From 77dfb64df4c1e7f2662b0199971ff4af289cb00e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Peter Eisentraut Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:14:44 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] Add release notes for 8.5alpha1 --- doc/src/sgml/filelist.sgml | 3 +- doc/src/sgml/release-8.5.sgml | 400 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ doc/src/sgml/release.sgml | 3 +- 3 files changed, 404 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) create mode 100644 doc/src/sgml/release-8.5.sgml diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/filelist.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/filelist.sgml index 63c28bb00d..7e194f7bcc 100644 --- a/doc/src/sgml/filelist.sgml +++ b/doc/src/sgml/filelist.sgml @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ - + @@ -140,6 +140,7 @@ + diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/release-8.5.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/release-8.5.sgml new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..a221f1ebbe --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/src/sgml/release-8.5.sgml @@ -0,0 +1,400 @@ + + + + Release 8.5alpha1 + + Overview + + PostgreSQL alpha releases are snapshots of development code. They + are intended to preview and test upcoming features and to provide + the possibility for early feedback. They should not be used in + production installations or active development projects. While the + PostgreSQL code is continuously subject to a number of automated + and manual tests, alpha releases might have serious bugs. Also + features may be changed incompatibly or removed at any time during + the development cycle. + + + The development cycle of a PostgreSQL major release alternates + between periods of development and periods of integration work, + called commit fests, normally one month each. Alpha releases are + planned to be produced at the end of every commit fest, thus every + two months. Since the first commit fest starts within a month from + the beginning of development altogether, early alpha releases are + not indicative of the likely feature set of the final release. + + + The release notes below highlight user visible changes and new + features. There are normally numerous bug fixes and performance + improvements in every new snapshot of PostgreSQL, and it would be + too bulky to attempt to list them all. Note that many bug fixes are + also backported to stable releases of PostgreSQL, and you should be + using those if you are looking for bug-fix-only upgrades for your + current installations. + + + + Migration + + To upgrade from any release to an alpha release or from an alpha + release to any other release will most likely require a + dump/restore upgrade procedure. It may happen that this is not + necessary in particular cases, but that is not verified beforehand. + (The server will warn you in any case when a dump/restore is + necessary if you attempt to use it with an old data directory.) + Note, however, that the dump/restore upgrade procedure is expected + to work for alpha releases, and problems in this area should be + reported. + + + + Changes + + SQL Features + + + + DROP COLUMN and DROP CONSTRAINT now support an IF EXISTS clause so + that users can avoid fatal errors when running repeatable scripts. + + + + + UNIQUE constraints can now be DEFERRABLE. This is primarily useful + for incremental updates of numerical keys, e.g. "ID = ID + + 1" + + + + + Allows parentheses around the query expression that follows a WITH + clause. + + + + + INFORMATION_SCHEMA, a catalog of standard views of database + objects, has been updated to the SQL:2008 ANSI/ISO standard. + + + + + Changes character_octet_length to more sensible values in + INFORMATION_SCHEMA. + + + + + Allow * as parameter for FORCE QUOTE for COPY CSV, so that all + columns will be quoted. + + + + + + Performance + + + + EXPLAIN allows output of plans in XML or JSON format for automated + processing of explain plans by analysis or visualization tools. + + + + + EXPLAIN now supports the use of generic options in EXPLAIN ( option + value, ... ) format, which permits the creation of additional + EXPLAIN options. + + + + + ALTER TABLE ... ALTER COLUMN ... SET STATISTICS DISTINCT allows + users to manually tweak the number of distinct values estimated for + a column, to fix cases where ANALYZE estimates are incorrect. + + + + + Makes GEQO's planning deterministic by having it start from a + predictable random number seed each time. + + + + + Rewrite GEQO's gimme_tree function so that it always finds a legal + join sequence. Previously, it could have failed to produce a plan + in some cases. + + + + + Tweak TOAST code so that columns marked with MAIN storage strategy + are not forced out-of-line unless that is necessary to make the row + fit on a page. Previously, they were