From ce66f89fc5aa412e7aed3e17760bd1cb5ad6ba85 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: David Fetter <david@fetter.org>
Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2011 00:44:30 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] PostgreSQL Weekly News November 06, 2011

git-svn-id: file:///Users/dpage/pgweb/svn-repo/trunk@2907 8f5c7a92-453e-0410-a47f-ad33c8a6b003
---
 portal/files/weeklynews.xml                   |  22 +-
 portal/template/en/community/weeklynews.html  |   1 +
 .../en/community/weeklynews/pwn20111106.html  | 615 ++++++++++++++++++
 3 files changed, 627 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 portal/template/en/community/weeklynews/pwn20111106.html

diff --git a/portal/files/weeklynews.xml b/portal/files/weeklynews.xml
index aa001991..ce7144e4 100644
--- a/portal/files/weeklynews.xml
+++ b/portal/files/weeklynews.xml
@@ -10,6 +10,17 @@
 <description></description>
 <language>en</language>
 
+<item>
+<title>PostgreSQL Weekly News November 6th 2011</title>
+<description>
+pgpool-II 3.0.5, a connection pooler and more, released.
+&#x3C;a href=&#x22;http://pgfoundry.org/projects/pgpool/&#x22;&#x3E;http://pgfoundry.org/projects/pgpool/&#x3C;/a&#x3E;
+
+
+</description>
+<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.postgresql.org/community/weeklynews/pwn20111106</guid>
+<pubDate>Sun, 06 Nov 2011 00:00:00 PST</pubDate>
+</item>
 <item>
 <title>PostgreSQL Weekly News October 30th 2011</title>
 <description>
@@ -124,16 +135,5 @@ be held on November 25, 2011 in Prato, Italy.
 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.postgresql.org/community/weeklynews/pwn20110904</guid>
 <pubDate>Sun, 04 Sep 2011 00:00:00 PST</pubDate>
 </item>
-<item>
-<title>PostgreSQL Weekly News August 28th 2011</title>
-<description>
-PostgreSQL 9.1 RC1 is available.  Test!
-&#x3C;a href=&#x22;http://www.postgresql.org/about/news.1341&#x22;&#x3E;http://www.postgresql.org/about/news.1341&#x3C;/a&#x3E;
-
-
-</description>
-<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.postgresql.org/community/weeklynews/pwn20110828</guid>
-<pubDate>Sun, 28 Aug 2011 00:00:00 PST</pubDate>
-</item>
 </channel>
 </rss>
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/portal/template/en/community/weeklynews.html b/portal/template/en/community/weeklynews.html
index 71f1519f..882246ef 100644
--- a/portal/template/en/community/weeklynews.html
+++ b/portal/template/en/community/weeklynews.html
@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@ Weekly News
 <p>Here is the <a href="http://www.postgresql.org/files/weeklynews.xml">RSS feed</a>.</p>
 
 <ul>
+    <li><a href="/community/weeklynews/pwn20111106">November 6th 2011</a></li>
     <li><a href="/community/weeklynews/pwn20111030">October 30th 2011</a></li>
     <li><a href="/community/weeklynews/pwn20111023">October 23rd 2011</a></li>
     <li><a href="/community/weeklynews/pwn20111016">October 16th 2011</a></li>
diff --git a/portal/template/en/community/weeklynews/pwn20111106.html b/portal/template/en/community/weeklynews/pwn20111106.html
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..840c58b8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/portal/template/en/community/weeklynews/pwn20111106.html
@@ -0,0 +1,615 @@
+<!-- BEGIN page_title_block -->
+Weekly News - November 06 2011
+<!-- END page_title_block -->
+
+<h1>PostgreSQL Weekly News - November 06 2011</h1>
+
+<h2>PostgreSQL Product News</h2>
+<p>
+ezNcrypt for Databases now supports PostgreSQL.
+<a href="http://download.gazzang.com/license_request.php">http://download.gazzang.com/license_request.php</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+pgpool-II 3.0.5, a connection pooler and more, released.
+<a href="http://pgfoundry.org/projects/pgpool/">http://pgfoundry.org/projects/pgpool/</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+RHQ 4.2, a systems management and monitoring tool that runs atop
+PostgreSQL, released.
+<a href="http://rhq-project.org/">http://rhq-project.org/</a>
+</p>
+
+<h2>PostgreSQL Local</h2>
+<p>
+PGConf.DE 2011, the German-speaking PostgreSQL Conference, will
+take place on November 11th in the Rheinisches Industriemuseum in
+Oberhausen, Germany.  The schedule is now available, and registration
+is open.
