max_connections at initdb time.  Get rid of DEF_NBUFFERS and DEF_MAXBACKENDS
macros, which aren't doing anything useful anymore, and put more likely
defaults into postgresql.conf.sample.

target columns in INSERT and UPDATE targetlists.  Don't rely on resname
to be accurate in ruleutils, either.  This fixes bug reported by
Donald Fraser, in which renaming a column referenced in a rule did not
work very well.

so it won't miss 'em again.

heuristic determination of day vs month in date/time input.  Add the
ability to specify that input is interpreted as yy-mm-dd order (which
formerly worked, but only for yy greater than 31).  DateStyle's input
component now has the preferred spellings DMY, MDY, or YMD; the older
keywords European and US are now aliases for the first two of these.
Per recent discussions on pgsql-general.

these things were added at different times by different people ;-).
Includes Aizaz Ahmed's patch to remove duplicate array in help_config.c.

materialized.

New items have been added to GucContext and GucSource enums, but of
course they were not added to the corresponding GucContextName[] and
GucSourceName[] arrays in the patch. Here's a new patch to fix the
resulting bugs.

Joe Conway

>>ISTM that "source" is worth knowing.
>
> Hm, possibly.  Any other opinions?

This version has the seven fields I proposed, including "source". Here's
an example that shows why I think it's valuable:

regression=# \x
Expanded display is on.
regression=# select * from pg_settings where name = 'enable_seqscan';
-[ RECORD 1 ]-----------
name    | enable_seqscan
setting | on
context | user
vartype | bool
source  | default
min_val |
max_val |

regression=# update pg_settings set setting = 'off' where name =
'enable_seqscan';
-[ RECORD 1 ]---
set_config | off

regression=# select * from pg_settings where name = 'enable_seqscan';
-[ RECORD 1 ]-----------
name    | enable_seqscan
setting | off
context | user
vartype | bool
source  | session
min_val |
max_val |

regression=# alter user postgres set enable_seqscan to 'off';
ALTER USER

(log out and then back in again)

regression=# \x
Expanded display is on.
regression=# select * from pg_settings where name = 'enable_seqscan';
-[ RECORD 1 ]-----------
name    | enable_seqscan
setting | off
context | user
vartype | bool
source  | user
min_val |
max_val |

In the first case, enable_seqscan is set to its default value. After
setting it to off, it is obvious that the value has been changed for the
session only. In the third case, you can see that the value has been set
specifically for the user.

Joe Conway

DATESTYLE, for instance 'SQL, European' instead of
'SQL with European conventions'.  Per gripe a month or two back from
Barry Lind.

to zero.

or increased only by super-users.

This fixes problems caused by making certain variables SUSET for
security reasons.

without needing a running backend.  Reorder postgresql.conf.sample
to match new layout of runtime.sgml.  This commit re-adds work lost
in Wednesday's crash.

reports get put into the postmaster log.  Options are TERSE, DEFAULT,
VERBOSE, with the same behavior as implemented on the client side in
libpq.

Nigel J. Andrews

USERLIMIT patch.

Christopher Kings-Lynne

Document why certain GUC variables aren't in postgresql.conf.

in initdb will result in exit(1), allowing the initdb script to realize
that there's something wrong.

users can't turn it off.

docs that CLIENT/LOG_MIN_MESSAGES now controls debug_* output location.
Doc changes included.

only remnant of this failed experiment is that the server will take
SET AUTOCOMMIT TO ON.  Still TODO: provide some client-side autocommit
logic in libpq.

DestReceiver pointers instead of just CommandDest values.  The DestReceiver
is made at the point where the destination is selected, rather than
deep inside the executor.  This cleans up the original kluge implementation
of tstoreReceiver.c, and makes it easy to support retrieving results
from utility statements inside portals.  Thus, you can now do fun things
like Bind and Execute a FETCH or EXPLAIN command, and it'll all work
as expected (e.g., you can Describe the portal, or use Execute's count
parameter to suspend the output partway through).  Implementation involves
stuffing the utility command's output into a Tuplestore, which would be
kind of annoying for huge output sets, but should be quite acceptable
for typical uses of utility commands.

Dump/read non-default GUC values for use by exec'ed backend, for Win32.

initial values and runtime changes in selected parameters.  This gets
rid of the need for an initial 'select pg_client_encoding()' query in
libpq, bringing us back to one message transmitted in each direction
for a standard connection startup.  To allow server version to be sent
using the same GUC mechanism that handles other parameters, invent the
concept of a never-settable GUC parameter: you can 'show server_version'
but it's not settable by any GUC input source.  Create 'lc_collate' and
'lc_ctype' never-settable parameters so that people can find out these
settings without need for pg_controldata.  (These side ideas were all
discussed some time ago in pgsql-hackers, but not yet implemented.)

page when it's read in, per pghackers discussion around 17-Feb.  Add a
GUC variable zero_damaged_pages that causes the response to be a WARNING
followed by zeroing the page, rather than the normal ERROR; this is per
Hiroshi's suggestion that there needs to be a way to get at the data
in the rest of the table.

> weird behavior across fork boundaries; (b) the additional memory space
> that has to be duplicated into child processes will cost something per
> child launch, even if the child never uses it.  But these are only
> arguments that it might not *always* be a prudent thing to do, not that
> we shouldn't give the DBA the tool to do it if he wants.  So fire away.

Here is a patch for the above, including a documentation update. It
creates a new GUC variable "preload_libraries", that accepts a list in
the form:

   preload_libraries = '$libdir/mylib1:initfunc,$libdir/mylib2'

If ":initfunc" is omitted or not found, no initialization function is
executed, but the library is still preloaded. If "$libdir/mylib" isn't
found, the postmaster refuses to start.

In my testing with PL/R, it reduces the first call to a PL/R function
(after connecting) from almost 2 seconds, down to about 8 ms.

Joe Conway

Adjustable threshold is gone in favor of keeping track of total requested
page storage and doling out proportional fractions to each relation
(with a minimum amount per relation, and some quantization of the results
to avoid thrashing with small changes in page counts).  Provide special-
case code for indexes so as not to waste space storing useless page
free space counts.  Restructure internal data storage to be a flat array
instead of list-of-chunks; this may cost a little more work in data
copying when reorganizing, but allows binary search to be used during
lookup_fsm_page_entry().

expression accepted by the regex operators, per discussion yesterday.

Along the way, reduce deadlock_timeout from PGC_POSTMASTER to PGC_SIGHUP
category.  It is probably best to insist that all backends share the same
setting, but that doesn't mean it has to be frozen at startup.

in GUCArrayAdd/GUCArrayDelete.  This prevents the multiple-entry bug
exhibited by Frank Lupo 28-Jan-2003.