The fifth alpha release for PostgreSQL version 9.1, 9.1alpha5, is now available. There are no new major features in
thisalpha release as compared to 9.1alpha4, but there are many minor bug fixes and improvements to features added in
9.1alpha4and earlier alpha releases. It is expected that no major new features will be added before final release;
thisis likely to be the final alpha release for PostgreSQL 9.1.
Please download, install, and test Alpha5. We depend on your bug reports and feedback in order to proceed to 9.1beta
andto final release. The more testing you do, the sooner 9.1 will be available. Thank you to the many users who
reportedbugs in earlier alphas.
Most of the 148 changes and fixes between Alpha4 and Alpha5 were around two major features, per-column collations and
synchronousreplication. Work on per-column collations included some major refactoring, adding support for it in all
featuresof PostgreSQL, and changes to the column collations API and system catalogs. Multiple reported bugs were fixed
insynchronous replication including lockups, issues with recovery mode, and replication being very slow with fsync =
off. If you tested either of these features, please retest as the code has changed significantly since Alpha4.
Other changes included:
* add post-creation hook for extensions
* numerous additions and corrections to documentation and release notes
* allow valid-on-creation foreign keys as column constraints
* refactor of min/max aggregate optimization
* fix potential race condition with pg_basebackup
* fix PL/Python array memory leak
* raise maximum value for many timeout configuration settings
* fix handling of "unknown" literals in UNION queries
* fix some division-by-zero issues in the code
* cleanup some variable handling in ECPG
* fix some makefile problems introduced in Alpha4
* make permissions for COMMENT ON ROLE consistent
The new features which are expected to be available in PostgreSQL 9.1 are documented in the release notes, at
http://developer.postgresql.org/pgdocs/postgres/release-9-1.html.If you are able to help with organized alpha testing,
pleasesee the Alpha/Beta testing page: http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/HowToBetaTest
Alpha releases are not stable and should never be used in production; they are for testing new features only. There is
noguarantee that any features or APIs present in the alphas will be present, or the
same, in the final release.
Alpha release information page: http://www.postgresql.org/developer/alpha
Download the alpha release here:
http://www.postgresql.org/ftp/source/v9.1alpha5/
Alpha releases are primarily made in source code form only. Binary packages for some operating systems will be
preparedin the coming days.
--
Josh Berkus