+<a href="http://2011.pgconf.de/">http://2011.pgconf.de/</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fifth edition of the Italian PostgreSQL Day (PGDay.IT 2011) will
+be held on November 25, 2011 in Prato, Italy.
+<a href="http://2011.pgday.it/">http://2011.pgday.it/</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Call for Papers is open for PostgreSQL Session #3, which will be
+held in Paris, Feb 2nd, 2012.  The deadline for proposals is the 30th
+November 2011 and selected speakers will be notified by the 14th
+December 2011.  Proposals (in French or English) should be submitted
+to call-for-paper AT postgresql-sessions DOT org.
+More information at: <a href="http://www.postgresql-sessions.org/en/3/">http://www.postgresql-sessions.org/en/3/</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Call for Papers for is open for FLOSS UK, which will be held in
+Edinburgh from the 20th to the 22nd March 2012.  The deadline for
+proposals is the 18th November 2011 and selected speakers will be
+notified by the 25th November 2011.  Proposals should be submitted to
+postgresql2012 AT flossuk DOT org.  More information at:
+<a href="http://www.flossuk.org/Events/Spring2012">http://www.flossuk.org/Events/Spring2012</a>
+</p>
+
+<h2>PostgreSQL in the News</h2>
+<p>
+Planet PostgreSQL: <a href="http://planet.postgresql.org/">http://planet.postgresql.org/</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PostgreSQL Weekly News is brought to you this week by David Fetter
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Submit news and announcements by Sunday at 3:00pm Pacific time.
+Please send English language ones to david@fetter.org, German language
+to pwn@pgug.de, Italian language to pwn@itpug.org.  Spanish language
+to pwn@arpug.com.ar.
+</p>
+
+<h2>Applied Patches</h2>
+<p>
+Tom Lane pushed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Stop btree indexscans upon reaching nulls in either direction.  The
+  existing scan-direction-sensitive tests were overly complex, and
+  failed to stop the scan in cases where it's perfectly legitimate to
+  do so.  Per bug #6278 from Maksym Boguk.  Back-patch to 8.3, which
+  is as far back as the patch applies easily.  Doesn't seem worth
+  sweating over a relatively minor performance issue in 8.2 at this
+  late date.  (But note that this was a performance regression from
+  8.1 and before, so 8.2 is being left as an outlier.)
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/6980f817e83c242c29c84a44f1e1f09e566439b7">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/6980f817e83c242c29c84a44f1e1f09e566439b7</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Fix race condition with toast table access from a stale syscache
+  entry.  If a tuple in a syscache contains an out-of-line toasted
+  field, and we try to fetch that field shortly after some other
+  transaction has committed an update or deletion of the tuple, there
+  is a race condition: vacuum could come along and remove the toast
+  tuples before we can fetch them.  This leads to transient failures
+  like "missing chunk number 0 for toast value NNNNN in
+  pg_toast_2619", as seen in recent reports from Andrew Hammond and
+  Tim Uckun.  The design idea of syscache is that access to stale
+  syscache entries should be prevented by relation-level locks, but
+  that fails for at least two cases where toasted fields are possible:
+  ANALYZE updates pg_statistic rows without locking out sessions that
+  might want to plan queries on the same table, and CREATE OR REPLACE
+  FUNCTION updates pg_proc rows without any meaningful lock at all.
+  The least risky fix seems to be an idea that Heikki suggested when
+  we were dealing with a related problem back in August: forcibly
+  detoast any out-of-line fields before putting a tuple into syscache
+  in the first place.  This avoids the problem because at the time we
+  fetch the parent tuple from the catalog, we should be holding an
+  MVCC snapshot that will prevent removal of the toast tuples, even if
+  the parent tuple is outdated immediately after we fetch it.  (Note:
+  I'm not convinced that this statement holds true at every instant
+  where we could be fetching a syscache entry at all, but it does
+  appear to hold true at the times where we could fetch an entry that
+  could have a toasted field.  We will need to be a bit wary of adding
+  toast tables to low-level catalogs that don't have them already.)
+  An additional benefit is that subsequent uses of the syscache entry
+  should be faster, since they won't have to detoast the field.
+  Back-patch to all supported versions.  The problem is significantly
+  harder to reproduce in pre-9.0 releases, because of their
+  willingness to flush every entry in a syscache whenever the
+  underlying catalog is vacuumed (cf CatalogCacheFlushRelation); but
+  there is still a window for trouble.
