== PostgreSQL Weekly News - April 20 2014 == - Mailing list pgsql-announce

== PostgreSQL Weekly News - April 20 2014 ==

PostgreSQL Conference Europe 2014 will be held on October 21-24 in
Madrid, Spain, at the Hotel Miguel Angel.
http://2014.pgconf.eu/

== PostgreSQL Product News ==

barman 1.3.1, a backup and recovery manager for PostgreSQL, released.
http://www.pgbarman.org/

== PostgreSQL Jobs for April ==

http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-jobs/2014-04/threads.php

== PostgreSQL Local ==

PGCon 2014, the world-wide developer conference for PostgreSQL, will
be in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada May 20-24, 2014.
http://www.pgcon.org/2014/

The sixth PGDay Cubano be held on 13 and 14 October 2014 in Habana.
https://postgresql.uci.cu/?p=380

Postgres Open 2014 will be in Chicago, IL, USA, September 17-19.  The
CfP is open!
http://postgresopen.org/2014/callforpapers/

== PostgreSQL in the News ==

Planet PostgreSQL: http://planet.postgresql.org/

PostgreSQL Weekly News is brought to you this week by David Fetter

Submit news and announcements by Sunday at 3:00pm Pacific time.
Please send English language ones to david@fetter.org, German language
to pwn@pgug.de, Italian language to pwn@itpug.org.  Spanish language
to pwn@arpug.com.ar.

== Applied Patches ==

Heikki Linnakangas pushed:

- GIN entry pages follow the standard page layout - tell XLogInsert.
  The entry B-tree pages all follow the standard page layout. The 9.3
  code has this right. I inadvertently changed this at some point
  during the big refactorings in git master.
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/1bd3842163f2b44e29938b5ab158bb6a589ff10c

- Remove dead checks for invalid left page in ginDeletePage.  In some
  places, the function assumes the left page is valid, and in others,
  it checks if it is valid. Remove all the checks.
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/e3e6e3af560116adc20cc9d6e75bfe82a45def60

- Set pd_lower on internal GIN posting tree pages.  This allows
  squeezing out the unused space in full-page writes. And more
  importantly, it can be a useful debugging aid.  In hindsight we
  should've done this back when GIN was added - we wouldn't need the
  'maxoff' field in the page opaque struct if we had used pd_lower and
  pd_upper like on normal pages. But as long as there can be pages in
  the index that have been binary-upgraded from pre-9.4 versions, we
  can't rely on that, and have to continue using 'maxoff'.  Most of
  the code churn comes from renaming some macros, now that they're
  used on internal pages, too.  This change is completely
  backwards-compatible, no effect on pg_upgrade.
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/f1dadd34fa9fccc72800ed206b8c274073dfd039

- Use correctly-sized buffer when zero-filling a WAL file.  I mixed up
  BLCKSZ and XLOG_BLCKSZ when I changed the way the buffer is
  allocated a couple of weeks ago. With the default settings, they are
  both 8k, but they can be changed at compile-time.
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/848b9f05ab283724dd063d936a92568c1fdf422b

- Set the all-visible flag on heap page before writing WAL record, not
  after.  If we set the all-visible flag after writing WAL record, and
  XLogInsert takes a full-page image of the page, the image would not
  include the flag.  We will then proceed to set the VM bit, which
  would then be set without the corresponding all-visible flag on the
  heap page.  Found by comparing page images on master and standby,
  after writing/replaying each WAL record. (There is still a
  discrepancy: the all-visible flag won't be set after replaying the
  HEAP_CLEAN record, even though it is set in the master. However, it
  will be set when replaying the HEAP2_VISIBLE record and setting the
  VM bit, so the all-visible flag and VM bit are always consistent on
  the standby, even though they are momentarily out-of-sync with
  master) Backpatch to 9.3 where this code was introduced.
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/2a8e1ac598c864ac2775f33da21a117c363c6c7f

Robert Haas pushed:

