PostgreSQL TODO list
ALINK="#0000FF">



TODO list for PostgreSQL
Last updated:           Tue Sep 28 00:34:21 EDT 1999


Current maintainer:     Bruce Momjian ([email protected])


The most recent version of this document can be viewed at

the PostgreSQL web site, http://www.PostgreSQL.org.


A dash(-) marks changes that will appear in the next release.


Names in brackets "[]" indicate more detailed information is available in

the directory pgsql/doc/TODO.detail/ under that name.

RELIABILITY


RESOURCES


   Elog() does not free all its memory(Jan)
   spinlock stuck problem when elog(FATAL) and elog(ERROR) inside bufmgr
   Recover or force failure when disk space is exhausted



PARSER


   Disallow inherited columns with the same name as new columns
   INSERT INTO ... SELECT with AS columns matching result columns problem
   SELECT pgclass FROM pgclass generates strange error
   Alter TABLE ADD COLUMN does not honor DEFAULT, add CONSTRAINT
   Do not allow bpchar column creation without length
   -Select a[1] FROM test fails, it needs test.a[1]
   -Array index references without table name cause problems [array]
   Update table SET table.value = 3 fails(SQL standard says this is OK)
   Creating index of TIMESTAMP & RELTIME fails, or rename to DATETIME(Thomas)
   SELECT foo UNION SELECT foo is incorrectly simplified to SELECT foo
   -INSERT ... SELECT ... GROUP BY groups by target columns not source columns
   -CREATE TABLE test (a char(5) DEFAULT text '', b int4) fails on INSERT
   UNION with LIMIT fails
   Unique index on base column not honored on inserts from inherited table
  INSERT INTO inherit_table (uniqueindexcol) VALUES (dup) should fail
  [inherit]
   CREATE TABLE x AS SELECT 1 UNION SELECT 2 fails
   CREATE TABLE test(col char(2) DEFAULT user) fails in length restriction
   mismatched types in CREATE TABLE ... DEFAULT causes problems [default]
   SELECT ... UNION ... ORDER BY fails when sort expr not in result list
   Be smarter about promoting types when UNION merges different data types
   SELECT ... UNION ... GROUP BY fails if column types disagree
   redesign INSERT ... SELECT to have two levels of target list
   -select * from pg_class where oid in (0,-1)
   have INTERSECT/EXCEPT prevent duplicates unless ALL is specified
   prevent primary key of nine columns [primary]
   SELECT COUNT('asdf') FROM pg_class WHERE oid=12 crashes
   SELECT DISTINCT ON col1 col1 col2 FROM tab1 is broken [distinct]
   -When using aggregates + GROUP BY, no rows in should yield no rows out



VIEWS


   Views containing aggregates sometimes fail(Jan)
   Views with spaces in view name fail when referenced
   Creating view and inheriting the view causes view* to show
  duplicates(inherit)



MISC


   User who can create databases can modify pg_database table
   Plpgsql does not handle quoted mixed-case identifiers
   Fix btree to give a useful elog when key > 1/2 (page - overhead)
   pg_dump should preserve primary key information
   plpgsql regression tests fail on BSD/OS


ENHANCEMENTS


URGENT


   Add referential integrity(Jan?)[primary]
   Add OUTER joins, left and right[outer](Thomas, Bruce)
   Allow long tuples by chaining or auto-storing outside db (chaining,large objs)
   Eliminate limits on query length
   Fix memory leak for expressions?[memory](Tom?)
   -Fix memory leak for aggregates?



ADMIN


   Better interface for adding to pg_group
   More access control over who can create tables and access the database
   Test syslog functionality
   Allow elog() to return error codes, not just messages
   Allow international error message support and add error codes
   Generate postmaster pid file and remove flock/fcntl lock code [flock]
   Add ability to specifiy location of lock/socket files [flock]



TYPES


   Add BIT, BIT VARYING
   Nchar (as distinguished from ordinary varchar),
   Domain capability
   Add STDDEV/VARIANCE() function for standard deviation computation/variance
   Allow compression of large fields or a compressed field type
   Large objects
  
     Fix large object mapping scheme, own typeid or reltype(Peter)
     Allow large text type to use large objects(Peter)
     Not to stuff everything as files in a single directory, hash dirs
     Allow large object vacuuming
     Tables that start with xinv confused to be large objects
  
   Allow pg_descriptions when creating types, tables, columns, and functions
   Add IPv6 capability to INET/CIDR types
   Make a separate SERIAL type?
   Store binary-compatible type information in the system
   Allow user to define char1 column
   Add support for & operator
   Allow LOCALE on a per-column basis, default to ASCII
   Allow array on int8[]
   Allow nulls in arrays
   Allow arrays to be ORDER'ed
   Remove Money type, add money formatting for decimal type
   Declare typein/out functions in pg_proc with a special "C string" data type
   Add non-large-object binary field
   Add index on NUMERIC/DECIMAL type
   Make Absolutetime/Relativetime int4 because time_t can be int8 on some ports
   Functions returning sets don't really work right[function]



