Improve reporting of dependencies during <command>DROP</>
6480 Add <literal>WITH [NO] DATA</> clause to <command>CREATE TABLE
6481 AS</>, per the <acronym>SQL</> standard (Peter, Tom)
6487 Add support for user-defined I/O conversion casts (Heikki)
6493 Allow <command>CREATE AGGREGATE</> to use an <type>internal</>
6494 transition datatype (Tom)
6500 Add <literal>LIKE</> clause to <command>CREATE TYPE</> (Tom)
6504 This simplifies creation of data types that use the same internal
6505 representation as an existing type.
6511 Allow specification of the type category and <quote>preferred</>
6512 status for user-defined base types (Tom)
6516 This allows more control over the coercion behavior of user-defined
6523 Allow <command>CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW</> to add columns to the
6524 end of a view (Robert Haas)
6531 <title><command>ALTER</></title>
6536 Add <command>ALTER TYPE RENAME</> (Petr Jelinek)
6542 Add <command>ALTER SEQUENCE ... RESTART</> (with no parameter) to
6543 reset a sequence to its initial value (Zoltan Boszormenyi)
6549 Modify the <command>ALTER TABLE</> syntax to allow all reasonable
6550 combinations for tables, indexes, sequences, and views (Tom)
6554 This change allows the following new syntaxes:
6559 <command>ALTER SEQUENCE OWNER TO</>
6564 <command>ALTER VIEW ALTER COLUMN SET/DROP DEFAULT</>
6569 <command>ALTER VIEW OWNER TO</>
6574 <command>ALTER VIEW SET SCHEMA</>
6579 There is no actual new functionality here, but formerly
6580 you had to say <command>ALTER TABLE</> to do these things,
6581 which was confusing.
6587 Add support for the syntax <command>ALTER TABLE ... ALTER COLUMN
6588 ... SET DATA TYPE</> (Peter)
6592 This is <acronym>SQL</>-standard syntax for functionality that
6593 was already supported.
6599 Make <command>ALTER TABLE SET WITHOUT OIDS</> rewrite the table
6600 to physically remove <type>OID</> values (Tom)
6604 Also, add <command>ALTER TABLE SET WITH OIDS</> to rewrite the
6605 table to add <type>OID</>s.
6614 <title>Database Manipulation</title>
6619 Improve reporting of
6620 <command>CREATE</>/<command>DROP</>/<command>RENAME DATABASE</>
6621 failure when uncommitted prepared transactions are the cause
6628 Make <varname>LC_COLLATE</> and <varname>LC_CTYPE</> into
6629 per-database settings (Radek Strnad, Heikki)
6633 This makes collation similar to encoding, which was always
6634 configurable per database.
6640 Improve checks that the database encoding, collation
6641 (<varname>LC_COLLATE</>), and character classes
6642 (<varname>LC_CTYPE</>) match (Heikki, Tom)
6646 Note in particular that a new database's encoding and locale
6647 settings can be changed only when copying from <literal>template0</>.
6648 This prevents possibly copying data that doesn't match the settings.
6654 Add <command>ALTER DATABASE SET TABLESPACE</> to move a database
6655 to a new tablespace (Guillaume Lelarge, Bernd Helmle)
6666 <title>Utility Operations</title>
6672 Add a <literal>VERBOSE</> option to the <command>CLUSTER</> command and
6673 <application>clusterdb</> (Jim Cox)
6679 Decrease memory requirements for recording pending trigger
6687 <title>Indexes</title>
6692 Dramatically improve the speed of building and accessing hash
6693 indexes (Tom Raney, Shreya Bhargava)
6697 This allows hash indexes to be sometimes faster than btree
6698 indexes. However, hash indexes are still not crash-safe.
6704 Make hash indexes store only the hash code, not the full value of
6705 the indexed column (Xiao Meng)
6709 This greatly reduces the size of hash indexes for long indexed
6710 values, improving performance.
