From: David Fetter <david@fetter.org>
Date: Mon, 3 May 2010 04:26:19 +0000 (+0000)
Subject: PostgreSQL Weekly News May 02, 2010
X-Git-Url: http://git.postgresql.org/gitweb/static/gitweb.js?a=commitdiff_plain;h=020d38fd8583ee2321bb0a0da2c6a885511824fb;p=pgweb-old.git

PostgreSQL Weekly News May 02, 2010

git-svn-id: file:///Users/dpage/pgweb/svn-repo/trunk@2666 8f5c7a92-453e-0410-a47f-ad33c8a6b003
---

diff --git a/portal/files/weeklynews.xml b/portal/files/weeklynews.xml
index b8a457f3..6b54bcf7 100644
--- a/portal/files/weeklynews.xml
+++ b/portal/files/weeklynews.xml
@@ -10,6 +10,17 @@
 <description></description>
 <language>en</language>
 
+<item>
+<title>PostgreSQL Weekly News May 2nd 2010</title>
+<description>
+PostgreSQL 9.0beta1 out soon.  Get ready to test!
+&#x3C;a href=&#x22;http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/HowToBetaTest&#x22;&#x3E;http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/HowToBetaTest&#x3C;/a&#x3E;
+
+
+</description>
+<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.postgresql.org/community/weeklynews/pwn20100502</guid>
+<pubDate>Sun, 02 May 2010 00:00:00 PST</pubDate>
+</item>
 <item>
 <title>PostgreSQL Weekly News April 25th 2010</title>
 <description>
@@ -112,18 +123,5 @@ ready to upgrade!
 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.postgresql.org/community/weeklynews/pwn20100307</guid>
 <pubDate>Sun, 07 Mar 2010 00:00:00 PST</pubDate>
 </item>
-<item>
-<title>PostgreSQL Weekly News February 28th 2010</title>
-<description>
-PostgreSQL 9.0alpha4 is out.  Test!  More info and download
-information below.
-&#x3C;a href=&#x22;http://www.postgresql.org/developer/alpha&#x22;&#x3E;http://www.postgresql.org/developer/alpha&#x3C;/a&#x3E;
-&#x3C;a href=&#x22;http://www.postgresql.org/ftp/source/9.0alpha4&#x22;&#x3E;http://www.postgresql.org/ftp/source/9.0alpha4&#x3C;/a&#x3E;
-
-
-</description>
-<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.postgresql.org/community/weeklynews/pwn20100228</guid>
-<pubDate>Sun, 28 Feb 2010 00:00:00 PST</pubDate>
-</item>
 </channel>
 </rss>
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/portal/template/en/community/weeklynews.html b/portal/template/en/community/weeklynews.html
index f3e1c909..e2e2cb12 100644
--- a/portal/template/en/community/weeklynews.html
+++ b/portal/template/en/community/weeklynews.html
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ Weekly News
 <p>To receive the Weekly News in your inbox, please subscribe to the <a href="/community/lists/subscribe">pgsql-announce@postgresql.org</a> mailing list.</p>
 
 <ul>
+    <li><a href="/community/weeklynews/pwn20100502">May 2nd 2010</a></li>
     <li><a href="/community/weeklynews/pwn20100425">April 25th 2010</a></li>
     <li><a href="/community/weeklynews/pwn20100418">April 18th 2010</a></li>
     <li><a href="/community/weeklynews/pwn20100411">April 11th 2010</a></li>
diff --git a/portal/template/en/community/weeklynews/pwn20100502.html b/portal/template/en/community/weeklynews/pwn20100502.html
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..19bb51ba
--- /dev/null
+++ b/portal/template/en/community/weeklynews/pwn20100502.html
@@ -0,0 +1,511 @@
+<!-- BEGIN page_title_block -->
+Weekly News - May 02 2010
+<!-- END page_title_block -->
+
+<h1>PostgreSQL Weekly News - May 02 2010</h1>
+
+<p>
+PostgreSQL 9.0beta1 out soon.  Get ready to test!