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/08e261cbc94ce9a72c0660b2786eaadae9f6fb41">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/08e261cbc94ce9a72c0660b2786eaadae9f6fb41</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Preserve Var location information during flatten_join_alias_vars.
+  This allows us to give correct syntax error pointers when
+  complaining about ungrouped variables in a join query with
+  aggregates or GROUP BY.  It's pretty much irrelevant for the
+  planner's use of the function, though perhaps it might aid debugging
+  sometimes.
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/391af9f7842ba8b8d2195aaf82879662434b97f3">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/391af9f7842ba8b8d2195aaf82879662434b97f3</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Revert "Stop btree indexscans upon reaching nulls in either
+  direction." This reverts commit
+  048fffed55ff1d6d346130e4a6b7be434e81e82c.  As pointed out by Naoya
+  Anzai, we need to do more work to make that idea handle end-of-index
+  cases, and it is looking like too much risk for a back-patch.  So
+  bug #6278 is only going to be fixed in HEAD.
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/5cd7b682427d0e912b3ddf7f4910d52089e0df71">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/5cd7b682427d0e912b3ddf7f4910d52089e0df71</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Fix btree stop-at-nulls logic properly.  As pointed out by Naoya
+  Anzai, my previous try at this was a few bricks shy of a load,
+  because I had forgotten that the initial-positioning logic might not
+  try to skip over nulls at the end of the index the scan will start
+  from.  We ought to fix that, because it represents an unnecessary
+  inefficiency, but first let's get the scan-stop logic back to a safe
+  state.  With this patch, we preserve the performance benefit
+  requested in bug #6278 for the case of scanning forward into NULLs
+  (in a NULLS LAST index), but the reverse case of scanning backward
+  across NULLs when there's no suitable initial-positioning qual is
+  still inefficient.
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/882368e854b6f094f94aca292f390bbd9f44359b">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/882368e854b6f094f94aca292f390bbd9f44359b</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Avoid scanning nulls at the beginning of a btree index scan.  If we
+  have an inequality key that constrains the other end of the index,
+  it doesn't directly help us in doing the initial positioning ... but
+  it does imply a NOT NULL constraint on the index column.  If the
+  index stores nulls at this end, we can use the implied NOT NULL
+  condition for initial positioning, just as if it had been stated
+  explicitly.  This avoids wasting time when there are a lot of nulls
+  in the column.  This is the reverse of the examples given in bugs
+  #6278 and #6283, which were about failing to stop early when we
+  encounter nulls at the end of the indexscan.
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/1a77f8b63d159b88ceb6245fcb5e81a7f9ac9a22">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/1a77f8b63d159b88ceb6245fcb5e81a7f9ac9a22</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Fix handling of PlaceHolderVars in nestloop parameter management.
+  If we use a PlaceHolderVar from the outer relation in an inner
+  indexscan, we need to reference the PlaceHolderVar as such as the
+  value to be passed in from the outer relation.  The previous code
+  effectively tried to reconstruct the PHV from its component
+  expression, which doesn't work since (a) the Vars therein aren't
+  necessarily bubbled up far enough, and (b) it would be the wrong
+  semantics anyway because of the possibility that the PHV is supposed
+  to have gone to null at some point before the current join.  Point
+  (a) led to "variable not found in subplan target list" planner
+  errors, but point (b) would have led to silently wrong answers.  Per
+  report from Roger Niederland.
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/7e3bf99baa18524de6ef1492cb3057314da97e68">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/7e3bf99baa18524de6ef1492cb3057314da97e68</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Fix inline_set_returning_function() to allow multiple OUT
+  parameters.  inline_set_returning_function failed to distinguish
+  functions returning generic RECORD (which require a column list in
+  the RTE, as well as run-time type checking) from those with multiple
+  OUT parameters (which do not).  This prevented inlining from
+  happening.  Per complaint from Jay Levitt.  Back-patch to 8.4 where
+  this capability was introduced.
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/515e813543dad5464c1a226fd068fd4daf26a7f9">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/515e813543dad5464c1a226fd068fd4daf26a7f9</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Improve comments for TSLexeme data structure.  Mostly, clean up
+  long-ago pgindent damage.