6716 Implement fast update option for GIN indexes (Teodor, Oleg)
6720 This option greatly improves update speed at a small penalty in search
6727 <literal>xxx_pattern_ops</> indexes can now be used for simple
6728 equality comparisons, not only for <literal>LIKE</> (Tom)
6737 <title>Full Text Indexes</title>
6742 Remove the requirement to use <literal>@@@</> when doing
6743 <acronym>GIN</> weighted lookups on full text indexes (Tom, Teodor)
6747 The normal <literal>@@</> text search operator can be used
6754 Add an optimizer selectivity function for <literal>@@</> text
6755 search operations (Jan Urbanski)
6761 Allow prefix matching in full text searches (Teodor Sigaev,
6768 Support multi-column <acronym>GIN</> indexes (Teodor Sigaev)
6774 Improve support for Nepali language and Devanagari alphabet (Teodor)
6783 <title><command>VACUUM</></title>
6788 Track free space in separate per-relation <quote>fork</> files (Heikki)
6792 Free space discovered by <command>VACUUM</> is now recorded in
6793 <filename>*_fsm</> files, rather than in a fixed-sized shared memory
6794 area. The <varname>max_fsm_pages</> and <varname>max_fsm_relations</>
6795 settings have been removed, greatly simplifying administration of
6796 free space management.
6802 Add a visibility map to track pages that do not require
6807 This allows <command>VACUUM</> to avoid scanning all of
6808 a table when only a portion of the table needs vacuuming.
6809 The visibility map is stored in per-relation <quote>fork</> files.
6815 Add <varname>vacuum_freeze_table_age</> parameter to control
6816 when <command>VACUUM</> should ignore the visibility map and
6817 do a full table scan to freeze tuples (Heikki)
6823 Track transaction snapshots more carefully (Alvaro)
6827 This improves <command>VACUUM</>'s ability to reclaim space
6828 in the presence of long-running transactions.
6834 Add ability to specify per-relation autovacuum and <acronym>TOAST</>
6835 parameters in <command>CREATE TABLE</> (Alvaro, Euler Taveira de
6840 Autovacuum options used to be stored in a system table.
6846 Add <literal>--freeze</> option to <application>vacuumdb</>
6858 <title>Data Types</title>
6863 Add a <literal>CaseSensitive</> option for text search synonym
6864 dictionaries (Simon)
6870 Improve the precision of <type>NUMERIC</> division (Tom)
6876 Add basic arithmetic operators for <type>int2</> with <type>int8</>
6881 This eliminates the need for explicit casting in some situations.
6887 Allow <type>UUID</> input to accept an optional hyphen after
6888 every fourth digit (Robert Haas)
6894 Allow <literal>on</>/<literal>off</> as input for the boolean data type
6901 Allow spaces around <literal>NaN</> in the input string for
6902 type <type>numeric</> (Sam Mason)
6909 <title>Temporal Data Types</title>
6914 Reject year <literal>0 BC</> and years <literal>000</> and
6915 <literal>0000</> (Tom)
6919 Previously these were interpreted as <literal>1 BC</>.
6920 (Note: years <literal>0</> and <literal>00</> are still assumed to be
6927 Include <literal>SGT</> (Singapore time) in the default list of
6928 known time zone abbreviations (Tom)
6934 Support <literal>infinity</> and <literal>-infinity</> as
6935 values of type <type>date</> (Tom)
6941 Make parsing of <type>interval</> literals more standard-compliant
6946 For example, <literal>INTERVAL '1' YEAR</> now does what it's
6953 Allow <type>interval</> fractional-seconds precision to be specified
6954 after the <literal>second</> keyword, for <acronym>SQL</> standard
6959 Formerly the precision had to be specified after the keyword
6960 <type>interval</>. (For backwards compatibility, this syntax is still
6961 supported, though deprecated.) Data type definitions will now be
6962 output using the standard format.
6968 Support the <acronym>IS0 8601</> <type>interval</> syntax (Ron
6969 Mayer, Kevin Grittner)
6973 For example, <literal>INTERVAL 'P1Y2M3DT4H5M6.7S'</> is now
6980 Add <varname>IntervalStyle</> parameter
6981 which controls how <type>interval</> values are output (Ron Mayer)
6985 Valid values are: <literal>postgres</>, <literal>postgres_verbose</>,
6986 <literal>sql_standard</>, <literal>iso_8601</>. This setting also
6987 controls the handling of negative <type>interval</> input when only
6988 some fields have positive/negative designations.
