TODO list for PostgreSQL

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

Last updated:Sat Jan 26 23:20:24 EST 2002

Last updated:Sat Jan 26 23:22:17 EST 2002

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

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 upcoming 7.2 release.

A dash (-) marks changes that will appear in the upcoming 7.3 release.

Bracketed items "[]" have more detailed.

RELIABILITY

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* -SELECT pg_class FROM pg_class generates strange error (Bruce)

ENHANCEMENTS

------------

* Allow elog() to return error codes, module name, file name, line

number, not just messages (Peter E)

* Add error codes (Peter E)

* -Allow international error message support (Peter E)

* Change DEBUG startup tag to NOTICE; change NOTICE to output to client

only if client exists (Bruce)

* Show location of syntax error in query [yacc]

* -Populate backend status area and write program to dump status data (Jan)

PERMISSIONS

user/host/password combinations

* Remove PGPASSWORD because is insecure on some OS's

* Make single-user local access permissions the default (Peter E)

* -Allow single-user access without passwords using Unix socket permissions

* -Better document pg_hba.conf host-based authentication (Bruce)

* -Add MD5 to ODBC (Bruce)

* Use thread-safe crypt() in libpq, if available

ADMIN

* Make it easier to create a database owned by someone who can't createdb,

perhaps CREATE DATABASE dbname WITH OWNER = "user" (Gavin)

* Make equals sign optional in CREATE DATABASE WITH param = 'val'

* -Permission to DELETE table also allows UPDATE (Peter E)

* -Remove unused sort files on postmaster startup (Bruce)

* Remove unreferenced table files and temp tables during database vacuum

or postmaster startup (Bruce)

* -Remove unreferenced sort files during postmaster startup (Bruce)

* Add table name mapping for numeric file names (Bruce)

* -Encrypt passwords in pg_shadow table using MD5 (Bruce, Vince)

* Remove behavior of postmaster -o after making postmaster/postgres

flags unique

* Allow logging of query durations

* -Put sort files in their own directory (Bruce)

DATA TYPES

* SELECT cash_out(2) crashes because of opaque

* Declare typein/out functions in pg_proc with a special "C string" data type

* Functions returning sets do not totally work

* -Add SQL standard function bit_length() (Peter E)

* -Make oid use unsigned int more reliably (Tom)

* Change factorial to return a numeric

* Add function to return compressed length of TOAST data values (Tom)

* CONVERSION

o -Add conversion function from text to inet

o Store binary-compatible type information in the system

o Allow better handling of numeric constants, type conversion

[typeconv]

o Support construction of array result values in expressions

* BINARY DATA

o -Add non-large-object binary field (already exists -- bytea)

o -Make binary interface for TOAST columns (base64)

o Improve vacuum of large objects, like /contrib/vacuumlo

o Add security checking for large objects

o Make file in/out interface for TOAST columns, similar to large object

* Add NCHAR (as distinguished from ordinary varchar),

* Allow LOCALE on a per-column basis, default to ASCII

* Support multiple simultaneous character sets, per SQL92

* -Reject character sequences those are not valid in their charset (Tatsuo)

* -Make functions more multi-byte aware, e.g. trim() (Tatsuo)

* -Make n of CHAR(n)/VARCHAR(n) the number of letters, not bytes (Tatsuo)

* Allow setting database character set without multibyte enabled

* Improve Unicode combined character handling

* Optimize locale to have minimal performance impact when not used (Peter E)

* -Optimize textlength(), etc. for single-byte encodings (Tatsuo)

* Add octet_length_server() and octet_length_client() (Thomas, Tatsuo)

* Make octet_length_client the same as octet_length() (?)

