- This is the first PostgreSQL release to natively run on Microsoft
- Windows as a server. It can run as a Windows service. This release
- supports NT-based Windows releases like Win2000, XP, Win2003.
- Older releases like Windows 95, 98, and ME are not supported because
- these operating systems do not have the infrastructure to
- support PostgreSQL. A separate installer project has been created
- to ease installation on Windows:
+ This is the first
PostgreSQL + release to natively run on Microsoft Windows as a server. It
+ can run as a Windows service. This release supports NT-based
+ Windows releases like Win2000, XP, Win2003. Older releases
+ like Windows 95, 98, and ME are not supported because these
+ operating systems do not have the infrastructure to support
+
PostgreSQL . A separate installer
+ project has been created to ease installation on Windows:
- http://pgfoundry.org/projects/pginstaller.
+ http://pgfoundry.org/projects/pginstaller.
Previous releases required the Unix emulation toolkit Cygwin for
- Win32 server support. PostgreSQL has always supported clients on Win32.
+ Win32 server support.
PostgreSQL + has always supported clients on Win32.
- Savepoints Improve Transaction Control
+ Savepoints
Savepoints allow specific parts of a transaction to be aborted
without affecting the remainder of the transaction. Prior
- releases had no such capability; there was no way to recover from
- a statement failure within a transaction except by aborting the whole
- transaction. This feature is valuable
- for application writers who require error recovery within a
- complex transaction.
+ releases had no such capability; there was no way to recover
+ from a statement failure within a transaction except by
+ aborting the whole transaction. This feature is valuable for
+ application writers who require error recovery within a
+ complex transaction.
- Point-In-Time Recovery Increases Reliability
+ Point-In-Time Recovery
- Though PostgreSQL is very reliable, in previous releases there
- was no way to recover from disk drive failure except to restore
- from a previous backup or use a standby replication server.
- Point-in-time recovery allows continuous backup of the server.
- You can recover either to the point of failure or to some
- transaction in the past.
+ Though
PostgreSQL is very reliable,+ in previous releases there was no way to recover from disk
+ drive failure except to restore from a previous backup or use
+ a standby replication server. Point-in-time recovery allows
+ continuous backup of the server. You can recover either to
+ the point of failure or to some transaction in the past.
- Tablespaces Simplify Disk Layout
+ Tablespaces
- Tablespaces allow administrators
- to select the file systems used for storage of databases,
- schemas, tables, or indexes. This improves performance and
- control over disk space usage. Prior releases use d
- initlocation and
+ Tablespaces allow administrators to select the file systems
+ used for storage of databases, schemas, tables, or
+ indexes. This improves performance and control over disk space
+
usage. Prior releases used initlocation an d
+ manual symlink management for such tasks.
- Improved Buffer Management, CHECKPOINT, VACUUM
+ Improved Buffer Management, CHECKPOINT ,
+ VACUUM
- A column's data type can now be changed with ALTER TABLE.
+ A column's data type can now be changed with ALTER
+ TABLE.
A new version of the
plperl server-side language now - supports a persistent shared storage area, triggers, returning records
- and arrays of records, and SPI calls to access the database.
+ supports a persistent shared storage area, triggers, returning records
+ and arrays of records, and SPI calls to access the database.
- COPY Handles Comma-Separated-Value Files
+ CSV support in COPY
- COPY can now read and write comma-separated-value (CSV) files. It
- has the flexibility to interpret non-standard quoting and
- separation characters too.
+ COPY can now read and write
+ comma-separated-value (CSV) files. It has the flexibility to
+ interpret non-standard quoting and separation characters too.
Server configuration parameters SortMem and
- VacuumMem have been renamed to work_mem and
- maintenance_work_mem to better reflect their use. The
- original names are still supported in SET and SHOW.
+ VacuumMem have been renamed to work_mem
+ and maintenance_work_mem to better reflect their
+ use. The original names are still supported in
+ SET and SHOW .