6994 Improve consistency of handling of fractional seconds in
6995 <type>timestamp</> and <type>interval</> output (Ron Mayer)
7004 <title>Arrays</title>
7009 Improve the handling of casts applied to <literal>ARRAY[]</>
7010 constructs, such as <literal>ARRAY[...]::integer[]</>
7015 Formerly <productname>PostgreSQL</> attempted to determine a data type
7016 for the <literal>ARRAY[]</> construct without reference to the ensuing
7017 cast. This could fail unnecessarily in many cases, in particular when
7018 the <literal>ARRAY[]</> construct was empty or contained only
7019 ambiguous entries such as <literal>NULL</>. Now the cast is consulted
7020 to determine the type that the array elements must be.
7026 Make <acronym>SQL</>-syntax <type>ARRAY</> dimensions optional
7027 to match the <acronym>SQL</> standard (Peter)
7033 Add <function>array_ndims()</> to return the number
7034 of dimensions of an array (Robert Haas)
7040 Add <function>array_length()</> to return the length
7041 of an array for a specified dimension (Jim Nasby, Robert
7042 Haas, Peter Eisentraut)
7048 Add aggregate function <function>array_agg()</>, which
7049 returns all aggregated values as a single array (Robert Haas,
7056 Add <function>unnest()</>, which converts an array to
7057 individual row values (Tom)
7061 This is the opposite of <function>array_agg()</>.
7067 Add <function>array_fill()</> to create arrays initialized with
7068 a value (Pavel Stehule)
7074 Add <function>generate_subscripts()</> to simplify generating
7075 the range of an array's subscripts (Pavel Stehule)
7084 <title>Wide-Value Storage (<acronym>TOAST</>)</title>
7089 Consider <acronym>TOAST</> compression on values as short as
7090 32 bytes (previously 256 bytes) (Greg Stark)
7096 Require 25% minimum space savings before using <acronym>TOAST</>
7097 compression (previously 20% for small values and any-savings-at-all
7098 for large values) (Greg)
7104 Improve <acronym>TOAST</> heuristics for rows that have a mix of large
7105 and small toastable fields, so that we prefer to push large values out
7106 of line and don't compress small values unnecessarily (Greg, Tom)
7117 <title>Functions</title>
7122 Document that <function>setseed()</> allows values from
7123 <literal>-1</> to <literal>1</> (not just <literal>0</> to
7124 <literal>1</>), and enforce the valid range (Kris Jurka)
7130 Add server-side function <function>lo_import(filename, oid)</>
7137 Add <function>quote_nullable()</>, which behaves like
7138 <function>quote_literal()</> but returns the string <literal>NULL</> for
7139 a null argument (Brendan Jurd)
7145 Improve full text search <function>headline()</> function to
7146 allow extracting several fragments of text (Sushant Sinha)
7152 Add <function>suppress_redundant_updates_trigger()</> trigger
7153 function to avoid overhead for non-data-changing updates (Andrew)
7159 Add <function>div(numeric, numeric)</> to perform <type>numeric</>
7160 division without rounding (Tom)
7166 Add <type>timestamp</> and <type>timestamptz</> versions of
7167 <function>generate_series()</> (Hitoshi Harada)
7174 <title>Object Information Functions</title>
7179 Implement <function>current_query()</> for use by functions
7180 that need to know the currently running query (Tomas Doran)
7186 Add <function>pg_get_keywords()</> to return a list of the
7187 parser keywords (Dave Page)
7193 Add <function>pg_get_functiondef()</> to see a function's
7194 definition (Abhijit Menon-Sen)
7200 Allow the second argument of <function>pg_get_expr()</> to be zero
7201 when deparsing an expression that does not contain variables (Tom)
7207 Modify <function>pg_relation_size()</> to use <literal>regclass</>
7212 <function>pg_relation_size(data_type_name)</> no longer works.
7218 Add <literal>boot_val</> and <literal>reset_val</> columns to
7219 <literal>pg_settings</> output (Greg Smith)
7225 Add source file name and line number columns to
7226 <literal>pg_settings</> output for variables set in a configuration
7227 file (Magnus, Alvaro)
