TODO list for PostgreSQL

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Last updated:Tue Jan 2215:49:54 EST 2002

Last updated:Tue Jan 2216:54:39 EST 2002

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

* Point-in-time data recovery using backup and write-ahead log

* Allow row re-use without vacuum (Tom)

ADMIN

REPORTING

* 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

* Improve control over user privileges, including table creation and

lock use [privileges] (Karel, others)

* Allow usernames to be specified directly in pg_hba.conf (Bruce)

* Add PGPASSWORDFILE environment variable or ~/.pgpass to store

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

* Incremental backups

* 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)

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

number, not just messages (Peter E)

* -Allow international error message support (Peter E)

* Add error codes (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)

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

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

* Incremental backups

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

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

flags unique

* Allow usernames to be specified directly in pg_hba.conf (Bruce)

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

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

only if client exists (Bruce)

* Allow logging of query durations

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

DATA TYPES

* Add domain capability [domain]

* Add IPv6 capability to INET/CIDR types

* -Add conversion function from text to inet

* Store binary-compatible type information in the system

* Allow better handling of numeric constants, type conversion [typeconv]

* Support construction of array result values in expressions

* Remove Money type, add money formatting for decimal type

* 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

* SELECT col FROM tab WHERE numeric_col = 10.1 fails, requires quotes

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

* -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 SELECT col FROM tab WHERE numeric_col = 10.1 fails, requires quotes

* ARRAYS

o Allow nulls in arrays

o Allow arrays to be ORDER'ed

o Ensure we have array-eq operators for every built-in array type

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)

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

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

[inheritance]

* Have UPDATE/DELETE clean out indexes

* Allow UPDATE/DELETE on inherited table

* Have UPDATE/DELETE clean out indexes

* Add UNIQUE capability to non-btree indexes

* Add btree index support for reltime, tinterval, regproc

* Add rtree index support for line, lseg, path, point

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

* Allow UPDATE to handle complex aggregates [update]

* Prevent create/drop scripts from allowing extra args (Bruce)

* Allow command blocks that can ignore certain types of errors

* Allow command blocks to ignore certain types of errors

* ALTER

o ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN does not honor DEFAULT and non-CHECK CONSTRAINT

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

o ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN column SET DEFAULT should fill existing

rows with DEFAULT value

o Have ALTER TABLE OWNER change all dependant objects like indexes

* CLUSTER

o cluster all tables at once

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

o Automaticallykeep clustering on a table

o Automaticallymaintain clustering on a table

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

* COPY

o Allow specification of column names

o Allow dump/load of CSV format

o Change syntax to WITH DELIMITER, (keep old syntax around?)

o Allow COPY to report error lines and continue; optionally

allow error codes to be specified; requires savepoints

* CURSOR

o Allow BINARY option to SELECT,like we do with DECLARE

o Allow BINARY option to SELECT,just like DECLARE

o MOVE 0 should not move to end of cursor

o Allow cursors to be DECLAREd/OPENed/CLOSEed outside transactions

o Allow DELETE WHERE CURRENT OF cursor

o Prevent DROP of table being referenced by our own open cursor

* INSERT

o Allow INSERT/UPDATE of system-generated oid value for a row

o Allow INSERT INTO tab (col1, ..) VALUES (val1, ..), (val2, ..)

o Allow INSERT INTO my_table VALUES (a, b, c, DEFAULT, x, y, z, ...)

o Disallow missing columns in INSERT ... VALUES, per ANSI

o Allow INSERT/UPDATE ... RETURNING new.col or old.col; handle

RULE cases (Philip)

* SHOW/SET

o Add SHOW command to display locks

o -Add SHOW command to show all settings

o Add SET PERFORMANCE_TIPS option to suggest INDEX, VACUUM, VACUUM

ANALYZE, and CLUSTER

o Add SHOW command to see locale

* SERVER-SIDE LANGUAGES

o Allow PL/PgSQL's RAISE function to take expressions

o Fix PL/PgSQL to handle quoted mixed-case identifiers

* 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 MD5 to ODBC (Bruce)

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

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

* Add documentation for perl, including mention of DBI/DBD perl location

* Add PGPASSWORDFILE environment variable or ~/.pgpass to store

user/host/password combinations

* Remove PGPASSWORD because is insecure on some OS's

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

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

* JDBC

o Comprehensive test suite. This may be available already.

o Updateable resultSet (must be done in backend code)

o Implement cancel() method on Statement

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

o Add support for CallableStatements

* ECPG

o Implement set descriptor, using descriptor

o Make casts work in variable initializations

o -Remove space_or_nl and line_end from pgc.l

o Fix nested C comments

o Add SQLSTATE

o fix handling of DB attributestaht are arrays

o fix handling of DB attributesthat are arrays

REFERENTIAL INTEGRITY

* SQL*Net listener that makes PostgreSQL appear as an Oracle database

to clients

MISCELLANEOUS

* Increase identifier length (NAMEDATALEN) if small performance hit

* Increase maximum number of function parameters if little wasted space

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

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

* Show location of syntax error in query [yacc]

* Change representation of whole-tuple parameters to functions

* Add optional CRC checksum to heap and index pages

* Add WAL index reliability improvement to non-btree indexes

PERFORMANCE

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* 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 randomprecentage of rows (Tom)

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

* Add LAZY VACUUM (Vadim) [performance]

LOCKING

* Reduce number of after-change WAL writes; they exist only to gaurd against

partial page writes

* Turn off after-change writes if fsync is disabled (?)

* Add WAL index reliability improvement to non-btree indexes

OPTIMIZER/EXECUTOR

evaluated only once or once per query

* Change FIXED_CHAR_SEL to 0.20 from 0.04 to give better selectivity (Bruce)

* Make IN/NOT IN have similar performance to EXISTS/NOT EXISTS [exists]

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

MISCELLANEOUS

* 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)

* Allow logging of query durations

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

* HOLDER/HOLDERTAB rename to PROCLOCK/PROCLOCKTAG (Bruce)

* Remove LockMethodTable.prio field, not used (Bruce)

* Add version file format stamp to heap and other table types

* Make elog(LOG) in WAL its own output type, distinct from DEBUG

* Rename some /contrib modules from pg* to pg_*

* Move some things from /contrib into main tree

* Remove warnings created by -Wcast-align

* Improve access-permissions check on data directory in Cygwin (Tom)

* Report failure to find readline or zlib at end of configure run

* Add --port flag to regression tests

* Increase identifier length (NAMEDATALEN) if small performance hit

* Increase maximum number of function parameters if little wasted space

* Add documentation for perl, including mention of DBI/DBD perl location

* Add optional CRC checksum to heap and index pages

* Change representation of whole-tuple parameters to functions

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