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/a0d2f05a0d433ab68ec378744ff920562a5ef681">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/a0d2f05a0d433ab68ec378744ff920562a5ef681</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Fix bogus code in contrib/ tsearch dictionary examples.  Both
+  dict_int and dict_xsyn were blithely assuming that whatever memory
+  palloc gives back will be pre-zeroed.  This would typically work for
+  just about long enough to run their regression tests, and no longer
+  :-(.  The pre-9.0 code in dict_xsyn was even lamer than that, as it
+  would happily give back a pointer to the result of palloc(0),
+  encouraging its caller to access off the end of memory.  Again, this
+  would just barely fail to fail as long as memory contained nothing
+  but zeroes.  Per a report from Rodrigo Hjort that code based on
+  these examples didn't work reliably.
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/e3e3087d8717c26cd1c4581ba29274ac214eb816">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/e3e3087d8717c26cd1c4581ba29274ac214eb816</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Don't assume that a tuple's header size is unchanged during
+  toasting.  This assumption can be wrong when the toaster is passed a
+  raw on-disk tuple, because the tuple might pre-date an ALTER TABLE
+  ADD COLUMN operation that added columns without rewriting the table.
+  In such a case the tuple's natts value is smaller than what we
+  expect from the tuple descriptor, and so its t_hoff value could be
+  smaller too.  In fact, the tuple might not have a null bitmap at
+  all, and yet our current opinion of it is that it contains some
+  trailing nulls.  In such a situation, toast_insert_or_update did the
+  wrong thing, because to save a few lines of code it would use the
+  old t_hoff value as the offset where heap_fill_tuple should start
+  filling data.  This did not leave enough room for the new nulls
+  bitmap, with the result that the first few bytes of data could be
+  overwritten with null flag bits, as in a recent report from Hubert
+  Depesz Lubaczewski.  The particular case reported requires ALTER
+  TABLE ADD COLUMN followed by CREATE TABLE AS SELECT * FROM ... or
+  INSERT ... SELECT * FROM ..., and further requires that there be
+  some out-of-line toasted fields in one of the tuples to be copied;
+  else we'll not reach the troublesome code.  The problem can only
+  manifest in this form in 8.4 and later, because before commit
+  a77eaa6a95009a3441e0d475d1980259d45da072, CREATE TABLE AS or
+  INSERT/SELECT wouldn't result in raw disk tuples getting passed
+  directly to heap_insert --- there would always have been at least a
+  junkfilter in between, and that would reconstitute the tuple header
+  with an up-to-date t_natts and hence t_hoff.  But I'm backpatching
+  the tuptoaster change all the way anyway, because I'm not convinced
+  there are no older code paths that present a similar risk.
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/039680affb1b925e8e5c9578b0ab05fa326452fe">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/039680affb1b925e8e5c9578b0ab05fa326452fe</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Un-break horology regression test.  Adjust ill-considered
+  timezone-dependent tests added in commit
+  8a3d33c8e6c681d512f79af4a521ee0c02befcef so that they won't fail on
+  DST transition days.  Per all-pink buildfarm.
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/362f731dde94b10f8a01e80fddd2bf99c4f66587">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/362f731dde94b10f8a01e80fddd2bf99c4f66587</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Magnus Hagander pushed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Document that multiple LDAP servers can be specified
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/589adb86ee826190d2b6e744d117eee1fa6bbf75">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/589adb86ee826190d2b6e744d117eee1fa6bbf75</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Pre-pad WAL files when streaming transaction log.  Instead of
+  filling files as they appear, pre-pad the WAL files received when
+  streaming xlog the same way that the server does. Data is streamed
+  into a .partial file which is then renamed()d into palce when it's
+  complete, but it will always be 16MB.  This also means that the
+  starting position for pg_receivexlog is now simply right after the
+  last complete segment, and we never need to deal with partial
+  segments there.  Patch by me, review by Fujii Masao
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/e7cc8437bbff99cbc7f07f852f5169ba1356a414">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/e7cc8437bbff99cbc7f07f852f5169ba1356a414</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Properly close replication connection in pg_receivexlog
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/3b06105c7d999752177f98fdad20278d57804f8f">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/3b06105c7d999752177f98fdad20278d57804f8f</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Add missing space in comment
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/6187df15320fbd958389358f5d4086b694c892ec">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/6187df15320fbd958389358f5d4086b694c892ec</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Make psql \d on a sequence show the table/column owning it
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/6f81a1f6688c2901d82c02158e9c865f5538246d">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/6f81a1f6688c2901d82c02158e9c865f5538246d</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Show statistics target for columns in \d+ on a table
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/ebcadba29fd1aeef76a4c0c4d1d2adad62fe945a">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/ebcadba29fd1aeef76a4c0c4d1d2adad62fe945a</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Update regression tests for \d+ modification.  Noted by Tom