7231 For security reasons, these columns are only visible to superusers.
7237 Add support for <varname>CURRENT_CATALOG</>,
7238 <varname>CURRENT_SCHEMA</>, <varname>SET CATALOG</>, <varname>SET
7243 These provide <acronym>SQL</>-standard syntax for existing features.
7249 Add <function>pg_typeof()</> which returns the data type
7250 of any value (Brendan Jurd)
7256 Make <function>version()</> return information about whether
7257 the server is a 32- or 64-bit binary (Bruce)
7263 Fix the behavior of information schema columns
7264 <structfield>is_insertable_into</> and <structfield>is_updatable</> to
7265 be consistent (Peter)
7271 Improve the behavior of information schema
7272 <structfield>datetime_precision</> columns (Peter)
7276 These columns now show zero for <type>date</> columns, and 6
7277 (the default precision) for <type>time</>, <type>timestamp</>, and
7278 <type>interval</> without a declared precision, rather than showing
7285 Convert remaining builtin set-returning functions to use
7286 <literal>OUT</> parameters (Jaime Casanova)
7290 This makes it possible to call these functions without specifying
7291 a column list: <function>pg_show_all_settings()</>,
7292 <function>pg_lock_status()</>, <function>pg_prepared_xact()</>,
7293 <function>pg_prepared_statement()</>, <function>pg_cursor()</>
7299 Make <function>pg_*_is_visible()</> and
7300 <function>has_*_privilege()</> functions return <literal>NULL</>
7301 for invalid OIDs, rather than reporting an error (Tom)
7307 Extend <function>has_*_privilege()</> functions to allow inquiring
7308 about the OR of multiple privileges in one call (Stephen
7315 Add <function>has_column_privilege()</> and
7316 <function>has_any_column_privilege()</> functions (Stephen
7326 <title>Function Creation</title>
7331 Support variadic functions (functions with a variable number
7332 of arguments) (Pavel Stehule)
7336 Only trailing arguments can be optional, and they all must be
7337 of the same data type.
7343 Support default values for function arguments (Pavel Stehule)
7349 Add <command>CREATE FUNCTION ... RETURNS TABLE</> clause (Pavel
7356 Allow <acronym>SQL</>-language functions to return the output
7357 of an <command>INSERT</>/<command>UPDATE</>/<command>DELETE</>
7358 <literal>RETURNING</> clause (Tom)
7367 <title>PL/pgSQL Server-Side Language</title>
7372 Support <literal>EXECUTE USING</> for easier insertion of data
7373 values into a dynamic query string (Pavel Stehule)
7379 Allow looping over the results of a cursor using a <literal>FOR</>
7380 loop (Pavel Stehule)
7386 Support <literal>RETURN QUERY EXECUTE</> (Pavel
7393 Improve the <literal>RAISE</> command (Pavel Stehule)
7398 Support <literal>DETAIL</> and <literal>HINT</> fields
7403 Support specification of the <literal>SQLSTATE</> error code
7408 Support an exception name parameter
7413 Allow <literal>RAISE</> without parameters in an exception
7414 block to re-throw the current error
7423 Allow specification of <varname>SQLSTATE</> codes
7424 in <literal>EXCEPTION</> lists (Pavel Stehule)
7428 This is useful for handling custom <varname>SQLSTATE</> codes.
7434 Support the <literal>CASE</> statement (Pavel Stehule)
7440 Make <command>RETURN QUERY</> set the special <literal>FOUND</> and
7441 <command>GET DIAGNOSTICS</> <literal>ROW_COUNT</> variables
7448 Make <command>FETCH</> and <command>MOVE</> set the
7449 <command>GET DIAGNOSTICS</> <literal>ROW_COUNT</> variable
7456 Make <command>EXIT</> without a label always exit the innermost
7461 Formerly, if there were a <literal>BEGIN</> block more closely nested
7462 than any loop, it would exit that block instead. The new behavior
7463 matches Oracle(TM) and is also what was previously stated by our own
7470 Make processing of string literals and nested block comments
7471 match the main SQL parser's processing (Tom)
7475 In particular, the format string in <command>RAISE</> now works
7476 the same as any other string literal, including being subject
7477 to <varname>standard_conforming_strings</>. This change also
7478 fixes other cases in which valid commands would fail when
7479 <varname>standard_conforming_strings</> is on.