- Tab completion for event triggers.  Ian Barwick
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/7b979524afb21c969234f7a0a9b1c97ceec4629d

- Update list of relation types on which ALTER TABLE RENAME/OWNER
  work.  Etsuro Fujita
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/0c953540d285a94684b0c0dc7a2c338cb1d65ef0

- Correct description of constraint_name in ALTER TABLE documentation.
  Apparently, the old text was written at a time when the only use of
  constraint_name here was for a constraint to be dropped, but that's
  no longer true.  Etsuro Fujita
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/f0aa6c06d4e114ecb7ed81a2168238bbcfd54878

- doc: Update yet another place that didn't get the memo about
  matviews.  Etsuro Fujita
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/c050b2aae3b2f745ef61b379087cf9a67deea293

- doc: Suggesting clearing pg_replslot from a hot filesystem backup.
  Maybe we'll settle on another way of solving this problem, but for
  now this is the recommended procedure.  Per discussion with Michael
  Paquier.
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/69671ab548459814d489315bf5cd421f84e984a4

- Try to fix spurious DSM failures on Windows.  Apparently, Windows
  can sometimes return an error code even when the operation actually
  worked just fine.  Rearrange the order of checks according to what
  appear to be the best practices in this area.  Amit Kapila
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/1a81daab8be9a0b3769a2660db44a56a6035e34a

- Add to_regprocedure() and to_regoperator().  These are natural
  complements to the functions added by commit
  0886fc6a5c75b294544263ea979b9cf6195407d9, but they weren't included
  in the original patch for some reason.  Add them.  Patch by me, per
  a complaint by Tom Lane.  Review by Tatsuo Ishii.
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/dfc0219f649d5450a5e4d491dab1eeb23ac5530a

- Fix typo.  Etsuro Fujita
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/fab6170cabbd5af8ffabd2fcbf53e30287f11a41

- Fix another typo.  Etsuro Fujita
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/602b27ab8e45fbb07cf5b275b0593b38190232e4

Tom Lane pushed:

- Fix bogus handling of bad strategy number in GIST consistent()
  functions.  Make sure we throw an error instead of silently doing
  the wrong thing when fed a strategy number we don't recognize.
  Also, in the places that did already throw an error, spell the error
  message in a way more consistent with our message style guidelines.
  Per report from Paul Jones.  Although this is a bug, it won't occur
  unless a superuser tries to do something he shouldn't, so it doesn't
  seem worth back-patching.
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/4dfb065b3ab662dcc96d07ee7fc9dadf6975a0cb

- Use AF_UNSPEC not PF_UNSPEC in getaddrinfo calls.  According to the
  Single Unix Spec and assorted man pages, you're supposed to use the
  constants named AF_xxx when setting ai_family for a getaddrinfo
  call.  In a few places we were using PF_xxx instead.  Use of PF_xxx
  appears to be an ancient BSD convention that was not adopted by
  later standardization.  On BSD and most later Unixen, it doesn't
  matter much because those constants have equivalent values anyway;
  but nonetheless this code is not per spec.  In the same vein,
  replace PF_INET by AF_INET in one socket() call, which wasn't even
  consistent with the other socket() call in the same function let
  alone the remainder of our code.  Per investigation of a Cygwin
  trouble report from Marco Atzeri.  It's probably a long shot that
  this will fix his issue, but it's wrong in any case.
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/cad4fe6455bdc9ef1026b4a247eeb588ab3a8bd6

- Update oidjoins regression test for 9.4.  Now that we're pretty much
  feature-frozen, it's time to update the checks on system catalog
  foreign-key references.  (It looks like we missed doing this
  altogether for 9.3.  Sigh.)
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/cbb5e23bfa92973bddf11935448a9d42c32f7d42

