TODO list for PostgreSQL

========================

Last updated:Sun Sep 2620:37:50 EDT 1999

Last updated:Sun Sep 2623:23:58 EDT 1999

Current maintainer:Bruce Momjian (maillist@candle.pha.pa.us)

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

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* 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

(see TODO.detail/array)

* -Array index references without table name cause problems [array]

* Update table SET table.value = 3 fails

* Creating index of TIMESTAMP & RELTIME fails, or rename to DATETIME(Thomas)

* SELECT foo UNION SELECT foo is incorrectly simplified to SELECT foo

* UNION with LIMIT fails

* Unique index on base column not honored on inserts from inherited table

INSERT INTO inherit_table (unique_index_col) VALUES (dup) should fail

(see TODO.detail/inherit)

[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

(see TODO.detail/default)

* 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(see TODO.detail/primary)

* 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

(see TODO.detail/distinct)

* SELECT DISTINCT ON col1 col1 col2 FROM tab1 is broken [distinct]

VIEWS

URGENT

* Add referential integrity(Jan?)(see TODO.detail/primary)

* Add OUTER joins, left and right(see TODO.detail/outer)(Thomas, Bruce)

* 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?(see TODO.detail/memory)(Tom?)

* Fix memory leak for expressions?[memory](Tom?)

* -Fix memory leak for aggregates?

ADMIN

* Add 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

(see TODO.detail/flock)

* Add ability to specifiy location of lock/socket files (see TODO.detail/flock)

* Generate postmaster pid file and remove flock/fcntl lock code [flock]

* Add ability to specifiy location of lock/socket files [flock]

TYPES

* 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(see TODO.detail/function)

* Functions returning sets don't really work right[function]

VIEWS

COMMANDS

* ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN to inherited table put column in wrong place

(see TODO.detail/inherit)

* 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(see TODO.detail/cluster)

NULL specification on table [cluster]

* Generate error on CREATE OPERATOR of ~~, ~ and and ~*

* 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(see TODO.detail/like)

* Allow ESCAPE '\' at the end of LIKE for ANSI compliance [like]

* Rewrite the LIKE handling by rewriting the user string with the

supplied ESCAPE(see TODO.detail/like)

supplied ESCAPE [like]

* Move LIKE index optimization handling to the optimizer

* Allow RULE recompilation

* Support UNION/INTERSECT/EXCEPT in sub-selects

* 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 ""(see TODO.detail/null)

* Allow psql to print nulls as distinct from "" [null]

* PQrequestCancel() be able to terminate backend waiting for lock

EXOTIC FEATURES

* 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)(see TODO.detail/logging)

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 (see TODO.detail/yacc)

* Redesign the function call interface to handle NULLs better

(see TODO.detail/function)

* Document/trigger/rule so changes to pg_shadow recreate pg_pwd

(see TODO.detail/pg_shadow)

* Missing optimizer selectivities for date, r-tree, etc.

(see TODO.detail/optimizer)

* Show location of syntax error in query [yacc]

* Redesign the function call interface to handle NULLs better [function]

* Document/trigger/rule so changes to pg_shadow recreate pg_pwd [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)

FSYNC

* -Allow transaction commits with rollback with no-fsync performance

(see TODO.detail/fsync)

* -Allow transaction commits with rollback with no-fsync performance [fsync]

* -Prevent fsync in SELECT-only queries

INDEXES

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(see TODO.detail/limit)

* Improve LIMIT processing by using index to limit rows processed

(see TODO.detail/limit)

* Have optimizer take LIMIT into account when considering index scans

(see TODO.detail/limit)

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 _bt_binsrch() to handle equal keys better, remove _bt_firsteq()(Tom)

* Allow SELECT * FROM tab WHERE int2col = 4 use int2col index

(see TODO.detail/optimizer)

* Allow SELECT * FROM tab WHERE int2col = 4 use int2col index, int8 too

[optimizer]

* Allow optimizer to prefer plans that match ORDER BY

CACHE

* Cache most recent query plan(s)(see TODO.detail/prepare)

* 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

* Update pg_statistic table to remove operator column

* 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(see TODO.detail/cnfify)

* -Fix memory exhaustion when using many OR's [cnfify]

* Get faster regex() code from Henry Spencer <henry@zoo.utoronto.ca>

when it is available

* Use mmap() rather than SYSV shared memory(?)

* 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(see TODO.detail/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(see TODO.detail/atttypmod)

* pass atttypmod through parser in more cases [atttypmod]

* remove duplicate type in/out functions for disk and net

* change VACUUM ANALYZE to use btree comparison functions, not <,=,> calls

* Allow persistent backends(see TODO.detail/persistent)

* Misc(see TODO.detail/performance)

* 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

(see TODO.detail/alpha)

* 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?