+<a href="http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/HowToBetaTest">http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/HowToBetaTest</a>
+</p>
+
+<h2>PostgreSQL Product News</h2>
+<p>
+New PostgreSQL LiveCDs based on PostgreSQL 8.4 atop Fedora 12 and
+CentOS 5.4 are out.
+<a href="http://www.pglivecd.org/">http://www.pglivecd.org/</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PL/Proxy 2.1.0, a write-scaling clustering system for PostgreSQL, released.
+<a href="http://pgfoundry.org/projects/plproxy/">http://pgfoundry.org/projects/plproxy/</a>
+</p>
+
+<h2>PostgreSQL 9.0 Feature of the Week</h2>
+<p>
+You can now call functions with named parameters, e.g.
+foo('value' AS parameter_foo, 'other value' AS parameter_bar)
+</p>
+
+<h2>PostgreSQL Local</h2>
+<p>
+Andreas (ads) Scherbaum will be teaching a "PostgreSQL for Corporate
+Use" course at the adult education center in Magdeburg, Germany May
+3-7, 2010.  Details below:
+<a href="http://andreas.scherbaum.la/blog/archives/650-PostgreSQL-Schulung-als-Bildungsurlaub-03.-07.05.2010-in-Magdeburg.html">http://andreas.scherbaum.la/blog/archives/650-PostgreSQL-Schulung-als-Bildungsurlaub-03.-07.05.2010-in-Magdeburg.html</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PgCon 2010 will be held May 20-21 2010 in Ottawa with tutorials before
+on the 18th and 19th.
+<a href="http://www.pgcon.org/2010/registration.php">http://www.pgcon.org/2010/registration.php</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Registration for Open Source Bridge is open and talks are announced!
+June 1-4, 2010 in Portland, Oregon.
+<a href="http://opensourcebridge.org/events/2010/proposals/">http://opensourcebridge.org/events/2010/proposals/</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Michael Renner will be speaking at AMOOCON, which goes from June 4-6, 2010.
+<a href="http://www.amoocon.de/speakers/214">http://www.amoocon.de/speakers/214</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Southeast Linuxfest 2010 will take place in Spartanburg, SC, USA on
+June 12-13.  Booths and sponsorships are still available.
+<a href="http://southeastlinuxfest.org/">http://southeastlinuxfest.org/</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+OSCON will take place in Portland, Oregon July 19-23, 2010.
+<a href="http://www.oscon.com/oscon2010">http://www.oscon.com/oscon2010</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+
+== PostgreSQL in the News ==
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Planet PostgreSQL: <a href="http://planet.postgresql.org/">http://planet.postgresql.org/</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PostgreSQL Weekly News is brought to you this week by David Fetter
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<h2>Applied Patches</h2>
+<p>
+Robert Haas committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- When we're restricting who can connect, don't allow new walsenders.