VIEWS


   Allow DISTINCT on views
   Allow views of aggregate columns
   Allow views with subselects



INDEXES


   Allow CREATE INDEX zman_index ON test (date_trunc( 'day', zman ) datetime_ops)
  fails index can't store constant parameters
   Allow creation of functional indexes to use default types
   Permissions on indexes - prevent them?
   Allow SQL function indexes
   Add FILLFACTOR to index creation
   Allow indexing of LIKE with localle character sets
   Allow indexing of more than eight columns



COMMANDS


   ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN to inherited table put column in wrong place [inherit]
   Add ALTER TABLE DROP/ALTER COLUMN feature
   Allow CLUSTER on all tables at once, and improve CLUSTER, loses NOT

        NULL specification on table [cluster]
   Add SIMILAR TO to allow character classes, 'pg_[a-c]%'
   Auto-destroy sequence on DROP of table with SERIAL(Ryan)
   Allow LOCK TABLE tab1, tab2, tab3 so all tables locked in unison
   Allow INSERT/UPDATE of system-generated oid value for a row
   Allow ESCAPE '\' at the end of LIKE for ANSI compliance [like]
   Rewrite the LIKE handling by rewriting the user string with the
  supplied ESCAPE [like]
   -Move LIKE index optimization handling to the optimizer
   Allow RULE recompilation
   Support UNION/INTERSECT/EXCEPT in sub-selects
   Allow DELETE and UPDATE to use inheritance using tablename*



CLIENTS


   Make NULL's come out at the beginning or end depending on the
  ORDER BY direction
   Allow flag to control COPY input/output of NULLs
   Update reltuples from COPY command
   Allow psql \copy to allow delimiters
   Add a function to return the last inserted oid, for use in psql scripts
   Allow psql to print nulls as distinct from "" [null]



EXOTIC FEATURES


   Add sql3 recursive unions
   Add the concept of dataspaces
   Add replication of distributed databases
   Allow queries across multiple databases



MISC


   Increase identifier length(NAMEDATALEN) if small performance hit
   Allow row re-use without vacuum(Vadim)
   Create a background process for each database that runs while
  database is idle, finding superceeded rows, gathering stats and vacuuming
   Add UNIQUE capability to non-btree indexes
   -Certain indexes will not shrink, i.e. oid indexes with many inserts
   Restore unused oid's on backend exit if no one else has gotten oids
   Have UPDATE/DELETE clean out indexes
   Allow WHERE restriction on ctid
   Allow cursors to be DECLAREd/OPENed/CLOSEed outside transactions
   Allow PQrequestCancel() to terminate when in waiting-for-lock state
   -Transaction log, so re-do log can be on a separate disk by
  with after-row images(Vadim) [logging]
   Populate backend status area and write program to dump status data
   Make oid use unsigned int more reliably, pg_atoi()
   Allow subqueries in target list
   Put sort files, large objects in their own directory
   Do autocommit so always in a transaction block(?)
   Show location of syntax error in query [yacc]
   Redesign the function call interface to handle NULLs better [function]
   Document/trigger/rule so changes to pgshadow recreate pgpwd [pg_shadow]
   Missing optimizer selectivities for date, r-tree, etc. [optimizer]
   Overhaul mdmgr/smgr to fix double unlinking and double opens, cleanup
   Overhaul bufmgr/lockmgr/transaction manager
   Add PL/Perl(Mark Hollomon)
   Make postgres user have a password by default
   Add configure test to check for C++ need for *.h and namespaces
   Allow BLCKSZ <= 64k, not <= 32k
   redesign UNION structures to have separarate target lists
   Allow multi-level query trees for INSERT INTO ... SELECT


PERFORMANCE


FSYNC


   -Allow transaction commits with rollback with no-fsync performance [fsync]
   -Prevent fsync in SELECT-only queries



INDEXES


   Use indexes in ORDER BY for restrictive data sets, min(), max()
   Pull requested data directly from indexes, bypassing heap data
   Use index to restrict rows returned by multi-key index when used with
  non-consecutive keys or OR clauses, so fewer heap accesses
   -Convert function(constant) into a constant for index use
   Allow LIMIT ability on single-table queries that have no ORDER BY to use
  a matching index [limit]
   Improve LIMIT processing by using index to limit rows processed [limit]
   Have optimizer take LIMIT into account when considering index scans [limit]
   Make index creation use psort code, because it is now faster(Vadim)
   Allow creation of sort temp tables > 1 Gig
   Create more system table indexes for faster cache lookups
   fix indexscan() so it does leak memory by not requiring caller to free
   Improve btbinsrch() to handle equal keys better, remove btfirsteq()(Tom)
   Allow SELECT * FROM tab WHERE int2col = 4 use int2col index, int8,
  float4, numeric/decimal too [optimizer]
   -Allow optimizer to prefer plans that match ORDER BY