- The server now warns of empty strings passed to oid/float4/float8
- data types. In the next major release, doing this will generate an
+ The server now warns of empty strings passed to
+ oid /float4 /float8 data
+ types. In the next major release, doing this will generate an
error.
- EXECUTE now returns a completion tag that matches the executed
- statement.
+ EXECUTE now returns a completion tag that
+ matches the executed statement.
- Now that tablespaces have been implemented, initlocation has been
- removed.
+ Now that tablespaces have been implemented,
+
initlocation has been removed.
ignored as well as leading whitespace (which has always been ignored).
-
-
- The 8.1 release will remove the function to_char(interval)
- .
-
-
+
+
Deprecated Features
+
+ Some aspects of
PostgreSQL 's behavior
+ have been determined to be suboptimal. For the sake of backward
+ compatibility these have not been removed in 8.0, but they are
+ considered deprecated and will be removed in the next major
+ release.
+
+
+
+
+ The 8.1 release will remove the function
+ to_char(interval) .
+
+
+
+
+ By default, tables in
PostgreSQL 8.0
+ and earlier are created with OIDs. In the next release, this
+ will not be the case: to create a table
+ that contains OIDs, the WITH OIDS clause must
+ be specified or the default_with_oids
+ configuration parameter must be enabled. Users are encouraged to
+ explicitely specify WITH OIDS if their tables
+ require OIDs for compatibility with future releases of
+
+
+
+
+
Changes
Add ability to prolong vacuum to reduce performance impact (Jan)
- On busy systems, VACUUM performs many I/O requests which can hurt
- performance for other users. This release allows you to slow down
- VACUUM to reduce its impact on other users, though this increases the
- total duration of VACUUM.
+ On busy systems, VACUUM performs many I/O
+ requests which can hurt performance for other users. This
+ release allows you to slow down VACUUM to
+ reduce its impact on other users, though this increases the
+ total duration of VACUUM .
- Add type-specific ANALYZE statistics capability (Mark Cave-Ayland)
+ Add type-specific ANALYZE statistics
+ capability (Mark Cave-Ayland)
This feature allows more flexibility in generating statistics
- Allow collection of ANALYZE statistics for expression indexes (Tom)
+ Allow collection of ANALYZE statistics for
+ expression indexes (Tom)
Expression indexes (also called functional indexes) allow users to
- New two-stage sampling method for ANALYZE (Manfred Koizar)
+ New two-stage sampling method for ANALYZE
+ (Manfred Koizar)
This gives better statistics for asymmetric data distributions.
- Speed up TRUNCATE (Tom)
+ Speed up TRUNCATE
This buys back some of the performance loss observed in 7.4, while still
- keeping TRUNCATE transaction-safe.
+ keeping TRUNCATE
- Allow DECLARE CURSOR to take parameters (Oliver Jowett)
+ Allow DECLARE CURSOR to take parameters
+ (Oliver Jowett)
- It is now useful to issue DECLARE CURSOR in a Parse message with
- parameters. The parameter values sent at Bind time will be substituted
- into the execution of the cursor's query.
+ It is now useful to issue DECLARE CURSOR in a
+ Parse message with parameters. The parameter values sent at
+ Bind time will be substituted into the execution of the cursor's
+ query.
- Fix hash joins and aggregates of INET and CIDR data types (Tom)
+ Fix hash joins and aggregates of inet and
+ cidr data types (Tom)
- Release 7.4 handled hashing of mixed INET and CIDR values incorrectly.
- (This bug did not exist in prior releases because they wouldn't try
- to hash either datatype.)
+ Release 7.4 handled hashing of mixed inet and
+ cidr values incorrectly. (This bug did not exist
+ in prior releases because they wouldn't try to hash either
+ datatype.)
- Allow BEGIN WORK to specify transaction isolation levels like START
- TRANSACTION (Bruce)
+ Allow BEGIN WORK to specify transaction
+ isolation levels like START TRANSACTION does
+ (Bruce)
- Change EXECUTE to return a completion tag matching the executed statement
- (Kris Jurka)
+ Change EXECUTE to return a completion tag
+ matching the executed statement (Kris Jurka)
- Previous releases return an EXECUTE tag for any EXECUTE call. In
- this release, the tag returned will reflect the command executed.