7485 Avoid memory leakage when the same function is called at varying
7486 exception-block nesting depths (Tom)
7497 <title>Client Applications</title>
7503 Fix <literal>pg_ctl restart</> to preserve command-line arguments
7510 Add <literal>-w</>/<literal>--no-password</> option that
7511 prevents password prompting in all utilities that have a
7512 <literal>-W</>/<literal>--password</> option (Peter)
7518 Remove <option>-q</> (quiet) option of <application>createdb</>,
7519 <application>createuser</>, <application>dropdb</>,
7520 <application>dropuser</> (Peter)
7524 These options have had no effect since <productname>PostgreSQL</>
7532 <title><application>psql</></title>
7537 Remove verbose startup banner; now just suggest <literal>help</>
7544 Make <literal>help</> show common backslash commands (Greg
7551 Add <literal>\pset format wrapped</> mode to wrap output to the
7552 screen width, or file/pipe output too if <literal>\pset columns</>
7553 is set (Bryce Nesbitt)
7559 Allow all supported spellings of boolean values in <command>\pset</>,
7560 rather than just <literal>on</> and <literal>off</> (Bruce)
7564 Formerly, any string other than <quote>off</> was silently taken
7565 to mean <literal>true</>. <application>psql</> will now complain
7566 about unrecognized spellings (but still take them as <literal>true</>).
7572 Use the pager for wide output (Bruce)
7578 Require a space between a one-letter backslash command and its first
7579 argument (Bernd Helmle)
7583 This removes a historical source of ambiguity.
7589 Improve tab completion support for schema-qualified and
7590 quoted identifiers (Greg Sabino Mullane)
7596 Add optional <literal>on</>/<literal>off</> argument for
7597 <command>\timing</> (David Fetter)
7603 Display access control rights on multiple lines (Brendan
7604 Jurd, Andreas Scherbaum)
7610 Make <command>\l</> show database access privileges (Andrew Gilligan)
7616 Make <command>\l+</> show database sizes, if permissions
7617 allow (Andrew Gilligan)
7623 Add the <command>\ef</> command to edit function definitions
7633 <title><application>psql</> \d* commands</title>
7639 Make <command>\d*</> commands that do not have a pattern argument
7640 show system objects only if the <literal>S</> modifier is specified
7641 (Greg Sabino Mullane, Bruce)
7645 The former behavior was inconsistent across different variants
7646 of <command>\d</>, and in most cases it provided no easy way to see
7653 Improve <command>\d*</> commands to work with older
7654 <productname>PostgreSQL</> server versions (back to 7.4),
7655 not only the current server version
7662 Make <command>\d</> show foreign-key constraints that reference
7663 the selected table (Kenneth D'Souza)
7669 Make <command>\d</> on a sequence show its column values
7670 (Euler Taveira de Oliveira)
7676 Add column storage type and other relation options to the
7677 <command>\d+</> display (Gregory Stark, Euler Taveira de
7684 Show relation size in <command>\dt+</> output (Dickson S.
7691 Show the possible values of <literal>enum</> types in <command>\dT+</>
7698 Allow <command>\dC</> to accept a wildcard pattern, which matches
7699 either datatype involved in the cast (Tom)
7705 Add a function type column to <command>\df</>'s output, and add
7706 options to list only selected types of functions (David Fetter)
7712 Make <command>\df</> not hide functions that take or return
7713 type <type>cstring</> (Tom)
7717 Previously, such functions were hidden because most of them are
7718 datatype I/O functions, which were deemed uninteresting. The new
7719 policy about hiding system functions by default makes this wart
7729 <title><application>pg_dump</></title>
7734 Add a <literal>--no-tablespaces</> option to
7735 <application>pg_dump</>/<application>pg_dumpall</>/<application>pg_restore</>
7736 so that dumps can be restored to clusters that have non-matching
7737 tablespace layouts (Gavin Roy)
7743 Remove <option>-d</> and <option>-D</> options from
7744 <application>pg_dump</> and <application>pg_dumpall</> (Tom)
7748 These options were too frequently confused with the option to
7749 select a database name in other <productname>PostgreSQL</>
7750 client applications. The functionality is still available,
7751 but you must now spell out the long option name
7752 <option>--inserts</> or <option>--column-inserts</>.
7758 Remove <option>-i</>/<option>--ignore-version</> option from
7759 <application>pg_dump</> and <application>pg_dumpall</> (Tom)
7763 Use of this option does not throw an error, but it has no
7764 effect. This option was removed because the version checks
7765 are necessary for safety.