CACHE


   Cache most recent query plan(s) [prepare]
   Shared catalog cache, reduce lseek()'s by caching table size in shared area
   elog() flushes cache, try invalidating just entries from current xact,
  perhaps using invalidation cache



MISC


   Allow compression of log and meta data
   Allow char() not to use variable-sized header to reduce disk size
   Do async I/O to do better read-ahead of data
   -Fix memory exhaustion when using many OR's [cnfify]
   Get faster regex() code from Henry Spencer <[email protected]>
  when it is available
   Use mmap() rather than SYSV shared memory(?)
   -Process const = const parts of OR clause in separate pass
   Make oid use oidin/oidout not int4in/int4out in pg_type.h
   Improve Subplan list handling
   Allow Subplans to use efficient joins(hash, merge) with upper variable
  [subquery]
   use fmgr_info()/fmgr_faddr() instead of fmgr() calls in high-traffic
  places, like GROUP BY, UNIQUE, index processing, etc.
   improve dynamic memory allocation by introducing tuple-context memory
  allocation [memory]
   fix memory leak in cache code when non-existant table is referenced
   In WHERE tab1.x=3 AND tab1.x=tab2.y, add tab2.y=3
   pass atttypmod through parser in more cases [atttypmod]
   remove duplicate type in/out functions for disk and net
   Allow persistent backends [persistent]
   Misc [performance]


SOURCE CODE

   Add use of 'const' for varibles in source tree
   Fix C optimizer problem where fmgr_ptr calls return different types [alpha]
   -Add needed includes and removed unneeded include files(Bruce)
   Make configure --enable-debug add -g on compile line
   Does Mariposa source contain any other bug fixes?
   Remove SET KSQO option if OR processing is improved(Tom)




Developers who have claimed items are:

   Billy is Billy G. Allie <[email protected]>
   Brook is Brook Milligan <[email protected]>
   Bruce is Bruce Momjian<[email protected]>
   Bryan is Bryan Henderson<[email protected]>
   D'Arcy is D'Arcy J.M. Cain <[email protected]>
   David is David Hartwig <[email protected]>
   Edmund is Edmund Mergl <[email protected]>
   Goran is Goran Thyni <[email protected]>
   Hiroshi is Hiroshi Inoue<[email protected]>
   Jan is Jan Wieck <[email protected]>
   Marc is Marc Fournier <[email protected]>
   Massimo Dal Zotto <[email protected]>
   Michael is Michael Meskes <[email protected]>
   Oleg is Oleg Bartunov <[email protected]>
   Peter is Peter T Mount <[email protected]>
   Ryan is Ryan Bradetich <[email protected]>
   Stefan Simkovics <[email protected]>
   Tatsuo is Tatsuo Ishii <[email protected]>
   Tom is Tom Lane <[email protected]>
   Thomas is Thomas Lockhart <[email protected]>
   TomH is Tom I Helbekkmo <[email protected]>
   Vadim is "Vadim B. Mikheev" <[email protected]>

diff --git a/doc/TODO b/doc/TODO
index ca1b1a289f837838b0357c2cd8f554c7c0904336..d35938afe951ef79c11a0cd4f487445c6fd95b0a 100644 (file)
--- a/doc/TODO
+++ b/doc/TODO
@@ -58,6 +58,8 @@ VIEWS
 
 * Views containing aggregates sometimes fail(Jan)
 * Views with spaces in view name fail when referenced
+* Creating view and inheriting the view causes view* to show
+  duplicates(inherit) 
 
 MISC
 

diff --git a/doc/TODO.detail/inherit b/doc/TODO.detail/inherit
index b5211bb46de0ebf2b84ee50b36a0a876b68e6f16..3a4d1cc902965823bf1cdb3a61fa8c563d388cd6 100644 (file)
--- a/doc/TODO.detail/inherit
+++ b/doc/TODO.detail/inherit
@@ -142,3 +142,128 @@ INSERT 54425 1
 
 
 