+ Previous releases return an EXECUTE tag for
+ any EXECUTE call. In this release, the tag
+ returned will reflect the command executed.
control whether tables are created with OIDs by default (Neil)
- This allows administrators to default all CREATE TABLE commands to
- create tables without OID columns.
+ This allows administrators to default all CREATE
+ TABLE commands to create tables without OID columns.
- Add WITH / WITHOUT OIDS clause to CREATE TABLE AS (Neil)
+ Add WITH / WITHOUT OIDS clause to CREATE TABLE
+ AS (Neil)
- Allow multiple ALTER actions in a single ALTER TABLE command (Rod)
+ Allow multiple ALTER actions in a single ALTER
+ TABLE command (Rod)
This is particularly useful for ALTER commands that rewrite the
- Allow ALTER TABLE to add SERIAL columns (Tom)
+ Allow ALTER TABLE to add serial
+ columns (Tom)
This is related to the new capability of adding defaults for new
- Allow CREATE SCHEMA to create triggers, indexes, and sequences (Neil)
+ Allow CREATE SCHEMA to create triggers,
+ indexes, and sequences (Neil)
- Add ALSO keyword to CREATE RULE (Fabien Coelho)
+ Add ALSO keyword to CREATE RULE (Fabien
+ Coelho)
This allows ALSO to be added to rule creation to contrast it with
- Add NOWAIT option to LOCK command (Tatsuo)
+ Add NOWAIT option to LOCK
- This allows the LOCK command to fail if it would have to wait for
- the requested lock.
+ This allows the LOCK command to fail if it
+ would have to wait for the requested lock.
- Allow COPY to read and write comma-separated-value (CSV) files (Andrew, Bruce)
+ Allow COPY to read and write
+ comma-separated-value (CSV) files (Andrew, Bruce)
- Generate error if the COPY delimiter and NULL string conflict (Bruce)
+ Generate error if the COPY delimiter and NULL
+ string conflict (Bruce)
- Avoid locking conflict between CREATE INDEX and CHECKPOINT (Tom)
+ Avoid locking conflict between CREATE INDEX
+ and CHECKPOINT (Tom)
In 7.3 and 7.4, a long-running btree index build could block concurrent
- Database-wide ANALYZE does not hold locks across tables (Tom)
+ Database-wide ANALYZE does not hold locks
+ across tables (Tom)
- This reduces the potential for deadlocks against other backends that
- want exclusive locks on tables. To get the benefit of this change,
- do not execute database-wide ANALYZE inside a transaction block
- (BEGIN block); it must be able to commit and start a new transaction
- for each table.
+ This reduces the potential for deadlocks against other backends
+ that want exclusive locks on tables. To get the benefit of this
+ change, do not execute database-wide ANALYZE
+ inside a transaction block (BEGIN block); it
+ must be able to commit and start a new transaction for each
+ table.
Erase MD5 user passwords when a user is renamed (Bruce)
- PostgreSQL uses the user name as salt when encrypting passwords
- via MD5. When a user name is changed, their salt no longer matches
- the stored MD5 password, so the stored password becomes useless.
- In this release a notice is generated and the password
- is cleared. A new password must then be assigned.
+
PostgreSQL uses the user name as salt
+ when encrypting passwords via MD5. When a user name is changed,
+ their salt no longer matches the stored MD5 password, so the
+ stored password becomes useless. In this release a notice is
+ generated and the password is cleared. A new password must then
+ be assigned.
Reject non-rectangular array literals as erroneous (Joe)
- Formerly, array_in would silently build a surprising result.
+ Formerly, array_in would silently build a
+ surprising result.
- Change factorial function to return NUMERIC (Gavin)
+ Change factorial function to return numeric
- Returning NUMERIC allows the factorial function to work for a wider
- range of input values.
+ Returning numeric allows the factorial function to
+ work for a wider range of input values.