7771 Disable <varname>statement_timeout</> during dump and restore
7778 Add <application>pg_dump</>/<application>pg_dumpall</> option
7779 <option>--lock-wait-timeout</> (David Gould)
7783 This allows dumps to fail if unable to acquire a shared lock
7784 within the specified amount of time.
7790 Reorder <application>pg_dump</> <literal>--data-only</> output
7791 to dump tables referenced by foreign keys before
7792 the referencing tables (Tom)
7796 This allows data loads when foreign keys are already present.
7797 If circular references make a safe ordering impossible, a
7798 <literal>NOTICE</> is issued.
7804 Allow <application>pg_dump</>, <application>pg_dumpall</>, and
7805 <application>pg_restore</> to use a specified role (Benedek
7806 László)
7812 Allow <application>pg_restore</> to use multiple concurrent
7813 connections to do the restore (Andrew)
7817 The number of concurrent connections is controlled by the option
7818 <literal>--jobs</>. This is supported only for custom-format archives.
7829 <title>Programming Tools</title>
7832 <title><application>libpq</></title>
7837 Allow the <type>OID</> to be specified when importing a large
7838 object, via new function <function>lo_import_with_oid()</> (Tatsuo)
7844 Add <quote>events</> support (Andrew Chernow, Merlin Moncure)
7848 This adds the ability to register callbacks to manage private
7849 data associated with <structname>PGconn</> and <structname>PGresult</>
7856 Improve error handling to allow the return of multiple
7857 error messages as multi-line error reports (Magnus)
7863 Make <function>PQexecParams()</> and related functions return
7864 <varname>PGRES_EMPTY_QUERY</> for an empty query (Tom)
7868 They previously returned <varname>PGRES_COMMAND_OK</>.
7874 Document how to avoid the overhead of <function>WSACleanup()</>
7875 on Windows (Andrew Chernow)
7881 Do not rely on Kerberos tickets to determine the default database
7886 Previously, a Kerberos-capable build of libpq would use the
7887 principal name from any available Kerberos ticket as default
7888 database username, even if the connection wasn't using Kerberos
7889 authentication. This was deemed inconsistent and confusing.
7890 The default username is now determined the same way with or
7891 without Kerberos. Note however that the database username must still
7892 match the ticket when Kerberos authentication is used.
7900 <title><application>libpq</> <acronym>SSL</> (Secure Sockets Layer)
7906 Fix certificate validation for <acronym>SSL</> connections
7911 <application>libpq</> now supports verifying both the certificate
7912 and the name of the server when making <acronym>SSL</>
7913 connections. If a root certificate is not available to use for
7914 verification, <acronym>SSL</> connections will fail. The
7915 <literal>sslmode</> parameter is used to enable certificate
7916 verification and set the level of checking.
7917 The default is still not to do any verification, allowing connections
7918 to SSL-enabled servers without requiring a root certificate on the
7925 Support wildcard server certificates (Magnus)
7929 If a certificate <acronym>CN</> starts with <literal>*</>, it will
7930 be treated as a wildcard when matching the hostname, allowing the
7931 use of the same certificate for multiple servers.
7937 Allow the file locations for client certificates to be specified
7938 (Mark Woodward, Alvaro, Magnus)
7944 Add a <function>PQinitOpenSSL</> function to allow greater control
7945 over OpenSSL/libcrypto initialization (Andrew Chernow)
7951 Make <application>libpq</> unregister its <application>OpenSSL</>
7952 callbacks when no database connections remain open
7953 (Bruce, Magnus, Russell Smith)
7957 This is required for applications that unload the libpq library,
7958 otherwise invalid <application>OpenSSL</> callbacks will remain.
7967 <title><application>ecpg</></title>
7972 Add localization support for messages (Euler Taveira de
7979 ecpg parser is now automatically generated from the server
7984 Previously the ecpg parser was hand-maintained.
7993 <title>Server Programming Interface (<acronym>SPI</>)</title>
7998 Add support for single-use plans with out-of-line
8005 Add new <varname>SPI_OK_REWRITTEN</> return code for
8006 <function>SPI_execute()</> (Heikki)
8010 This is used when a command is rewritten to another type of
8017 Remove unnecessary inclusions from <filename>executor/spi.h</> (Tom)
8021 SPI-using modules might need to add some <literal>#include</>
8022 lines if they were depending on <filename>spi.h</> to include
8034 <title>Build Options</title>
8039 Update build system to use <productname>Autoconf</> 2.61 (Peter)
8045 Require <productname>GNU bison</> for source code builds (Peter)
8049 This has effectively been required for several years, but now there
8050 is no infrastructure claiming to support other parser tools.