* Automatically create rules on views so they are updateable, per SQL92 [view]

* Add the functionality for WITH CHECK OPTION clause of CREATE VIEW

* Allow NOTIFY in rules involving conditionals

* -Evaluate INSERT rules at end of query, rather than beginning (Jan)

* Allow temporary views

* Move psql backslash information into views

* Allow RULE recompilation

* Allow CREATE INDEX zman_index ON test (date_trunc( 'day', zman ) datetime_ops)

fails index can't store constant parameters

* Order duplicate index entries by tid for faster heap lookups

* -Re-enable partial indexes

* -Prevent pg_attribute from having duplicate oids for indexes (Tom)

* Allow inherited tables to inherit index, UNIQUE constraint, and primary

key, foreign key [inheritance]

* UNIQUE INDEX on base column not honored on inserts from inherited table

* Use index to restrict rows returned by multi-key index when used with

non-consecutive keys or OR clauses, so fewer heap accesses

* Be smarter about insertion of already-ordered data into btree index

* -Gather more accurate dispersion statistics using indexes (Tom)

* Add deleted bit to index tuples to reduce heap access

* Prevent index uniqueness checks when UPDATE does not modifying column

* Add bitmap indexes [performance]

* Improve handling of index scans for NULL

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

float4, numeric/decimal too [optimizer]

* -Use indexes with CIDR '<<' (contains) operator

* Improve concurrency in GIST

* Add FILLFACTOR to index creation

SYSTEM TABLES

* -Add unique indexes to pg_shadow.usename and pg_shadow.usesysid or

switch to pg_shadow.oid as user id (Tom)

* -Add unique indexes on pg_database (Tom)

* -Check all system tables and add unique indexes as needed (Tom)

* -Remove pg_listener index (Tom)

* -Remove unused pg_variable, pg_inheritproc, pg_ipl tables (Bruce)

COMMANDS

* Add SIMILAR TO to allow character classes, 'pg_[a-c]%'

* Add BETWEEN ASYMMETRIC/SYMMETRIC

* -Allow LOCK TABLE tab1, tab2, tab3 so all tables locked in unison

* Remove LIMIT #,# and force use LIMIT and OFFSET clauses in 7.3 (Bruce)

* Allow LIMIT/OFFSET to use expressions

* -Allow GRANT/REVOKE to handle multiple user/group names (Vince)

* -Allow CREATEUSER/CREATEDB ordering in CREATE/ALTER USER (Vince)

* Disallow TRUNCATE on tables that are involved in referential constraints

* Add OR REPLACE clauses to non-FUNCTION object creation

* CREATE TABLE AS can not determine column lengths from expressions [atttypmod]

o Add ALTER TABLE DROP COLUMN feature [drop] (Bruce)

o Add ALTER FUNCTION

o Add ALTER TABLE DROP non-CHECK CONSTRAINT

o -Add ALTER TABLE DROP CHECK CONSTRAINT (Christopher Kings-Lynne)

o ALTER TABLE ADD PRIMARY KEY (Christopher Kings-Lynne)

o ALTER TABLE ADD UNIQUE (Christopher Kings-Lynne)

o ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN column SERIAL doesn't create sequence

o cluster all tables at once

o prevent lose of indexes, permissions, inheritance (Bruce)

o Automatically maintain clustering on a table

o -Keep statistics about clustering (Tom) [optimizer]

* COPY

o Allow specification of column names

* SHOW/SET

o Add SHOW command to display locks

o -Add SHOW command to show all settings

o -Add a global RESET command for use with connection pooling

o Add SET or BEGIN timeout parameter to cancel query

o Add SET REAL_FORMAT and SET DOUBLE_PRECISION_FORMAT using printf args

o Remove SET KSQO option now that OR processing is improved (Tom)

CLIENTS

* -Make NULL's come out at the beginning or end depending on the

ORDER BY direction (Tom)

* Have pg_dump use LEFT OUTER JOIN in multi-table SELECTs

or multiple SELECTS to avoid bad system catalog entries

* Have pg_dump -C dump database location and encoding information

* Allow psql \d to show foreign keys

* Allow psql \d to show temporary table structure

* Add XML interface: psql, pg_dump, COPY, separate server (?)