- Better support for IEEE Infinity and NaN values in float4, float8 (Neil)
+ Better support for IEEE Infinity and NaN values in
+ float4 , float8 (Neil)
These should now work on all platforms that support IEEE-compliant
- Make psql \copy match COPY command syntax fully (Tom)
+ Make psql \copy match COPY command syntax
+ fully (Tom)
- Add CLUSTER information to psql \d display (Bruce)
+ Add CLUSTER information to psql \d display
+ (Bruce)
- Add global psql config file, psqlrc.sample (Bruce)
+ Add global psql config file, psqlrc.sample
+ (Bruce)
This allows a central file where global psql startup commands can
- Allow PQoidValue(), PQcmdTuples(), and PQoidStatus() to work
- on EXECUTE commands (Neil)
+ Allow PQoidValue(), PQcmdTuples(), and PQoidStatus() to work on
+ EXECUTE
New "PostgreSQL" CVS tag (Marc)
- This was done to make it easier for organizations to manage their own
- copies of the PostgreSQL CVS repository. File version stamps from the
- master repository will not get munged by checking into or out of
- a copied repository.
+ This was done to make it easier for organizations to manage
+ their own copies of the
PostgreSQL + CVS repository. File version stamps from the master repository
+ will not get munged by checking into or out of a copied
+ repository.
- New /contrib/trgm, trigram matching for PostgreSQL (Teodor)
+ New /contrib/trgm, trigram matching for
This fixes a difficult-to-exploit security hole.
-
Avoid locking conflict between ANALYZE and LISTEN/NOTIFY +
Avoid locking conflict between ANALYZE and LISTEN /NOTIFY Numerous translation updates (various contributors)
Specifies the delay between activity rounds for the
- background writer. In each round the writer issues writes for some
- number of dirty buffers (controllable by the following parameters).
- The selected buffers will always be the
- least recently used ones among the currently dirty buffers.
- It then sleeps for bgwriter_delay milliseconds,
- and repeats.
- Note that on many systems, the effective resolution
- of sleep delays is 10 milliseconds; setting
- bgwriter_delay to a value that is
- not a multiple of 10 may have the same results as setting it
- to the next higher multiple of 10.
+ background writer. In each round the writer issues writes
+ for some number of dirty buffers (controllable by the
+ following parameters). The selected buffers will always be
+ the least recently used ones among the currently dirty
+ buffers. It then sleeps for bgwriter_delay
+ milliseconds, and repeats. The default value is 200. Note
+ that on many systems, the effective resolution of sleep
+ delays is 10 milliseconds; setting bgwriter_delay
+ to a value that is not a multiple of 10 may have the same
+ results as setting it to the next higher multiple of 10.
This option can only be set at server start or in the
postgresql.conf file.
bgwriter_percent (integer )
- In each round, no more than this percentage of the currently dirty
- buffers will be written (rounding up any fraction to the next whole
- number of buffers).
- This option can only be set at server start or in the
+ In each round, no more than this percentage of the currently
+ dirty buffers will be written (rounding up any fraction to
+ the next whole number of buffers). The default value is
+ 1. This option can only be set at server start or in the
postgresql.conf file.
bgwriter_maxpages (integer )
- In each round, no more than this many dirty buffers will be written.
- This option can only be set at server start or in the
+ In each round, no more than this many dirty buffers will be
+ written. The default value is 100. This option can only be
+ set at server start or in the
postgresql.conf file.
Smaller values of bgwriter_percent and
- bgwriter_maxpages reduce the extra I/O load caused by
- the background writer, but leave more work to be done at checkpoint
- time. To reduce load spikes at checkpoints, increase the values.
+ bgwriter_maxpages reduce the extra I/O load
+ caused by the background writer, but leave more work to be done
+ at checkpoint time. To reduce load spikes at checkpoints,
+ increase the values.