+  Normal superuser processes are allowed to connect even when the
+  database system is shutting down, or when fewer than
+  superuser_reserved_connection slots remain.  This is intended to
+  make sure an administrator can log in and troubleshoot, so don't
+  extend these same courtesies to users connecting for replication.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bruce Momjian committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/backend/utils/adt/pg_locale.c, add comments about why
+  we set LC_CTYPE in WIN32 for time when we don't actually access it,
+  per information from Hiroshi Inoue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Reorder pg_stat_activity columns to be more consistent, using layout
+  suggested by Tom Lane.  Catalog version bumped due to system view
+  change.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/high-availability.sgml, document that pgpool
+  can be used with master/slave servers to avoid problems with
+  non-deterministic functions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/release-9.0.sgml, update 9.0 release notes to
+  current;  add major items and introductory text.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Move alpha release notes into a separate file;  re-align sgml tags.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/release-9.0.sgml, doc fix -- last major item
+  should not be a bullet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/release-9.0.sgml, documentation fix:  CREATE
+  TRIGGER 'WHERE' -> 'WHEN'.  Selena Deckelmann.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tom Lane committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/backend/tsearch/wparser_def.c, add missing newlines in
+  WPARSER_TRACE output.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/monitoring.sgml, update documentation to match
+  pg_stat_activity changes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Replace the KnownAssignedXids hash table with a sorted-array data
+  structure, and be more tense about the locking requirements for it,
+  to improve performance in Hot Standby mode.  In passing fix a few
+  bugs and improve a number of comments in the existing Hot Standby
+  code.  Simon Riggs, with some editorialization by Tom Lane.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/backend/parser/parse_relation.c, fix stupid typo in
+  refnameRangeTblEntry() --- mea maxima culpa.  Per report from Josh
+  Berkus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Modify the built-in text search parser to handle URLs more nearly
+  according to RFC 3986.  In particular, these characters now
+  terminate the path part of a URL: '"', '<', '>', '\', '^', '`', '{',
+  '|', '}'.  The previous behavior was inconsistent and depended on
+  whether a "?" was present in the path.  Per gripe from Donald Fraser
+  and spec research by Kevin Grittner.  This is a pre-existing bug,
+  but not back-patching since the risks of breaking existing
+  applications seem to outweigh the benefits.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Fix contrib/tsearch2 expected results to match recent changes in URL
+  parsing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Modify ShmemInitStruct and ShmemInitHash to throw errors internally,
+  rather than returning NULL for some-but-not-all failures as they
+  used to.  Remove now-redundant tests for NULL from call sites.  We
+  had to do something about this because many call sites were failing
+  to check for NULL; and changing it like this seems a lot more useful
+  and mistake-proof than adding checks to the call sites without them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/bin/pg_controldata/pg_controldata.c, pg_controldata
+  needs #define FRONTEND, same as pg_resetxlog.  Per buildfarm results
+  from dawn_bat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Minor editorializing on pg_controldata and pg_resetxlog: adjust some
+  message wording, deal explicitly with some fields that were being
+  silently left zero.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/backend/catalog/information_schema.sql, modify
+  information_schema._pg_keysequal() to avoid search path risk when
+  contrib/intarray is loaded.  Per bug #5417 from Kenaniah Cerny.  Not
+  forcing initdb since backend doesn't directly depend on this, and
+  few people have run into it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/perform.sgml, fix typo, per Thom Brown.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/jadetex.cfg, install a workaround for 'TeX
+  capacity exceeded' problem when building PDF output for recent
+  versions of the documentation.  There is probably a better answer
+  out there somewhere, but we need something now so we can build beta
+  releases.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Rename the parameter recovery_connections to hot_standby, to reduce
+  possible confusion with streaming-replication settings.  Also,
+  change its default value to "off", because of concern about
+  executing new and poorly-tested code during ordinary non-replicating
+  operation.  Per discussion.  In passing do some minor editing of
+  related documentation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Adjust error checks in pg_start_backup and pg_stop_backup to make it
+  possible to perform a backup without archive_mode being enabled.
+  This gives up some user-error protection in order to improve
+  usefulness for streaming-replication scenarios.  Per discussion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Fix a couple of places where the result of fgets() wasn't checked.