+From [email protected] Tue Apr 20 10:34:34 1999
+Received: from hub.org (hub.org [209.47.145.100])
+   by candle.pha.pa.us (8.9.0/8.9.0) with ESMTP id KAA28480
+   for ; Tue, 20 Apr 1999 10:34:31 -0400 (EDT)
+Received: from localhost (majordom@localhost)
+   by hub.org (8.9.3/8.9.1) with SMTP id KAA12281;
+   Tue, 20 Apr 1999 10:33:22 -0400 (EDT)
+   (envelope-from [email protected])
+Received: by hub.org (TLB v0.10a (1.23 tibbs 1997/01/09 00:29:32)); Tue, 20 Apr 1999 10:32:04 +0000 (EDT)
+Received: (from majordom@localhost)
+   by hub.org (8.9.3/8.9.1) id KAA11432
+   for pgsql-hackers-outgoing; Tue, 20 Apr 1999 10:32:01 -0400 (EDT)
+   (envelope-from [email protected])
+Received: from tech.com.au (IDENT:[email protected] [139.130.75.122])
+   by hub.org (8.9.3/8.9.1) with ESMTP id KAA11378
+   for ; Tue, 20 Apr 1999 10:31:52 -0400 (EDT)
+   (envelope-from [email protected])
+Received: from bigfoot.com (chris@localhost [127.0.0.1])
+   by tech.com.au (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id AAA21255
+   for ; Wed, 21 Apr 1999 00:31:32 +1000
+Message-ID: <[email protected]>
+Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 14:31:31 +0000
+From: Chris Bitmead 
+X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.51 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.0.36 i686)
+X-Accept-Language: en
+MIME-Version: 1.0
+To: [email protected]
+Subject: Re: [HACKERS] Heads up: does RULES regress test still work for you?
+References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
+Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
+Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
+Sender: [email protected]
+Precedence: bulk
+Status: RO
+
+
+Does the following indicate a bug? It sure is wierd. Maybe some of these
+statements aren't supported by postgresql (??), but the outcome doesn't
+make sense to me.
+
+httpd=> CREATE TABLE x (y text);
+CREATE
+httpd=> CREATE VIEW z AS select * from x;
+CREATE
+httpd=> CREATE TABLE a (b text) INHERITS(z);
+CREATE
+httpd=> INSERT INTO x VALUES ('foo');
+INSERT 168602 1
+httpd=> select * from z*;
+y  
+---
+foo
+foo
+(2 rows)
+
+How did we suddenly get two rows??
+
+-- 
+Chris Bitmead
+http://www.bigfoot.com/~chris.bitmead
+mailto:[email protected]
+
+
+From [email protected] Tue May 25 11:01:16 1999
+Received: from renoir.op.net ([email protected] [209.152.193.4])
+   by candle.pha.pa.us (8.9.0/8.9.0) with ESMTP id LAA15867
+   for ; Tue, 25 May 1999 11:01:16 -0400 (EDT)
+Received: from hub.org (hub.org [209.167.229.1]) by renoir.op.net (o1/$ Revision: 1.18 $) with ESMTP id KAA10712 for ; Tue, 25 May 1999 10:55:17 -0400 (EDT)
+Received: from hub.org (hub.org [209.167.229.1])
+   by hub.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id KAA07206;
+   Tue, 25 May 1999 10:45:50 -0400 (EDT)
+   (envelope-from [email protected])
+Received: by hub.org (TLB v0.10a (1.23 tibbs 1997/01/09 00:29:32)); Tue, 25 May 1999 10:43:02 +0000 (EDT)
+Received: (from majordom@localhost)
+   by hub.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id KAA06706
+   for pgsql-hackers-outgoing; Tue, 25 May 1999 10:43:01 -0400 (EDT)
+   (envelope-from [email protected])
+X-Authentication-Warning: hub.org: majordom set sender to [email protected] using -f
+Received: from sss.sss.pgh.pa.us (sss.pgh.pa.us [206.210.65.6])
+   by hub.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id KAA06690
+   for ; Tue, 25 May 1999 10:42:57 -0400 (EDT)
+   (envelope-from [email protected])
+Received: from sss.sss.pgh.pa.us (localhost [127.0.0.1])
+   by sss.sss.pgh.pa.us (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id KAA02984
+   for ; Tue, 25 May 1999 10:42:39 -0400 (EDT)
+To: [email protected]
+Subject: [HACKERS] INSERT INTO view means what exactly?
+Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 10:42:39 -0400
+Message-ID: <[email protected]>
+From: Tom Lane 
+Sender: [email protected]
+Precedence: bulk
+Status: ROr
+
+With current sources:
+
+regression=> CREATE TABLE x (y text);
+CREATE
+regression=> CREATE VIEW z AS select * from x;
+CREATE
+regression=> INSERT INTO x VALUES ('foo');
+INSERT 411635 1
+regression=> INSERT INTO z VALUES ('bar');
+INSERT 411636 1
+regression=> select * from x;
+y
+---
+foo
+(1 row)
+
+regression=> select * from z;
+y
+---
+foo
+(1 row)
+
+OK, where'd tuple 411636 go?  Seems to me that the insert should either
+have been rejected or caused an insert into x, depending on how
+transparent you think views are (I always thought they were
+read-only?).  Dropping the data into never-never land and giving a
+misleading success response code is not my idea of proper behavior.
+
+           regards, tom lane
+
+