<!-- doc/src/sgml/release-8.4.sgml -->
<!-- See header comment in release.sgml about typical markup -->
+ <sect1 id="release-8-4-8">
+ <title>Release 8.4.8</title>
+
+ <note>
+ <title>Release Date</title>
+ <simpara>2011-04-18</simpara>
+ </note>
+
+ <para>
+ This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.4.7.
+ For information about new features in the 8.4 major release, see
+ <xref linkend="release-8-4">.
+ </para>
+
+ <sect2>
+ <title>Migration to Version 8.4.8</title>
+
+ <para>
+ A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.4.X.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ However, if your installation was upgraded from a previous major
+ release by running <application>pg_upgrade</>, you should take
+ action to prevent possible data loss due to a now-fixed bug in
+ <application>pg_upgrade</>. The recommended solution is to run
+ <command>VACUUM FREEZE</> on all TOAST tables.
+ More information is available at <ulink
+ url="http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/20110408pg_upgrade_fix">
+ http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/20110408pg_upgrade_fix</ulink>.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ Also, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.4.2,
+ see the release notes for 8.4.2.
+ </para>
+
+ </sect2>
+
+ <sect2>
+ <title>Changes</title>
+
+ <itemizedlist>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Fix <application>pg_upgrade</>'s handling of TOAST tables
+ (Bruce Momjian)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ The <structname>pg_class</>.<structfield>relfrozenxid</> value for
+ TOAST tables was not correctly copied into the new installation
+ during <application>pg_upgrade</>. This could later result in
+ <literal>pg_clog</> files being discarded while they were still
+ needed to validate tuples in the TOAST tables, leading to
+ <quote>could not access status of transaction</> failures.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ This error poses a significant risk of data loss for installations
+ that have been upgraded with <application>pg_upgrade</>. This patch
+ corrects the problem for future uses of <application>pg_upgrade</>,
+ but does not in itself cure the issue in installations that have been
+ processed with a buggy version of <application>pg_upgrade</>.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Suppress incorrect <quote>PD_ALL_VISIBLE flag was incorrectly set</>
+ warning (Heikki Linnakangas)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ <command>VACUUM</> would sometimes issue this warning in cases that
+ are actually valid.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Disallow including a composite type in itself (Tom Lane)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ This prevents scenarios wherein the server could recurse infinitely
+ while processing the composite type. While there are some possible
+ uses for such a structure, they don't seem compelling enough to
+ justify the effort required to make sure it always works safely.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Avoid potential deadlock during catalog cache initialization
+ (Nikhil Sontakke)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ In some cases the cache loading code would acquire share lock on a
+ system index before locking the index's catalog. This could deadlock
+ against processes trying to acquire exclusive locks in the other,
+ more standard order.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Fix dangling-pointer problem in <literal>BEFORE ROW UPDATE</> trigger
+ handling when there was a concurrent update to the target tuple
+ (Tom Lane)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ This bug has been observed to result in intermittent <quote>cannot
+ extract system attribute from virtual tuple</> failures while trying to
+ do <literal>UPDATE RETURNING ctid</>. There is a very small probability
+ of more serious errors, such as generating incorrect index entries for
+ the updated tuple.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Disallow <command>DROP TABLE</> when there are pending deferred trigger
+ events for the table (Tom Lane)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ Formerly the <command>DROP</> would go through, leading to
+ <quote>could not open relation with OID nnn</> errors when the
+ triggers were eventually fired.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Prevent crash triggered by constant-false WHERE conditions during
+ GEQO optimization (Tom Lane)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Improve planner's handling of semi-join and anti-join cases
+ (Tom Lane)
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Fix selectivity estimation for text search to account for NULLs
+ (Jesper Krogh)
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Improve PL/pgSQL's ability to handle row types with dropped columns
+ (Pavel Stehule)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ This is a back-patch of fixes previously made in 9.0.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Fix PL/Python memory leak involving array slices (Daniel Popowich)