+  This is mostly to suppress compiler warnings, although in principle
+  the cases could result in undesirable behavior.  Martin Pitt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/pl/plpython/plpython.c, fix multiple memory leaks in
+  PLy_spi_execute_fetch_result: it would leak memory if the result had
+  zero rows, and also if there was any sort of error while converting
+  the result tuples into Python data.  Reported and partially fixed by
+  Andres Freund.  Back-patch to all supported versions.  Note: I
+  haven't tested the 7.4 fix.  7.4's configure check for python is so
+  obsolete it doesn't work on my current machines :-(.  The logic
+  change is pretty straightforward though.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/ref/copy.sgml, improve COPY documentation to
+  clarify that it doesn't copy data to or from child tables.  Per
+  gripe from Jaime Casanova.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/runtime.sgml, update our information about OS
+  X shared memory configuration: it's now possible to set most of the
+  SHM kernel parameters without a reboot.  Also, reorder the paragraph
+  to explain the modern configuration method first.  There are
+  probably not too many people who still care about how to do it on OS
+  X 10.3 or older.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/pl/plpython/plpython.c, fix leakage of proc-related
+  storage in plpython's inline handler.  Per report from Andres
+  Freund.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/Makefile, adjust postgres.xml rule so that
+  make will notice a failure exit from osx.  The previous coding had
+  it in a pipe, which on most shells won't report the error.  Per
+  experimentation with a bug report from Vladimir Kokovic.  This
+  doesn't actually fix his problem, but it does explain why make
+  didn't report that there was a problem.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/Makefile, install hack workaround for failure
+  of 'make all' in VPATH builds.  It appears that gmake gets confused
+  if postgres.sgml is not present in the working directory, and
+  instantiates some default rule or other that would let postgres.sgml
+  be built from postgres.xml.  I haven't been able to track down
+  exactly where that's coming from, but the problem can be dodged by
+  specifying srcdir explicitly in the rule for postgres.xml.  Per
+  report from Vladimir Kokovic.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/backend/port/sysv_shmem.c, add code to
+  InternalIpcMemoryCreate() to handle the case where shmget() returns
+  EINVAL for an existing shared memory segment.  Although it's not
+  terribly sensible, that behavior does meet the POSIX spec because
+  EINVAL is the appropriate error code when the existing segment is
+  smaller than the requested size, and the spec explicitly disclaims
+  any particular ordering of error checks.  Moreover, it does in fact
+  happen on OS X and probably other BSD-derived kernels.  (We were
+  able to talk NetBSD into changing their code, but purging that
+  behavior from the wild completely seems unlikely to happen.) We need
+  to distinguish collision with a pre-existing segment from invalid
+  size request in order to behave sensibly, so it's worth some extra
+  code here to get it right.  Per report from Gavin Kistner and
+  subsequent investigation.  Back-patch to all supported versions,
+  since any of them could get used with a kernel having the debatable
+  behavior.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Clean up some awkward, inaccurate, and inefficient processing around
+  MaxStandbyDelay.  Use the GUC units mechanism for the value, and
+  choose more appropriate timestamp functions for performing tests
+  with it.  Make the ps_activity manipulation in
+  ResolveRecoveryConflictWithVirtualXIDs have behavior similar to
+  ps_activity code elsewhere, notably not updating the display when
+  update_process_title is off and not truncating the display contents
+  at an arbitrarily-chosen length.  Improve the docs to be explicit
+  about what MaxStandbyDelay actually measures, viz the difference
+  between primary and standby servers' clocks, and the possible
+  hazards if their clocks aren't in sync.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/backend/access/heap/heapam.c, fix replay of
+  XLOG_HEAP_NEWPAGE WAL records to pay attention to the forknum field
+  of the WAL record.  The previous coding always wrote to the main
+  fork, resulting in data corruption if the page was meant to go into
+  a non-default fork.  At present, the only operation that can produce
+  such WAL records is ALTER TABLE/INDEX SET TABLESPACE when executed
+  with archive_mode = on.  Data corruption would be observed on
+  standby slaves, and could occur on the master as well if a database
+  crash and recovery occurred after committing the ALTER and before
+  the next checkpoint.  Per report from Gordon Shannon.  Back-patch to
+  8.4; the problem doesn't exist in earlier branches because we didn't
+  have a concept of multiple relation forks then.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/backend/access/heap/heapam.c, improve printing of
+  XLOG_HEAP_NEWPAGE records to include the forknum.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Heikki Linnakangas committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/backend/access/transam/xlog.c, if a base backup is
+  cancelled by server shutdown or crash, throw an error in WAL
+  recovery when it sees the shutdown checkpoint record.  It's more
+  user-friendly to find out about it at that point than at the end of
+  recovery, and you're not left wondering why your hot standby server
+  never opens up for read-only connections.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/recovery-config.sgml, add recovery.conf
+  parameters to the documentation index, per suggestion by Fujii
+  Masao.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Introduce wal_level GUC to explicitly control if information needed
+  for archival or hot standby should be WAL-logged, instead of
+  deducing that from other options like archive_mode.  This replaces
+  recovery_connections GUC in the primary, where it now has no effect,
+  but it's still used in the standby to enable/disable hot standby.
