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<sect1 id="release-8-5">

<title>Release 8.5alpha3</title>

<sect2>

<title>Testing</title>

<para>

The primary reason we release alphas is to get users to test new

The primary reason we release alphas is to get users to test new

features as early as possible. If you are interested in helping

with organized testing, please see

<ulink url="http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/HowToBetaTest">the

with organized testing, please see

<ulink url="http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/HowToBetaTest">the

testing information page</ulink>.

</para>

</sect2>

<listitem>

<para>

<emphasis>Performance and behavioral improvements in UPDATE,

DELETE, and SELECT FOR UPDATE/SHARE queries with

joins. Various corner-cases couldresult in duplicated output

DELETE, and SELECT FOR UPDATE/SHARE queries with joins.

Fix various cornercasesthatcouldhave resulted in duplicated output

rows. Set-returning functions are now prohibited in the

target list of SELECT FOR UPDATE/SHARE. FOR UPDATE does not

propagate into a WITH query anymore.</emphasis>

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

<emphasis>Fixed forSELECT FOR UPDATE/SHARE inconjuction with LIMIT.

<emphasis>FixSELECT FOR UPDATE/SHARE inconjunction with LIMIT.

Previously, it could return fewer rows than the limit specified.</emphasis>

</para>

</listitem>

</para>

<para>

<emphasis>Behavioral change: formerly, agg(DISTINCT x) dropped null values of

x unconditionally. Now, it does so only if theagg transition

x unconditionally. Now, it does so only if theaggregate's transition

function is strict; otherwise nulls are treated as DISTINCT

normally would, i.e., you get one copy.</emphasis>

</para>

<itemizedlist>

<listitem>

<para>

<emphasis>Allow rewriting ALTER TABLE to skip WAL logging.</emphasis>

<emphasis>Allow rewriting forms of ALTER TABLE to skip WAL

logging.</emphasis>

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

<emphasis>Speed upinformation schema privilege views.</emphasis>

<emphasis>Speed upINFORMATION_SCHEMA's privilege views.</emphasis>

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

interruptions.</emphasis>

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

<emphasis>Error when a specified connection service is not found in

pg_service.conf, instead of ignoring it.</emphasis>

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

<emphasis>Add YAML to list of EXPLAIN formats.</emphasis>

<emphasis>Teach the regular expression functions to do case-insensitive

matching and locale-dependent character classification properly

when the database encoding is UTF8. This previously only worked

correct for single-byte encodings and is still broken for other

correctly for single-byte encodings. It is still broken for other

multibyte encodings.</emphasis>

</para>

</listitem>

</listitem>

</itemizedlist>

</sect3>

<sect3>

<title>libpq</title>

<itemizedlist>

<listitem>

<para>

<emphasis>Throw error when a specified connection service name is not

found in pg_service.conf, instead of ignoring it.</emphasis>

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

Make libpq reject non-numeric and out-of-range port numbers with a

suitable error message.

</para>

</listitem>

</itemizedlist>

</sect3>

<sect3>

<title>psql</title>

<itemizedlist>

go, ie, a place where a column value or parameter would be legal,

instead of the former behavior that would replace any textual match

including table names and column aliases (leading to syntax errors

later on). PL/pgSQL variable names that match fully-reserved words

will now need to be quoted. On the other hand, a number of

PL/pgSQL-specific words were de-reserved.</emphasis>

later on).</emphasis>

</para>

<para>

<emphasis>The variable resolution behavior is by default not backward

compatible, but can be configured; see documentation.</emphasis>

<emphasis>When a name could refer either to a PL/pgSQL variable or a

table column, PL/pgSQL formerly always assumed the variable was

meant, sometimes resulting in surprising behavior. Now, PL/pgSQL

can assume the variable is meant, or assume the table column is

meant, or throw an error in ambiguous cases. For safety the default

is to throw error. To configure this see <xref

linkend="plpgsql-var-subst">.</emphasis>

</para>

<para>

<emphasis>Error reporting is much nicer and accurate.</emphasis>

<emphasis>Error reporting is much nicer: it no longer shows edited

versions of statements that look significantly different from what

you wrote.</emphasis>

</para>

<para>

<emphasis>The argument of WHERE CURRENT OF can be a PL/pgSQL cursor variable.</emphasis>

<emphasis>Note that this change affects the set of keywords that are

reserved in PL/pgSQL (i.e., cannot be the name of a PL/pgSQL

variable). Now, all keywords shown as reserved in <xref

linkend="sql-keywords-appendix"> are reserved for PL/pgSQL purposes

as well. However, many PL/pgSQL-only keywords that were formerly

treated as reserved no longer are. As in regular SQL, you can

double-quote a variable's name if you want to use a name that

conflicts with a reserved keyword.</emphasis>

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

<emphasis>Python 3 supportin PL/Python;behaves more or less unchanged

compared to Python 2, but the new language variant is called

plpython3u.</emphasis>

<emphasis>AddPython 3 supportto PL/Python. Itbehaves more or less

unchangedcompared to Python 2, but the new language variant is

calledplpython3u.</emphasis>

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

Allow cursor commands MOVE FORWARD n, MOVE BACKWARD n,

Allow cursor commands MOVE FORWARD n, MOVE BACKWARD n,

MOVE FORWARD ALL, MOVE BACKWARD ALL in PL/pgSQL.

</para>

</listitem>

<emphasis>Add \shell and \setshell meta commands to pgbench.</emphasis>

</para>

<para>

<emphasis>\shellcommandruns an external shell command. \setshell also does

the same andsets the result to a variable.</emphasis>

<emphasis>\shell runs an external shell command. \setshell

doesthe same andassigns the result to a variable.</emphasis>

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

</itemizedlist>

</sect3>

<sect3>

<title>Development</title>

<title>ecpg</title>

<itemizedlist>

<listitem>

<para>

Make ECPG more robust against applications freeing strings.

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

Make libpq reject non-numeric and out-of-range port numbers with a

suitable error message.

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

Functions which conflict with C++ reserved words have been renamed,

making backend header files now safe to use with C++ libraries.

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

Add man pages for SPI functions.

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

ECPG now includes a STRING datatype for Informix compatibility

<para>

Derived files that are shipped in the distribution used to be

built in the source directory even for out-of-tree

builds. They are nowalsobuilt in the build tree. This

builds. They are now built in the build tree. This

should be more convenient for certain developers' workflows.

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

Translations were updated.

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

Functions which conflict with C++ reserved words have been renamed,

making backend header files now safe to use with C++ libraries.

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

Add man pages for SPI functions.

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

Upgrade to Autoconf 2.63 (not relevant to users of distribution