- Fix contrib/postgres_fdw's remote-estimate representation of array
  Params.  We were emitting "(SELECT null::typename)", which is
  usually interpreted as a scalar subselect, but not so much in the
  context "x = ANY(...)".  This led to remote-side parsing failures
  when remote_estimate is enabled.  A quick and ugly fix is to stick
  in an extra cast step, "((SELECT null::typename)::typename)".  The
  cast will be thrown away as redundant by parse analysis, but not
  before it's done its job of making sure the grammar sees the ANY
  argument as an a_expr rather than a select_with_parens.  Per an
  example from Hannu Krosing.
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/5b68d81697bcb0d16136bd037e454ee53c521185

- Rename EXPLAIN ANALYZE's "total runtime" output to "execution time".
  Now that EXPLAIN also outputs a "planning time" measurement, the use
  of "total" here seems rather confusing: it sounds like it might
  include the planning time which of course it doesn't.  Majority
  opinion was that "execution time" is a better label, so we'll call
  it that.  This should be noted as a backwards incompatibility for
  tools that examine EXPLAIN ANALYZE output.  In passing, I failed to
  resist the temptation to do a little editing on the
  materialized-view example affected by this change.
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/5f86cbd714c9d43c0fbb43a7b172f77ebf429548

- Fix unused-variable warning on Windows.  Introduced in 585bca39:
  msgid is not used in the Windows code path.  Also adjust comments a
  tad (mostly to keep pgindent from messing it up).  David Rowley
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/01563158235f5650743fd9b1dfa80c3d8faf89bb

Peter Eisentraut pushed:

- Fix whitespace
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/7b5a9d61a8202c46f4cc02878eafa8367080c59a

- Add TAP tests for client programs.  Reviewed-by: Pavel Stěhule
  <pavel.stehule@gmail.com> Reviewed-by: Erik Rijkers <er@xs4all.nl>
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/7d0f493f19607774fdccb1a1ea06fdd96a3d9698

- Add @configure_input@ marker to Makefile.global.in.  That way, when
  looking at Makefile.global, we don't get confused by the comment
  that claims that this is Makefile.global.in.
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/e3fd9327384abc1cd252ddd8ce9429ab7bef48b5

- Have lcov call the right gcov.  By default, lcov will call whatever
  gcov it can find in the path.  But if the user has specified a
  different gcov to configure, this could be incompatible.  So tell
  lcov explicitly with an option which gcov program to call.
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/0d3b2b80aa6aee753f372bb0300a131691e9f55c

- vacuumdb: Add option --analyze-in-stages.  Add vacuumdb option
  --analyze-in-stages which runs ANALYZE three times with different
  configuration settings, adopting the logic from the
  analyze_new_cluster.sh script that pg_upgrade generates.  That way,
  users of pg_dump/pg_restore can also use that functionality.  Change
  pg_upgrade to create the script so that it calls vacuumdb instead of
  implementing the logic itself.
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/c92c3d50d7fbe7391b5fc864b444346b2db29ffe

- Create function prototype as part of PG_FUNCTION_INFO_V1 macro
  Because of gcc -Wmissing-prototypes, all functions in dynamically
  loadable modules must have a separate prototype declaration.  This
  is meant to detect global functions that are not declared in header
  files, but in cases where the function is called via dfmgr, this is
  redundant.  Besides filling up space with boilerplate, this is a
  frequent source of compiler warnings in extension modules.  We can
  fix that by creating the function prototype as part of the
  PG_FUNCTION_INFO_V1 macro, which such modules have to use anyway.
  That makes the code of modules cleaner, because there is one less
  place where the entry points have to be listed, and creates an
  additional check that functions have the right prototype.  Remove
  now redundant prototypes from contrib and other modules.
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/e7128e8dbb305059c30ec085461297e619bcbff4

Bruce Momjian pushed:

- contrib/test_decoding:  fix regression test for psql oid display
  changes.  Missed in previous commit
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/ab76d8e9d672c661fe8ce4d9405dc8956b8ece9d

- psql: conditionally display oids and replication identity.  In psql
  \d+, display oids only when they exist, and display replication
  identity only when it is non-default.  Also document the defaults
  for replication identity for system and non-system tables.  Update
  regression output.
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/4168c00a5d9c0c0c17cdfc902587b6d22ea1720f