It is important for the command to return a zero exit status only if
- it succeeds. Examples:
+ it succeeds. Examples:
archive_command = 'cp "%p" /mnt/server/archivedir/"%f"'
archive_command = 'copy "%p" /mnt/server/archivedir/"%f"' # Win32
log_destination (string )
-
PostgreSQL supports several methods
- for logging server messages, including
- stderr and
- syslog . On Windows,
- eventlog is also supported. Set this
- option to a list of desired log destinations separated by
- commas. The default is to log to stderr
- only.
+
PostgreSQL supports several methods
+ for logging server messages, including
+ stderr and
+ syslog . On Windows,
+ eventlog is also supported. Set this
+ option to a list of desired log destinations separated by
+ commas. The default is to log to stderr
+ only.
This option can only be set at server start or in the
postgresql.conf configuration file.
redirect_stderr (boolean )
- This option allows messages sent to
stderr to be - captured and redirected into log files.
- This option, in combination with logging to
stderr, - is often more useful than
- logging to
syslog, since some types of messages - may not appear in
syslog output (a common example - is dynamic-linker failure messages).
- This option can only be set at server start.
+
This option allows messages sent to
stderr to be + captured and redirected into log files.
+
This option, in combination with logging to
stderr, + is often more useful than
+
logging to
syslog, since some types of messages +
may not appear in
syslog output (a common example + is dynamic-linker failure messages).
+ This option can only be set at server start.
log_directory (string )
- When redirect_stderr is enabled, this option
+ When redirect_stderr is enabled, this option
determines the directory in which log files will be created.
- It may be specified as an absolute path, or relative to the
- cluster data directory.
+ It may be specified as an absolute path, or relative to the
+ cluster data directory.
This option can only be set at server start or in the
postgresql.conf configuration file.
log_filename_prefix (string )
- When redirect_stderr is enabled, this option
+ When redirect_stderr is enabled, this option
sets the prefix of the file names of the created log files.
- The postmaster PID and the current time are appended to this
- prefix to form an exact log file name.
+ The postmaster PID and the current time are appended to this
+ prefix to form an exact log file name.
This option can only be set at server start or in the
postgresql.conf configuration file.
log_rotation_age (integer )
- When redirect_stderr is enabled, this option
- determines the maximum lifetime of an individual log file.
- After this many minutes have elapsed, a new log file will
- be created. Set to zero to disable time-based creation of
- new log files.
+ When redirect_stderr is enabled, this option
+ determines the maximum lifetime of an individual log file.
+ After this many minutes have elapsed, a new log file will
+ be created. Set to zero to disable time-based creation of
+ new log files.
This option can only be set at server start or in the
postgresql.conf configuration file.
log_rotation_size (integer )
- When redirect_stderr is enabled, this option
- determines the maximum size of an individual log file.
- After this many kilobytes have been emitted into a log file,
- a new log file will be created. Set to zero to disable size-based
- creation of new log files.
+ When redirect_stderr is enabled, this option
+ determines the maximum size of an individual log file.
+ After this many kilobytes have been emitted into a log file,
+ a new log file will be created. Set to zero to disable size-based
+ creation of new log files.
This option can only be set at server start or in the
postgresql.conf configuration file.
the default is LOCAL0. See also the
documentation of your system's
- This option can only be set at server start.
+ This option can only be set at server start.
syslog logs. The default is
postgres .
- This option can only be set at server start.
+ This option can only be set at server start.
terminals are disassociated (same effect as
postmaster's -S option).
The server's standard output and standard error are redirected
- to /dev/null, so any messages sent to them will be lost.
- Unless
syslog logging is selected or - redirect_stderr is enabled, using this option
+ to /dev/null, so any messages sent to them will be lost.
+
Unless
syslog logging is selected or + redirect_stderr is enabled, using this option
is discouraged because it makes it impossible to see error messages.
log_line_prefix (string )
- This is a printf-style string that is output at the
- beginning of each log line. The default is an empty string.
- Each recognized escape is replaced as outlined
- below - anything else that looks like an escape is ignored. Other
- characters are copied straight to the log line. Some escapes are
- only recognised by session processes, and do not apply to
- background processes such as the postmaster.