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Fix <application>pg_restore</> to cope with long lines (over 1KB) in
+ TOC files (Tom Lane)
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Put in more safeguards against crashing due to division-by-zero
+ with overly enthusiastic compiler optimization (Aurelien Jarno)
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Support use of dlopen() in FreeBSD and OpenBSD on MIPS (Tom Lane)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ There was a hard-wired assumption that this system function was not
+ available on MIPS hardware on these systems. Use a compile-time test
+ instead, since more recent versions have it.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Fix compilation failures on HP-UX (Heikki Linnakangas)
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Fix version-incompatibility problem with <application>libintl</> on
+ Windows (Hiroshi Inoue)
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Fix usage of <application>xcopy</> in Windows build scripts to
+ work correctly under Windows 7 (Andrew Dunstan)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ This affects the build scripts only, not installation or usage.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Fix path separator used by <application>pg_regress</> on Cygwin
+ (Andrew Dunstan)
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2011f
+ for DST law changes in Chile, Cuba, Falkland Islands, Morocco, Samoa,
+ and Turkey; also historical corrections for South Australia, Alaska,
+ and Hawaii.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ </itemizedlist>
+
+ </sect2>
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1 id="release-8-4-7">
+ <title>Release 8.4.7</title>
+
+ <note>
+ <title>Release Date</title>
+ <simpara>2011-01-31</simpara>
+ </note>
+
+ <para>
+ This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.4.6.
+ For information about new features in the 8.4 major release, see
+ <xref linkend="release-8-4">.
+ </para>
+
+ <sect2>
+ <title>Migration to Version 8.4.7</title>
+
+ <para>
+ A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.4.X.
+ However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.4.2,
+ see the release notes for 8.4.2.
+ </para>
+
+ </sect2>
+
+ <sect2>
+ <title>Changes</title>
+
+ <itemizedlist>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Avoid failures when <command>EXPLAIN</> tries to display a simple-form
+ <literal>CASE</> expression (Tom Lane)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ If the <literal>CASE</>'s test expression was a constant, the planner
+ could simplify the <literal>CASE</> into a form that confused the
+ expression-display code, resulting in <quote>unexpected CASE WHEN
+ clause</> errors.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Fix assignment to an array slice that is before the existing range
+ of subscripts (Tom Lane)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ If there was a gap between the newly added subscripts and the first
+ pre-existing subscript, the code miscalculated how many entries needed
+ to be copied from the old array's null bitmap, potentially leading to
+ data corruption or crash.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Avoid unexpected conversion overflow in planner for very distant date
+ values (Tom Lane)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ The <type>date</> type supports a wider range of dates than can be
+ represented by the <type>timestamp</> types, but the planner assumed it
+ could always convert a date to timestamp with impunity.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Fix <application>pg_restore</>'s text output for large objects (BLOBs)
+ when <varname>standard_conforming_strings</> is on (Tom Lane)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ Although restoring directly to a database worked correctly, string
+ escaping was incorrect if <application>pg_restore</> was asked for
+ SQL text output and <varname>standard_conforming_strings</> had been
+ enabled in the source database.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Fix erroneous parsing of <type>tsquery</> values containing
+ <literal>... & !(subexpression) | ...</literal> (Tom Lane)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ Queries containing this combination of operators were not executed
+ correctly. The same error existed in <filename>contrib/intarray</>'s
+ <type>query_int</> type and <filename>contrib/ltree</>'s
+ <type>ltxtquery</> type.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Fix buffer overrun in <filename>contrib/intarray</>'s input function
+ for the <type>query_int</> type (Apple)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ This bug is a security risk since the function's return address could
+ be overwritten. Thanks to Apple Inc's security team for reporting this
+ issue and supplying the fix. (CVE-2010-4015)
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Fix bug in <filename>contrib/seg</>'s GiST picksplit algorithm
+ (Alexander Korotkov)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ This could result in considerable inefficiency, though not actually
+ incorrect answers, in a GiST index on a <type>seg</> column.