* -Fix libpq to properly handle socket failures under native MS Win32

* Add config file check for $ODBCINI, $HOME/.odbc.ini, installpath/etc/odbc.ini

* JDBC

o Comprehensive test suite. This may be available already.

o Updateable resultSet (must be done in backend code)

o -Improved DatabaseMetaData [java]

o JDBC-standard BLOB support

o Error Codes (pending backend implementation)

o -Support for binary data/bytea

o Support both 'make' and 'ant'

o -Add MD5 capability

o Fix LargeObject API to handle OIDs as unsigned ints

o Implement cancel() method on Statement

o Use cursors implicitly to avoid large results (see setCursorName())

* ECPG

o Implement set descriptor, using descriptor

o Make casts work in variable initializations

o -Allow variable to specify the connection name

o -Fix variable handling in EXEC SQL AT statement

o Implement SQLDA

o -Allow SELECT of array of strings into a auto-sized variable

o Solve cardinality > 1 for input descriptors / variables

o Understand structure definitions outside a declare section

o sqlwarn[6] should be 'W' if the PRECISION or SCALE value specified

o Improve error handling

o Allow :var[:index] or :var[<integer>] as cvariable for an array var

o Add a semantic check level, e.g. check if a table really exists

o -Remove space_or_nl and line_end from pgc.l

o Fix nested C comments

o Add SQLSTATE

o fix handling of DB attributes that are arrays

REFERENTIAL INTEGRITY

* Add MATCH PARTIAL referential integrity [foreign]

* -Check that primary key exists at foreign key definition time

* Add deferred trigger queue file (Jan)

* Allow oid to act as a foreign key

* Implement dirty reads and use them in RI triggers

* Make triggers refer to columns by number, not name

* Enforce referential integrity for system tables

* -INSERT & UPDATE/DELETE in transaction of primary key fails with

deferredTriggerGetPreviousEvent or "change violation"

* Allow user to control trigger firing order

* Change foreign key constraint for array -> element to mean element

in array

* Allow autocommit so always in a transaction block

* Overhaul bufmgr/lockmgr/transaction manager

* Allow savepoints / nested transactions [transactions]

* -Handle transaction rollover (Tom) [transactions]

EXOTIC FEATURES

* Improve speed with indexes (perhaps recreate index instead) [vacuum]

* Reduce lock time by moving tuples with read lock, then write

lock and truncate table [vacuum]

* -Make ANALYZE a separate command (Tom)

* -Allow ANALYZE to ESTIMATE based on certain random percentage of rows (Tom)

* Add LAZY VACUUM (Vadim) [performance]

LOCKING

from distributted.net, http://www1.distributed.net/source,

in client/common/cpucheck.cpp

* Research use of sched_yield() for spinlock acquisition failure

* -Improve spinlock code [performance] (Tom)

STARTUP TIME

MISCELLANEOUS

* -Allow compression of log and meta data (Tom)

* Do async I/O for faster random read-ahead of data

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

when it is available

* Use mmap() rather than SYSV shared memory or to write WAL files (?) [mmap]

* -Allow GUC configuration of maximum number of open files (Tom)

* -Improve statistics storage in pg_class [performance] (Tom)

* -Read pg_hba.conf only on postmaster startup or SIGHUP (Bruce)

SOURCE CODE

-----------

* Add use of 'const' for variables in source tree

* -Convert remaining fprintf(stderr,...)/perror() to elog() (Peter E)

* Fix problems with libpq non-blocking/async code [async]

* -Merge global and template BKI files (Tom)

* -Fix username/password length limits in all areas, e.g. pg_passwd

* -Remove compile-time upper limit on number of backends (MAXBACKENDS) (Tom)

* Make sure all block numbers are unsigned to increase maximum table size

* Use BlockNumber rather than int where appropriate

* Merge LockMethodCtl and LockMethodTable into one shared structure (Bruce)

* Remove warnings created by -Wcast-align

* Move platform-specific ps status display info from ps_status.c to ports

* Allow ps status display to work on Solaris/SVr4-based systems

* -Decide on spelling of indexes/indices (Peter E)

* -Add mention of VACUUM, log rotation to Administrator's Guide (Tom, Bruce)

* Make one version of simple_prompt() in code (Bruce, Tom)

* Compile in syslog functionaility by default (?)

* Modify regression tests to prevent failures do to minor numeric rounding