- check socket creation errors against PGINVALID_SOCKET.  Previously,
  in some places, socket creation errors were checked for negative
  values, which is not true for Windows because sockets are unsigned.
  This masked socket creation errors on Windows.  Backpatch through
  9.0.  8.4 doesn't have the infrastructure to fix this.
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/41809346518a2b57530b22148609a346a718adc9

- doc: fix json_extract_path_text() typo by adding jsonb.  Report from
  rudolf <stu3.1@eq.cz>
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/ed4a26260c6ebd7948eacc42eddae1e898239f6e

- pg_upgrade:  remove redundant include files.  The files were already
  included by pg_upgrade.h.
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/95cb917297ebe77add3cef4f01cca1004031fa9a

- docs:  make max_wal_senders higher to handle disconnects.  Document
  abrupt streaming client disconnection might leave slots in use, so
  max_wal_senders should be slightly higher than needed to allow for
  immediate reconnection.  Per mention by Magnus
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/9c5334650085d441324e0f4fd9f8db12657b25c7

- psql:  update --help output for unaligned mode params.  Previously
  it wasn't clear from --help that -F, -R, -z, -0 only controlled psql
  unaligned output.  Initial patch from Jov <amutu@amutu.com>,
  adjustments by me
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/8c349ba5c04c3b5fdceb13c35996e7ff4b69585f

- doc:  move min_recovery_apply_delay into the right section.  Patch
  by Fujii Masao
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/be5f7fff470066dc3ee655b25840733eb9006426

- libpq:  use pgsocket for socket values, for portability.
  Previously, 'int' was used for socket values in libpq, but socket
  values are unsigned on Windows.  This is a style correction.
  Initial patch and previous PGINVALID_SOCKET initial patch by Joel
  Jacobson, modified by me Report from PVS-Studio
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/5d305d86bd917723f09ab4f15c075d90586a210a

- docs: properly document psql auto encoding mode.  In psql, both
  stdin and stdout must be terminals to get a client encoding of
  'auto'.  Patch by Albe Laurenz Backpatch to 9.3.
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/e183d11262f4e04ce7f191a9655aeeaa4682a7f5

- docs: adjustments for streaming standbys that disconnect frequently.
  Document problems when disconnection causes loss of
  hot_standby_feedback and suggest adjusting max_standby_archive_delay
  and max_standby_streaming_delay.  Initial patch by Marko Tiikkaja,
  adjustments by me
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/52e757420fa98a76015c2c88432db94269f3e8f4

- pg_upgrade:  throw an error for non-existent tablespace directories.
  Non-existent tablespace directory references can occur if user
  tablespaces are created inside data directories and the data
  directory is renamed in preparation for running pg_upgrade, and the
  symbolic links are not updated.  Backpatch to 9.3.
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/c1275cf74172cd0ed478dbc31e34e2ffffc6e789

- report stat() error in trigger file check.  Permissions might
  prevent the existence of the trigger file from being checked.  Per
  report from Andres Freund
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/83defef8c794e7772e4099a7efa2ebac3c62742c

- pgcrypto:  fix memset() calls that might be optimized away.
  Specifically, on-stack memset() might be removed, so: Replace
  memset() with px_memset().  Add px_memset to copy_crlf().  Add
  px_memset to pgp-s2k.c.  Patch by Marko Kreen Report by PVS-Studio
  Backpatch through 8.4.
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/9fe55259fd61fd9199907623f974caa7af66e780

- libpq:  have PQconnectdbParams() and PQpingParams accept "" as
  default.  Previously, these functions treated "" optin values as
  defaults in some ways, but not in others, like when comparing to
  .pgpass.  Also, add documentation to clarify that now "" and NULL
  use defaults, like PQsetdbLogin() has always done.  BACKWARD
  INCOMPATIBILITY Patch by Adrian Vondendriesch, docs by me Report by
  Jeff Janes
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/13ecb822e8da5668133b706474c25bc908ae370a

