PostgreSQL TODO List

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

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

Last updated:Wed Aug 24 10:00:31 EDT 2005

Last updated:Wed Aug 24 10:05:23 EDT 2005

The most recent version of this document can be viewed at

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faqs.TODO.html.

#A hyphen, "-", marks changes that will appear in the upcoming 8.1 release.#

#A percent sign, "%", marks items that are easier to implement.#

Bracketed items, "[]", have more detail.

Administration

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

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

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

flags unique

* -Allow limits on per-db/role connections

* Allow pooled connections to list all prepared queries

*%Allow pooled connections to list all prepared queries

This would allow an application inheriting a pooled connection to know

the queries prepared in the current session.

Currently SIGTERM of a backend can lead to lock table corruption.

* -Prevent dropping user that still owns objects, or auto-drop the objects

* Set proper permissions on non-system schemas during db creation

*%Set proper permissions on non-system schemas during db creation

Currently all schemas are owned by the super-user because they are

copied from the template1 database.

* Configuration files

o Add "include file" functionality in postgresql.conf

o%Add "include file" functionality in postgresql.conf

o Allow postgresql.conf values to be set so they can not be changed

by the user

o Allow commenting of variables in postgresql.conf to restore them

o%Allow commenting of variables in postgresql.conf to restore them

to defaults

Currently, if a variable is commented out, it keeps the

previous uncommented value until a server restarted.

o Allow pg_hba.conf settings to be controlled via SQL

o%Allow pg_hba.conf settings to be controlled via SQL

This would add a function to load the SQL table from

pg_hba.conf, and one to writes its contents to the flat file.

The table should have a line number that is a float so rows

can be inserted between existing rows, e.g. row 2.5 goes

between row 2 and row 3.

o Allow postgresql.conf file values to be changed via an SQL

o%Allow postgresql.conf file values to be changed via an SQL

API, perhaps using SET GLOBAL

o Allow the server to be stopped/restarted via an SQL API

requires a tool that will call that function and connect to each

database to find the objects in each database for that tablespace.

o Add a GUC variable to control the tablespace for temporary objects

o%Add a GUC variable to control the tablespace for temporary objects

and sort files

It could start with a random tablespace from a supplied list and

the archive contins all the files needed for point-in-time

recovery.

o Create dump tool for write-ahead logs for use in determining

o%Create dump tool for write-ahead logs for use in determining

transaction id for point-in-time recovery

o Allow a warm standby system to also allow read-only queries

[pitr]

This would allow server log information to be easily loaded into

a database for analysis.

* Add ability to monitor the use of temporary sort files

*%Add ability to monitor the use of temporary sort files

* -Add session start time and last statement time to pg_stat_activity

* -Add a function that returns the start time of the postmaster

* Allow server logs to be remotely read and removed using SQL commands

Data Types

==========

* Remove Money type, add money formatting for decimal type

*%Remove Money type, add money formatting for decimal type

* Change NUMERIC to enforce the maximum precision, and increase it

* Add NUMERIC division operator that doesn't round?

* Have sequence dependency track use of DEFAULT sequences,

seqname.nextval?

* Disallow changing default expression of a SERIAL column?

*%Disallow changing default expression of a SERIAL column?

* Fix data types where equality comparison isn't intuitive, e.g. box

* Prevent INET cast to CIDR if the unmasked bits are not zero, or

*%Prevent INET cast to CIDR if the unmasked bits are not zero, or

zero the bits

* Prevent INET cast to CIDR from droping netmask, SELECT '1.1.1.1'::inet::cidr

*%Prevent INET cast to CIDR from droping netmask, SELECT '1.1.1.1'::inet::cidr

* Allow INET + INT4 to increment the host part of the address, or

throw an error on overflow

* Add 'tid != tid ' operator for use in corruption recovery

*%Add 'tid != tid ' operator for use in corruption recovery

* Dates and Times

* Arrays

o Allow NULLs in arrays

o Allow MIN()/MAX() on arrays

o%Allow MIN()/MAX() on arrays

o Delay resolution of array expression's data type so assignment

coercion can be performed on empty array expressions

o Modify array literal representation to handle array index lower bound

make time reporting more consistent and will allow reporting of

the statement start time.

* Add pg_get_acldef(), pg_get_typedefault(), and pg_get_attrdef()

*%Add pg_get_acldef(), pg_get_typedefault(), and pg_get_attrdef()

* Allow to_char() to print localized month names

* Allow functions to have a schema search path specified at creation time

* Allow substring/replace() to get/set bit values

Views / Rules

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

* Automatically create rules on views so they are updateable, per SQL99

*%Automatically create rules on views so they are updateable, per SQL99

We can only auto-create rules for simple views. For more complex

cases users will still have to write rules.

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

* Allow NOTIFY in rules involving conditionals

* Have views on temporary tables exist in the temporary namespace

*%Have views on temporary tables exist in the temporary namespace

* Allow temporary views on non-temporary tables

* Allow RULE recompilation

*%Allow RULE recompilation

SQL Commands

* Add CORRESPONDING BY to UNION/INTERSECT/EXCEPT

* -Allow REINDEX to rebuild all database indexes

* Add ROLLUP, CUBE, GROUPING SETS options to GROUP BY

* Allow SET CONSTRAINTS to be qualified by schema/table name

* Allow TRUNCATE ... CASCADE/RESTRICT

* Add a separate TRUNCATE permission

*%Allow SET CONSTRAINTS to be qualified by schema/table name

*%Allow TRUNCATE ... CASCADE/RESTRICT

*%Add a separate TRUNCATE permission

Currently only the owner can TRUNCATE a table because triggers are not

called, and the table is locked in exclusive mode.

triggers?)