+ If you have such an index, consider <command>REINDEX</>ing it after
+ installing this update. (This is identical to the bug that was fixed in
+ <filename>contrib/cube</> in the previous update.)
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ </itemizedlist>
+
+ </sect2>
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1 id="release-8-4-6">
+ <title>Release 8.4.6</title>
+
+ <note>
+ <title>Release Date</title>
+ <simpara>2010-12-16</simpara>
+ </note>
+
+ <para>
+ This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.4.5.
+ For information about new features in the 8.4 major release, see
+ <xref linkend="release-8-4">.
+ </para>
+
+ <sect2>
+ <title>Migration to Version 8.4.6</title>
+
+ <para>
+ A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.4.X.
+ However, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.4.2,
+ see the release notes for 8.4.2.
+ </para>
+
+ </sect2>
+
+ <sect2>
+ <title>Changes</title>
+
+ <itemizedlist>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Force the default
+ <link linkend="guc-wal-sync-method"><varname>wal_sync_method</></link>
+ to be <literal>fdatasync</> on Linux (Tom Lane, Marti Raudsepp)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ The default on Linux has actually been <literal>fdatasync</> for many
+ years, but recent kernel changes caused <productname>PostgreSQL</> to
+ choose <literal>open_datasync</> instead. This choice did not result
+ in any performance improvement, and caused outright failures on
+ certain filesystems, notably <literal>ext4</> with the
+ <literal>data=journal</> mount option.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Fix assorted bugs in WAL replay logic for GIN indexes (Tom Lane)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ This could result in <quote>bad buffer id: 0</> failures or
+ corruption of index contents during replication.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Fix recovery from base backup when the starting checkpoint WAL record
+ is not in the same WAL segment as its redo point (Jeff Davis)
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Fix persistent slowdown of autovacuum workers when multiple workers
+ remain active for a long time (Tom Lane)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ The effective <varname>vacuum_cost_limit</> for an autovacuum worker
+ could drop to nearly zero if it processed enough tables, causing it
+ to run extremely slowly.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Add support for detecting register-stack overrun on <literal>IA64</>
+ (Tom Lane)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ The <literal>IA64</> architecture has two hardware stacks. Full
+ prevention of stack-overrun failures requires checking both.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Add a check for stack overflow in <function>copyObject()</> (Tom Lane)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ Certain code paths could crash due to stack overflow given a
+ sufficiently complex query.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Fix detection of page splits in temporary GiST indexes (Heikki
+ Linnakangas)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ It is possible to have a <quote>concurrent</> page split in a
+ temporary index, if for example there is an open cursor scanning the
+ index when an insertion is done. GiST failed to detect this case and
+ hence could deliver wrong results when execution of the cursor
+ continued.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Fix error checking during early connection processing (Tom Lane)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ The check for too many child processes was skipped in some cases,
+ possibly leading to postmaster crash when attempting to add the new
+ child process to fixed-size arrays.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Improve efficiency of window functions (Tom Lane)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ Certain cases where a large number of tuples needed to be read in
+ advance, but <varname>work_mem</> was large enough to allow them all
+ to be held in memory, were unexpectedly slow.