- docs:  tablespaces cannot be accessed independently.  Mention
  impossibility of moving tablespaces, backing them up independently,
  or the inadvisability of placing them on temporary file systems.
  Patch by Craig Ringer, adjustments by Ian Lawrence Warwick and me
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/4353d1809f6d10845be76dda1dad45013d0b14b8

- doc: mention archive_command and recovery_command are exec'ed
  locally.  Report by Craig Ringer
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/0e8beed515b78d5a987c04ec047b7c9bee69ac83

- doc: CREATE DATABASE doesn't copy template database-level config
  params.  Report by Alexey Bashtanov
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/012025f9ae20e174b81f71af45b467f9a62fe478

Magnus Hagander pushed:

- Fix timeout in LDAP lookup of libpq connection parameters.  Bind
  attempts to an LDAP server should time out after two seconds,
  allowing additional lines in the service control file to be parsed
  (which provide a fall back to a secondary LDAP server or default
  options).  The existing code failed to enforce that timeout during
  TCP connect, resulting in a hang far longer than two seconds if the
  LDAP server does not respond.  Laurenz Albe
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/585bca393640b609c54159e1bedd30a89fec5ea8

- Fix typo.  Amit Langote
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/66b1084e2ccf1f5b8cb57ebb41f54f76850a2b5d

Andrew Dunstan pushed:

- Attempt to get plpython regression tests working again for MSVC
  builds.  This has probably been broken for quite a long time.
  Buildfarm member currawong's current results suggest that it's been
  broken since 9.1, so backpatch this to that branch.  This only
  supports Python 2 - I will handle Python 3 separately, but this is a
  fairly simple fix.
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/ef158312e96960bfbc802ceda58f432f6fd845eb

Alvaro Herrera pushed:

- Fix object identities for text search objects.  We were neglecting
  to schema-qualify them.  Backpatch to 9.3, where object identities
  were introduced as a concept by commit f8348ea32ec8.
  http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/83ab8e32f24542e3ab1f73b24c57cdbed6a4c9e4

== Rejected Patches (for now) ==

Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum's patch to change iff to if.  The former is
actually correct.

== Pending Patches ==

David Rowley sent in another revision of a patch to optimize window
functions by allowing pushdowns of items matching PARTITION BY
clauses.

Heikki Linnakangas sent in a patch to fix a race condition between
PREPARE TRANSACTION and COMMIT PREPARED.

Fabrízio de Royes Mello sent in another revision of a patch to
implement CINE functionality for sequences.

Stephen Frost sent in another revision of a patch to implement
row-level access controls.

Peter Geoghegan sent in a patch to improve on the current clock sweep
algorithm for B-tree leaf pages.

Amit Kapila sent in a patch to fix a dsm invalid errcode issue.

Zoltan Boszormenyi sent in another rebased revision of the ECPG FETCH
patch.

Nicholas White sent in another revision of a patch to make it possible
for lag and lead window functions to ignore nulls.

Dmitri Voronin sent in a patch to add a new sslinfo extension which
includes: ssl_get_count_of_extensions(), ssl_get_extension_names(),
ssl_get_extension_value(text), and ssl_is_critical_extension(text).

Michael Paquier and Fabrízio de Royes Mello traded patches to make it
possible for the verbose output of pg_dump to include schema names for
everything dumped.

MauMau sent in another revision of a patch to fix an issue where
pg_ctl always uses the same event source on Windows.

Tom Lane sent in two more revisions of a patch to detoast composite
array elements.

Mohammad Alhashash sent in a patch to allow empty targets in the
unaccent dictionary.

Christian Ullrich sent in a patch to arrange things so on Windows,
PostgreSQL silently ignores control-C and control-break when started
via pg_ctl.

Michael Paquier sent in a patch to remove a dependency on wsock32.lib
when compiling code on Windows.