PostgreSQL Weekly News - August 21st 2003 == - Mailing list pgsql-announce

== PostgreSQL Weekly News - August 21st 2003 ==

    Slow and steady must have been the motto this week, as folks continued
with their beta testing efforts.  Nothing earth shattering was
discovered, but there were certainly enough items to keep folks busy.

    The MemoryContextCheck() call was moved to a more sensible place in the
code to find out more about stomps affecting only transaction local
contexts. In libpq, PQexecPrepared() and PQsendQueryPrepared() functions
were added to allow users to perform Bind/Execute of previously prepared
statements. A fix for handling COPY FROM <stdin> via the extended query
protocol was also instituted in libpq.  A bit of cleanup in psql,
removing some unneeded #includes, and adding some missing quotes to
pg_ctl. A few more compiler issues were worked out. Double-quotes in
user ACL lists are now handled correctly. The locktable init code was
cleaned up to ensure detection of MAX_LOCKMODES
overrun.

    Array_cmp was rewritten to not depend on the deconstruct_array so as
not to leak memory, but should have the added benefit of being a bit
faster too. In fixing this, a 'type cache' was created in order to keep
track of the data needed for any particular datatype by array_eq and
array_cmp, which is now also used by the parser's equality_oper and
ordering_oper routines. The ARRAY[] construct was fixed so that in
multidimensional cases, elements can be anything yielding an array of
the proper kind, not only sub-ARRAY[] constructs. There was also an
adjustment to array_cat to make array || array comply with the SQL99
spec. And finally there was an improvement in dynahash.c's API so that
caller can specify the comparison function,  making it possible to
eliminate the special-purpose hashtable management code in
execGrouping.c

    Tsearch received a few updates, including improving accuracy with
MinWords option of headline function, correction of some of the error
messages, and the start_parse_fh function was eliminated.
A fix in JDBC for improper message length for the V3 connection
termination message was added, and the blob regression tests were also
enhanced.

    Areas of the documentation that were tweaked or added to include
threading status, kerberos support, use of sort_mem for restore, some
clarification of the binary format read/created by COPY BINARY (thanks
to Lee Kindness), the vacuumdb function, improved information in the
CLOSE reference page, notes on SSL support responses from the server,
more detail on the working of ORDER BY and GROUP BY, some further
additions for working with arrays, and some spelling fixes and
grammatical changes for added consistency.

    As people look over the features of each new release, there are always
a few cases where people remember things they meant to do for the
release and see opportunities for new features they couldn't have done
before. This week saw a number of additions to the TODO list including
adding pg_get_acldef(), pg_get_typedefault(), and pg_get_attrdef()
functions, adding a TRUNCATE ... CASCADE ability, allowing pooled
connections to query prepared queries, fixing upper()/lower() to work
for multibyte encodings, and allowing pooled connections to close all
open WITH HOLD cursors.



== PostgreSQL Product News ==

Calpp Beta Version 1 Released
http://gborg.postgresql.org/project/calpp/news/newsfull.php?news_id=130



== PostgreSQL In the News ==

PostgreSQL Software Installation
http://www.databasejournal.com/features/postgresql/article.php/3064861

Bricolage
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6934



== Upcoming Events ==

1-day PostgreSQL Workshop : Turkey / Istanbul'da : August 23
FrontSITE & TDM is offering 1-day course on PostgreSQL
http://www.frontsite.com.tr and
http://www.tdmsoft.com/egitim_ayrinti.php?id=1

Gnu/Linux Congress: Veracruz, Mexico: September 17-19
Bruce Momjian has been asked to give a keynote address and he will also
be presenting tutorials
http://congreso.gulev.org.mx

LinuxWorld Conference & Expo 2003 : Frankfurt, Germany : October 27-29
PostgreSQL will have a booth at the LinuxWorld Conference
http://www.linuxworldexpo.de/


== PostgreSQL Weekly News - August 21st 2003 ==
Don't forget to read Elein Mustain's Weekly Summary of the PostgreSQL
General Mailing List http://www.varlena.com/GeneralBits/

On the Web:
http://www.postgresql.org
http://advocacy.postgresql.org