* Add NOVICE output level for helpful messages like automatic sequence/index

creation

* Add COMMENT ON for all cluster global objects (roles, databases

*%Add COMMENT ON for all cluster global objects (roles, databases

and tablespaces)

* -Add an option to automatically use savepoints for each statement in a

multi-statement transaction.

* ALTER

o Have ALTER TABLE RENAME rename SERIAL sequence names

o Add ALTER DOMAIN TYPE

o Allow ALTER TABLE ... ALTER CONSTRAINT ... RENAME

o Allow ALTER TABLE to change constraint deferrability and actions

o Disallow dropping of an inherited constraint

o%Have ALTER TABLE RENAME rename SERIAL sequence names

o%Add ALTER DOMAIN TYPE

o%Allow ALTER TABLE ... ALTER CONSTRAINT ... RENAME

o%Allow ALTER TABLE to change constraint deferrability and actions

o%Disallow dropping of an inherited constraint

o -Allow objects to be moved to different schemas

o Allow ALTER TABLESPACE to move to different directories

o Allow databases to be moved to different tablespaces

Currently non-global system tables must be in the default database

tablespace. Global system tables can never be moved.

o Prevent child tables from altering constraints like CHECK that were

o%Prevent child tables from altering constraints like CHECK that were

inherited from the parent table

store heap rows in hashed groups, perhaps using a user-supplied

hash function.

o Add default clustering to system tables

o%Add default clustering to system tables

To do this, determine the ideal cluster index for each system

table and set the cluster setting during initdb.

processed, with ROLLBACK on COPY failure.

o -Allow COPY to understand \x as a hex byte

o Have COPY return the number of rows loaded/unloaded?

o%Have COPY return the number of rows loaded/unloaded?

o -Allow COPY to optionally include column headings in the first line

o -Allow COPY FROM ... CSV to interpret newlines and carriage

returns in data

* GRANT/REVOKE

o Allow column-level privileges

o Allow GRANT/REVOKE permissions to be applied to all schema objects

o%Allow GRANT/REVOKE permissions to be applied to all schema objects

with one command

The proposed syntax is:

o Prevent DROP TABLE from dropping a row referenced by its own open

cursor?

o Allow pooled connections to list all open WITH HOLD cursors

o%Allow pooled connections to list all open WITH HOLD cursors

Because WITH HOLD cursors exist outside transactions, this allows

them to be listed so they can be closed.

* pg_dump

o Have pg_dump use multi-statement transactions for INSERT dumps

o Allow pg_dump to use multiple -t and -n switches [pg_dump]

o Add dumping of comments on composite type columns

o Add dumping of comments on index columns

o Replace crude DELETE FROM method of pg_dumpall --clean for

o%Have pg_dump use multi-statement transactions for INSERT dumps

o%Allow pg_dump to use multiple -t and -n switches [pg_dump]

o%Add dumping of comments on composite type columns

o%Add dumping of comments on index columns

o%Replace crude DELETE FROM method of pg_dumpall --clean for

cleaning of roles with separate DROP commands

o -Add dumping and restoring of LOB comments

o Stop dumping CASCADE on DROP TYPE commands in clean mode

o Add full object name to the tag field. eg. for operators we need

o%Add full object name to the tag field. eg. for operators we need

'=(integer, integer)', instead of just '='.

o Add pg_dumpall custom format dumps.

This is probably best done by combining pg_dump and pg_dumpall

into a single binary.

o Add CSV output format

o%Add CSV output format

o Update pg_dump and psql to use the new COPY libpq API (Christopher)

o Remove unnecessary abstractions in pg_dump source code

o Use backend PREPARE/EXECUTE facility for ecpg where possible

o Implement SQLDA

o Fix nested C comments

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

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

o Make SET CONNECTION thread-aware, non-standard?

o Allow multidimensional arrays

o Add internationalized message strings

* Allow statement-level triggers to access modified rows

* Support triggers on columns (Greg Sabino Mullane)

* Remove CREATE CONSTRAINT TRIGGER

*%Remove CREATE CONSTRAINT TRIGGER

This was used in older releases to dump referential integrity

constraints.

* Improve commit_delay handling to reduce fsync()

* Determine optimal fdatasync/fsync, O_SYNC/O_DSYNC options

* -Allow multiple blocks to be written to WAL with one write()

* Add an option to sync() before fsync()'ing checkpoint files

*%Add an option to sync() before fsync()'ing checkpoint files

* Add program to test if fsync has a delay compared to non-fsync

VACUUM can look at just those pages rather than the entire table. In

the event of a system crash, the bitmap would probably be invalidated.

* Add system view to show free space map contents

*%Add system view to show free space map contents

* Auto-vacuum

o -Move into the backend code

o Use free-space map information to guide refilling

o Suggest VACUUM FULL if a table is nearly empty

o%Suggest VACUUM FULL if a table is nearly empty

o Improve xid wraparound detection by recording per-table rather

than per-database

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

* Move some things from /contrib into main tree

* Move some /contrib modules out to their own project sites

* Remove warnings created by -Wcast-align

*%Remove warnings created by -Wcast-align

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

* Add optional CRC checksum to heap and index pages

* Improve documentation to build only interfaces (Marc)

* Fix cross-compiling of time zone database via 'zic'

* Fix sgmltools so PDFs can be generated with bookmarks

* -Add C code on Unix to copy directories for use in creating new databases

* %Clean up compiler warnings (especially with gcc version 4)

* Win32