Syslog + This is a printf-style string that is output at the
+ beginning of each log line. The default is an empty string.
+ Each recognized escape is replaced as outlined
+ below - anything else that looks like an escape is ignored. Other
+ characters are copied straight to the log line. Some escapes are
+ only recognised by session processes, and do not apply to
+
background processes such as the postmaster.
Syslog produces its own
- timestamp and process ID information, so you probably do not want to
- use those escapes if you are using
syslog. - This option can only be set at server start or in the
+ timestamp and process ID information, so you probably do not want to
+
use those escapes if you are using
syslog. + This option can only be set at server start or in the
postgresql.conf configuration file.
-
-
-
- |
- Escape
- Effect
- Session only
-
-
-
- |
- %u
- User Name
- Yes
-
- |
- %d
- Database Name
- Yes
-
- |
- %r
- Remote Hostname or IP address, and Remote Port
- Yes
-
- |
- %p
- Process ID
- No
-
- |
- %t
- Timestamp
- No
-
- |
- %i
- Command Tag. This is the command which generated the log
- line.
- Yes
-
- |
- %c
- Session ID. A unique identifier for each session.
- It is 2 4-byte hexadecimal numbers (without leading zeros)
+
+
+
+ |
+ Escape
+ Effect
+ Session only
+
+
+
+ |
+ %u
+ User Name
+ Yes
+
+ |
+ %d
+ Database Name
+ Yes
+
+ |
+ %r
+ Remote Hostname or IP address, and Remote Port
+ Yes
+
+ |
+ %p
+ Process ID
+ No
+
+ |
+ %t
+ Timestamp
+ No
+
+ |
+ %i
+ Command Tag. This is the command which generated the log
+ line.
+ Yes
+
+ |
+ %c
+ Session ID. A unique identifier for each session.
+ It is 2 4-byte hexadecimal numbers (without leading zeros)
separated by a dot. The numbers
- are the Session Start Time and the Process ID, so this can also
- be used as a space saving way of printing these items.
- Yes
-
- |
- %l
- Number of the log line for each process,
- starting at 1
- No
-
- |
- %s
- Session Start Timestamp
- Yes
-
- |
- %x
- Does not produce any output, but tells non-session
- processes to stop at this point in the string. Ignored by
- session processes.
- No
-
- |
- %%
- Literal %
- No
-
-
-
-
+ are the Session Start Time and the Process ID, so this can also
+ be used as a space saving way of printing these items.
+ Yes
+
+ |
+ %l
+ Number of the log line for each process,
+ starting at 1
+ No
+
+ |
+ %s
+ Session Start Timestamp
+ Yes
+
+ |
+ %x
+ Does not produce any output, but tells non-session
+ processes to stop at this point in the string. Ignored by
+ session processes.
+ No
+
+ |
+ %%
+ Literal %
+ No
+
+
+
+
The value for dynamic_library_path has to be a
list of absolute directory paths separated by colons (or semi-colons
- on Windows). If a list element starts
+ on Windows). If a list element starts
with the special string $libdir , the
compiled-in
PostgreSQL package
library directory is substituted for $libdir . This
Shows the locale in which sorting of textual data is done.
- See for more information.
- The value is determined when the database cluster is initialized.
+ See for more information.
+ The value is determined when the database cluster is initialized.
Shows the locale that determines character classifications.
- See for more information.
- The value is determined when the database cluster is initialized.
- Ordinarily this will be the same as lc_collate ,
- but for special applications it might be set differently.
+ See for more information.
+ The value is determined when the database cluster is initialized.
+ Ordinarily this will be the same as lc_collate ,
+ but for special applications it might be set differently.
variable is a variable not normally known
to
PostgreSQL proper but used by some
add-on module. Such variables must have names consisting of a class
- name, a dot, and a variable name. custom_variable_classes
+ name, a dot, and a variable name. custom_variable_classes
specifies all the class names in use in a particular installation.
This option can only be set at server start or in the
postgresql.conf configuration file.
projects / postgresql.git / commitdiff