+ <function>percent_rank()</>, <function>cume_dist()</> and
+ <function>ntile()</> in particular were subject to this problem.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Avoid memory leakage while <command>ANALYZE</>'ing complex index
+ expressions (Tom Lane)
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Ensure an index that uses a whole-row Var still depends on its table
+ (Tom Lane)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ An index declared like <literal>create index i on t (foo(t.*))</>
+ would not automatically get dropped when its table was dropped.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Do not <quote>inline</> a SQL function with multiple <literal>OUT</>
+ parameters (Tom Lane)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ This avoids a possible crash due to loss of information about the
+ expected result rowtype.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Behave correctly if <literal>ORDER BY</>, <literal>LIMIT</>,
+ <literal>FOR UPDATE</>, or <literal>WITH</> is attached to the
+ <literal>VALUES</> part of <literal>INSERT ... VALUES</> (Tom Lane)
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Fix constant-folding of <literal>COALESCE()</> expressions (Tom Lane)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ The planner would sometimes attempt to evaluate sub-expressions that
+ in fact could never be reached, possibly leading to unexpected errors.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Fix postmaster crash when connection acceptance
+ (<function>accept()</> or one of the calls made immediately after it)
+ fails, and the postmaster was compiled with GSSAPI support (Alexander
+ Chernikov)
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Fix missed unlink of temporary files when <varname>log_temp_files</>
+ is active (Tom Lane)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ If an error occurred while attempting to emit the log message, the
+ unlink was not done, resulting in accumulation of temp files.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Add print functionality for <structname>InhRelation</> nodes (Tom Lane)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ This avoids a failure when <varname>debug_print_parse</> is enabled
+ and certain types of query are executed.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Fix incorrect calculation of distance from a point to a horizontal
+ line segment (Tom Lane)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ This bug affected several different geometric distance-measurement
+ operators.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Fix incorrect calculation of transaction status in
+ <application>ecpg</> (Itagaki Takahiro)
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Fix <application>PL/pgSQL</>'s handling of <quote>simple</>
+ expressions to not fail in recursion or error-recovery cases (Tom Lane)
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Fix <application>PL/Python</>'s handling of set-returning functions
+ (Jan Urbanski)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ Attempts to call SPI functions within the iterator generating a set
+ result would fail.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Fix bug in <filename>contrib/cube</>'s GiST picksplit algorithm
+ (Alexander Korotkov)
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ This could result in considerable inefficiency, though not actually
+ incorrect answers, in a GiST index on a <type>cube</> column.
+ If you have such an index, consider <command>REINDEX</>ing it after
+ installing this update.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Don't emit <quote>identifier will be truncated</> notices in
+ <filename>contrib/dblink</> except when creating new connections
+ (Itagaki Takahiro)
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Fix potential coredump on missing public key in
+ <filename>contrib/pgcrypto</> (Marti Raudsepp)
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Fix memory leak in <filename>contrib/xml2</>'s XPath query functions
+ (Tom Lane)
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2010o
+ for DST law changes in Fiji and Samoa;
+ also historical corrections for Hong Kong.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ </itemizedlist>
+
+ </sect2>
+ </sect1>
+
<sect1 id="release-8-4-5">
<title>Release 8.4.5</title>
<note>
- <title>Release date</title>
+ <title>Release Date</title>
<simpara>2010-10-04</simpara>
</note>
<title>Release 8.4.4</title>
<note>
- <title>Release date</title>
+ <title>Release Date</title>
<simpara>2010-05-17</simpara>
</note>
<title>Release 8.4.3</title>
<note>
- <title>Release date</title>
+ <title>Release Date</title>
<simpara>2010-03-15</simpara>
</note>
<title>Release 8.4.2</title>
<note>
- <title>Release date</title>
+ <title>Release Date</title>
<simpara>2009-12-14</simpara>
</note>
</para>
<para>
- This fix prevents a PANIC if a <literal>VACUUM FULL</> is cancelled
+ This fix prevents a PANIC if a <literal>VACUUM FULL</> is canceled
after it's already committed its tuple movements, as well as transient
errors if a plain <literal>VACUUM</> is interrupted after having
truncated the table.
<title>Release 8.4.1</title>
<note>
- <title>Release date</title>
+ <title>Release Date</title>
<simpara>2009-09-09</simpara>
</note>
<title>Release 8.4</title>
<note>
- <title>Release date</title>
+ <title>Release Date</title>
<simpara>2009-07-01</simpara>
</note>
<para>
Allow <application>pg_dump</>, <application>pg_dumpall</>, and
<application>pg_restore</> to use a specified role (Benedek
- László)
+ László)
</para>
</listitem>