8056 Add <application>pg_config</> <literal>--htmldir</> option
8063 Pass <type>float4</> by value inside the server (Zoltan
8068 Add <application>configure</> option
8069 <literal>--disable-float4-byval</> to use the old behavior.
8070 External C functions that use old-style (version 0) call convention
8071 and pass or return <type>float4</> values will be broken by this
8072 change, so you may need the <application>configure</> option if you
8073 have such functions and don't want to update them.
8079 Pass <type>float8</>, <type>int8</>, and related datatypes
8080 by value inside the server on 64-bit platforms (Zoltan Boszormenyi)
8084 Add <application>configure</> option
8085 <literal>--disable-float8-byval</> to use the old behavior.
8086 As above, this change might break old-style external C functions.
8092 Add configure options <literal>--with-segsize</>,
8093 <literal>--with-blocksize</>, <literal>--with-wal-blocksize</>,
8094 <literal>--with-wal-segsize</> (Zdenek Kotala, Tom)
8098 This simplifies build-time control over several constants that
8099 previously could only be changed by editing
8100 <filename>pg_config_manual.h</>.
8106 Allow threaded builds on <productname>Solaris</> 2.5 (Bruce)
8112 Use the system's <function>getopt_long()</> on <productname>Solaris</>
8113 (Zdenek Kotala, Tom)
8117 This makes option processing more consistent with what Solaris users
8124 Add support for the <productname>Sun Studio</> compiler on
8125 <productname>Linux</> (Julius Stroffek)
8131 Append the major version number to the backend <application>gettext</>
8132 domain, and the <literal>soname</> major version number to
8133 libraries' <application>gettext</> domain (Peter)
8137 This simplifies parallel installations of multiple versions.
8143 Add support for code coverage testing with <application>gcov</>
8150 Allow out-of-tree builds on <productname>Mingw</> and
8151 <productname>Cygwin</> (Richard Evans)
8157 Fix the use of <productname>Mingw</> as a cross-compiling source
8167 <title>Source Code</title>
8172 Support 64-bit time zone data files (Heikki)
8176 This adds support for daylight saving time (<acronym>DST</>)
8177 calculations beyond the year 2038.
8183 Deprecate use of platform's <type>time_t</> data type (Tom)
8187 Some platforms have migrated to 64-bit <type>time_t</>, some have
8188 not, and Windows can't make up its mind what it's doing. Define
8189 <type>pg_time_t</> to have the same meaning as <type>time_t</>,
8190 but always be 64 bits (unless the platform has no 64-bit integer type),
8191 and use that type in all module APIs and on-disk data formats.
8197 Fix bug in handling of the time zone database when cross-compiling
8204 Link backend object files in one step, rather than in stages
8211 Improve <application>gettext</> support to allow better translation
8218 Add message translation support to the PL languages (Alvaro, Peter)
8224 Add more <application>DTrace</> probes (Robert Lor)
8230 Enable <application>DTrace</> support on <application>Mac OS X
8231 Leopard</> and other non-Solaris platforms (Robert Lor)
8237 Simplify and standardize conversions between C strings and
8238 <type>text</> datums, by providing common functions for the purpose
8245 Clean up the <filename>include/catalog/</> header files so that
8246 frontend programs can include them without including
8247 <filename>postgres.h</>
8254 Make <type>name</> char-aligned, and suppress zero-padding of
8255 <type>name</> entries in indexes (Tom)
8261 Recover better if dynamically-loaded code executes <function>exit()</>
8268 Add a hook to let plug-ins monitor the executor (Itagaki
8275 Add a hook to allow the planner's statistics lookup behavior to
8276 be overridden (Simon Riggs)
8282 Add <function>shmem_startup_hook()</> for custom shared memory
8289 Replace the index access method <function>amgetmulti</> entry point
8290 with <function>amgetbitmap</>, and extend the API for
8291 <function>amgettuple</> to support run-time determination of
8292 operator lossiness (Heikki, Tom, Teodor)
8296 The API for GIN and GiST opclass <function>consistent</> functions
8297 has been extended as well.