+  Remove the WAL-logging of "unlogged operations", like creating an
+  index without WAL-logging and fsyncing it at the end.  Instead, we
+  keep a copy of the wal_mode setting and the settings that affect how
+  much shared memory a hot standby server needs to track master
+  transactions (max_connections, max_prepared_xacts,
+  max_locks_per_xact) in pg_control.  Whenever the settings change, at
+  server restart, write a WAL record noting the new settings and
+  update pg_control.  This allows us to notice the change in those
+  settings in the standby at the right moment, they used to be
+  included in checkpoint records, but that meant that a changed value
+  was not reflected in the standby until the first checkpoint after
+  the change.  Bump PG_CONTROL_VERSION and XLOG_PAGE_MAGIC.  Whack
+  XLOG_PAGE_MAGIC back to the sequence it used to follow, before hot
+  standby and subsequent patches changed it to 0x9003.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/backend/access/nbtree/nbtxlog.c, fix handling of b-tree
+  reuse WAL records when hot standby is disabled, and add missing code
+  in btree_desc for them. This fixes the bug with "tree_redo: unknown
+  op code 208" error reported by Jaime Casanova.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Alvaro Herrera committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/plpgsql.sgml, reformat code examples in
+  plpgsql docs for better readability in PDF output.  Erik Rijkers
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/perform.sgml, make pg_stats example query
+  result a bit less wide, and add comment about pg_stats.inherited
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ITAGAKI Takahiro committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/port/chklocale.c, add CP949 as an alias for UHC
+  encoding.  pg_get_encoding_from_locale() with kor locale on Windows
+  can use the path.  Reported by Hiroshi Inoue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Magnus Hagander committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/interfaces/libpq/fe-protocol3.c, fix typo that had the
+  code check the same thing twice.  Fujii Masao.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Marc Fournier committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Tag for 9.0beta1.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon Riggs committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/config.sgml, mention that max_standby_delay
+  has units of milliseconds. Units are mentioned for all other
+  parameters where the default is expressed in a different unit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/doc/src/sgml/regress.sgml, docs for standbycheck regression
+  tests.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Update standbycheck test output with new ERROR message changes.  No
+  changes to tests and no changes in accepted server behaviour.
+</p>
+
+<h2>Rejected Patches (for now)</h2>
+<p>
+No one was disappointed this week :-)
+</p>
+
+<h2>Pending Patches</h2>
+<p>
+Marko (johto) Tiikkaja sent in a patch to throw a more informative
+warning when people use extra parentheses in INSERT statements.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon Riggs sent in another revision of the patch to fix the issue
+where queries on the Hot Standby slave ran much slower than the same
+queries on the master.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Heikki Linnakangas sent in a patch to relax the checks in
+pg_start/stop_backup() so they can be used as long as wal_level >=
+'archive', even when archiving is disabled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon Riggs sent in a patch intended to improve the performance of
+btree_xlog_vacuum().
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Zoltan Boszormenyi sent in two revisions of a patch intended for 9.1
+which adds synchronous replication atop Hot Standby/Streaming
+Replication.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aftab Hussain sent in a patch to add PKST (Pakstan Summer Time) to the
+time zone list.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Robert Haas sent in a patch to implement CINE (Create If Not Exists)
+for tables.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Greg Sabino Mullane sent in a patch to show the schema along with the
+table involved in a COPY error.
+
+</p>
+