forced out-of-line if needed + to get the row down to the default target size (1/4th page). + + + + + Simplify the forms foo <> true and foo <> false to foo + = false and foo = true during query optimization. + + + + + Avoid per-send() system calls to manage SIGPIPE in libpq, if the + platform provides either sockopt(SO_NOSIGPIPE) or the MSG_NOSIGNAL + flag to send(). + + + + + Reserve the shared memory region during backend startup on Windows, + so that memory allocated by starting third party DLLs doesn't end + up conflicting with it. Hopefully this solves the long-time issue + with "could not reattach to shared memory" errors on + Win32. + + + + + + Administration and Monitoring + + + + Add the ability to include the SQLSTATE error code of any error + messages in the PostgreSQL activity log with the new + log_line_prefix placeholder %e. + + + + + Show the exact value being complained of in + unique-constraint-violation error messages, including unique-index + build failures. + + + + + + Security + + + + New has_sequence_privilege() functions allow you to check sequence + privileges for a given ROLE. + + + + + + Built-In Functions + + + + The to_char() formatting functions now supports EEEE (scientific + notation). + + + + + Use floor() not rint() when reducing precision of fractional + seconds in timestamp_trunc, timestamptz_trunc, and interval_trunc() + for the float-datetime case. This improves accuracy of time + calculations. + + + + + Fix ancient bug in handling of to_char() modifier 'TH', when used + with HH. + + + + + + Datatypes + + + + New hex-string input and output format options for type BYTEA. Hex + output format is enabled by default, which is an INCOMPATIBLE + CHANGE. See the new bytea_output parameter if you need to restore + compatibility. + + + + + Adds prefix support for text search synonym dictionary, allowing + creation of synonyms on partial matches. + + + + + + Server Tools + + + + pg_dump/pg_restore --clean now drops large objects. + + + + + Modifies parallel pg_restore ordering logic to avoid a potential + O(N^2) slowdown for some complex databases. + + + + + + psql + + + + Have \d show child tables that inherit from the specified parent + + + + + psql now shows the index methods in \di + + + + + + Procedural Languages + + + + PL/pgSQL functions using RETURNS QUERY or RECORD types no longer + always need to be rebuilt after adding or dropping a column for the + related tables. + + + + + Improves error context reporting in PL/Python, for easier + debugging. + + + + + Greatly expands the regression testing for PL/Python. + + + + + + Additional Supplied Modules + + + + pgbench is now multi-threaded, allowing it to use multiple CPU's + for its client connections, and to do more realistic workload + testing. + + + + + Added the ability to retrieve asynchronous notifications using + dblink, via the addition of the function dblink_get_notify(). + + + + + Added matchorig, matchsynonyms, and keepsynonyms options to + contrib/dict_xsyn. + + + + + + Development + + + + Functions which conflict with C++ reserved words have been renamed, + making backend header files now safe to use with C++ libraries. + + + + + Add man pages for SPI functions. + + + + + ECPG now includes a STRING datatype for Informix compatibility + mode. + + + + + + Source code, build options + + + + Upgrade to Autoconf 2.63 (not relevant to users of distribution + tarballs). + + + + + Minimum version of Flex is now 2.5.31, to support reentrant + scanners (not relevant to users of distribution tarballs). + + + + + Documentation build rules have been improved. The generated + documentation files are now shipped "loose", not in + sub-tarballs. + + + + + New toolchain to generate man pages. From now on, the man pages + will be current in every release. + + + + + Code-coverage testing support now extends to the entire source + tree, not only src/backend/. + + + + + Reserve the shared memory region during backend startup on Windows, + so that memory allocated by starting third party DLLs doesn't end + up conflicting with it. Hopefully this solves the long-time issue + with "could not reattach to shared memory" errors on + Win32. + + + + + Make the core scanner re-entrant, along with additional fixes that + will let it be used directly by PL/pgSQL. + + + + + Fix backend startup to not depend on the flat-file copy of + pg_database. This is a first step towards eliminating the flat + files altogether. + + + + + Add s_lock support for SuperH architecture (not well tested). + + + + + + diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/release.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/release.sgml index d8813ff912..70f31f0de4 100644 --- a/doc/src/sgml/release.sgml +++ b/doc/src/sgml/release.sgml @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ - + +&release-8.5; &release-8.4; &release-8.3; &release-8.2; -- 2.11.0