8303 Add support for partial-match searches in <acronym>GIN</> indexes
8304 (Teodor Sigaev, Oleg Bartunov)
8310 Replace <structname>pg_class</> column <structfield>reltriggers</>
8311 with boolean <structfield>relhastriggers</> (Simon)
8315 Also remove unused <structname>pg_class</> columns
8316 <structfield>relukeys</>, <structfield>relfkeys</>, and
8317 <structfield>relrefs</>.
8323 Add a <structfield>relistemp</> column to <structname>pg_class</>
8324 to ease identification of temporary tables (Tom)
8330 Move platform <acronym>FAQ</>s into the main documentation
8337 Prevent parser input files from being built with any conflicts
8344 Add support for the <literal>KOI8U</> (Ukrainian) encoding
8351 Add Japanese message translations (Japan PostgreSQL Users Group)
8355 This used to be maintained as a separate project.
8361 Fix problem when setting <varname>LC_MESSAGES</> on
8362 <application>MSVC</>-built systems (Hiroshi Inoue, Hiroshi
8372 <title>Contrib</title>
8378 Add <filename>contrib/auto_explain</> to automatically run
8379 <command>EXPLAIN</> on queries exceeding a specified duration
8380 (Itagaki Takahiro, Tom)
8386 Add <filename>contrib/btree_gin</> to allow GIN indexes to
8387 handle more datatypes (Oleg, Teodor)
8393 Add <filename>contrib/citext</> to provide a case-insensitive,
8394 multibyte-aware text data type (David Wheeler)
8400 Add <filename>contrib/pg_stat_statements</> for server-wide
8401 tracking of statement execution statistics (Itagaki Takahiro)
8407 Add duration and query mode options to <filename>contrib/pgbench</>
8414 Make <filename>contrib/pgbench</> use table names
8415 <structname>pgbench_accounts</>, <structname>pgbench_branches</>,
8416 <structname>pgbench_history</>, and <structname>pgbench_tellers</>,
8417 rather than just <structname>accounts</>, <structname>branches</>,
8418 <structname>history</>, and <structname>tellers</> (Tom)
8422 This is to reduce the risk of accidentally destroying real data
8423 by running <application>pgbench</>.
8429 Fix <filename>contrib/pgstattuple</> to handle tables and
8430 indexes with over 2 billion pages (Tatsuhito Kasahara)
8436 In <filename>contrib/fuzzystrmatch</>, add a version of the
8437 Levenshtein string-distance function that allows the user to
8438 specify the costs of insertion, deletion, and substitution
8445 Make <filename>contrib/ltree</> support multibyte encodings
8452 Enable <filename>contrib/dblink</> to use connection information
8453 stored in the SQL/MED catalogs (Joe Conway)
8459 Improve <filename>contrib/dblink</>'s reporting of errors from
8460 the remote server (Joe Conway)
8466 Make <filename>contrib/dblink</> set <varname>client_encoding</>
8467 to match the local database's encoding (Joe Conway)
8471 This prevents encoding problems when communicating with a remote
8472 database that uses a different encoding.
8478 Make sure <filename>contrib/dblink</> uses a password supplied
8479 by the user, and not accidentally taken from the server's
8480 <filename>.pgpass</> file (Joe Conway)
8484 This is a minor security enhancement.
8490 Add <function>fsm_page_contents()</>
8491 to <filename>contrib/pageinspect</> (Heikki)
8497 Modify <function>get_raw_page()</> to support free space map
8498 (<filename>*_fsm</>) files. Also update
8499 <filename>contrib/pg_freespacemap</>.
8505 Add support for multibyte encodings to <filename>contrib/pg_trgm</>
8512 Rewrite <filename>contrib/intagg</> to use new
8513 functions <function>array_agg()</> and <function>unnest()</>
8520 Make <filename>contrib/pg_standby</> recover all available WAL before
8521 failover (Fujii Masao, Simon, Heikki)
8525 To make this work safely, you now need to set the new
8526 <literal>recovery_end_command</> option in <filename>recovery.conf</>
8527 to clean up the trigger file after failover. <application>pg_standby</>
8528 will no longer remove the trigger file itself.
8534 <filename>contrib/pg_standby</>'s <option>-l</> option is now a no-op,
8535 because it is unsafe to use a symlink (Simon)
projects / postgresql / blob