Re: PG 16 draft release notes ready - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

On Thu, May 18, 2023 at 04:12:26PM -0700, Peter Geoghegan wrote:
> On Thu, May 18, 2023 at 3:52 PM Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:
> > So, I looked at this and the problem is that this is best as a single
> > release note entry because we are removing and adding, and if I moved it
> > to compatibility, I am concerned the new feature will be missed.  Since
> > WAL inspection is a utility operation, inn general, I think having it in
> > the pg_walinspect section makes the most sense.
> 
> I don't understand what you mean by that. The changes to
> *_till_end_of_wal() (the way that those duplicative functions were
> removed, and more permissive end_lsn behavior was added) is unrelated
> to all of the other changes. Plus it's just not very important.

I see what you mean now.  I have moved the function removal to the
incompatibilities section and kept the existing entry but remove the
text about the removed functions.

> > Okay, I went with:
> >
> >         Improve descriptions of pg_walinspect WAL record descriptions
> >         (Melanie Plageman, Peter Geoghegan)
> >
> > > Note also that the item "Add pg_waldump option --save-fullpage to dump
> > > full page images (David Christensen)" is tangentially related to
> > > pg_get_wal_block_info(), since you can also get FPIs using
> > > pg_get_wal_block_info() (in fact, that was originally its main
> > > purpose). I'm not saying that you necessarily need to connect them
> > > together in any way, but you might consider it.
> >
> > Well, there is so much _new_ in that tool that listing everything new
> > seems confusing.
> 
> There is pretty much one truly new piece of functionality added to
> pg_walinspect (the function called pg_get_wal_block_info was added) --
> since the enhancement to rmgr description output applies equally to
> pg_waldump, no matter where you place it in the release notes. So not
> sure what you mean.

I see what you mean now.  I have removed the mention of
pg_get_wal_block_info() and moved the three items back into the
extension section since there are only three pg_walinspect items now.

> > All changes committed.
> 
> Even after these changes, the release notes still refer to a function
> called "pg_get_wal_block". There is no such function, though -- not in
> Postgres 16, and not in any other major version.

Oh

> 
> As I said, there is a new function called "pg_get_wal_block_info". It
> should simply be presented as a whole new function that offers novel
> new functionality compared to what was available in Postgres 15 --
> without any further elaboration. (It happens to be true that
> pg_get_wal_block_info only reached its final form following multiple
> rounds of work in multiple commits, but that is of no consequence to
> users -- even the earliest form of the function appeared in a commit
> in the Postgres 16 cycle.)

Done.  Please see the URL for the updated text, diff attached.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        https://momjian.us
  EDB                                      https://enterprisedb.com

  Only you can decide what is important to you.