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/3a6e4076b73b16575373c4a99d3301cdb929fd03">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/3a6e4076b73b16575373c4a99d3301cdb929fd03</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon Riggs pushed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Split work of bgwriter between 2 processes: bgwriter and
+  checkpointer.  bgwriter is now a much less important process,
+  responsible for page cleaning duties only. checkpointer is now
+  responsible for checkpoints and so has a key role in shutdown. Later
+  patches will correct doc references to the now old idea that
+  bgwriter performs checkpoints.  Has beneficial effect on performance
+  at high write rates, but mainly refactoring to more easily allow
+  changes for power reduction by simplifying previously tortuous code
+  around required to allow page cleaning and checkpointing to time
+  slice in the same process.  Patch by me, Review by Dickson Guedes
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/806a2aee3791244bf0f916729bfdb5489936e068">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/806a2aee3791244bf0f916729bfdb5489936e068</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Add new file for checkpointer.c
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/bf405ba8e460051e715d0a91442b579e590328ce">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/bf405ba8e460051e715d0a91442b579e590328ce</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Have checkpointer send stats once each processing loop.  Noted by
+  Fujii Masao
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/3ba182056faac66012aad8dedf2cb50ba511d989">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/3ba182056faac66012aad8dedf2cb50ba511d989</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Comment changes to show bgwriter no longer performs checkpoints.
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/f3ebaad45b473f3a53de2cd2a5252cd653aa46f3">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/f3ebaad45b473f3a53de2cd2a5252cd653aa46f3</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Fix timing of Startup CLOG and MultiXact during Hot Standby.  Patch
+  by me, bug report by Chris Redekop, analysis by Florian Pflug
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/f8409b39d1dae28f063b378b9edee1a657845503">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/f8409b39d1dae28f063b378b9edee1a657845503</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Start Hot Standby faster when initial snapshot is incomplete.  If
+  the initial snapshot had overflowed then we can start whenever the
+  latest snapshot is empty, not overflowed or as we did already, start
+  when the xmin on primary was higher than xmax of our starting
+  snapshot, which proves we have full snapshot data.  Bug report by
+  Chris Redekop
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/10b7c686e52a6d1bb10194ebf9331ef06f044d46">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/10b7c686e52a6d1bb10194ebf9331ef06f044d46</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Remove spurious entry from missed catch while patch juggling
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/2296e62a326dfd16ecae590f2f29773fd4348e7f">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/2296e62a326dfd16ecae590f2f29773fd4348e7f</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Derive oldestActiveXid at correct time for Hot Standby.  There was a
+  timing window between when oldestActiveXid was derived and when it
+  should have been derived that only shows itself under heavy load.
+  Move code around to ensure correct timing of derivation.  No change
+  to StartupSUBTRANS() code, which is where this failed.  Bug report
+  by Chris Redekop
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/86e33648992cfc104836ab1fbb6e654308beb4a5">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/86e33648992cfc104836ab1fbb6e654308beb4a5</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Refactor xlog.c to create src/backend/postmaster/startup.c.  Startup
+  process now has its own dedicated file, just like all other
+  special/background processes. Reduces role and size of xlog.c
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/9aceb6ab3c202a5bf00d5f00436bb6ad285fc0bf">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/9aceb6ab3c202a5bf00d5f00436bb6ad285fc0bf</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Reduce checkpoints and WAL traffic on low activity database server
+  Previously, we skipped a checkpoint if no WAL had been written since
+  last checkpoint, though this does not appear in user documentation.
+  As of now, we skip a checkpoint until we have written at least one
+  enough WAL to switch the next WAL file. This greatly reduces the
+  level of activity and number of WAL messages generated by a very low
+  activity server. This is safe because the purpose of a checkpoint is
+  to act as a starting place for a recovery, in case of crash.  This
+  patch maintains minimal WAL volume for replay in case of crash, thus
+  maintaining very low crash recovery time.
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/18fb9d8d21a28caddb72c7ffbdd7b96d52ff9724">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/18fb9d8d21a28caddb72c7ffbdd7b96d52ff9724</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Update more comments about checkpoints being done by bgwriter
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/750f70b0fe91258f9f99b1d04a510e5b035e9249">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/750f70b0fe91258f9f99b1d04a510e5b035e9249</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Improve docs for timing and skipping of checkpoints.  Greg Smith
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/43342891861cc2d08dea2b1c8b190e15e5a36551">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/43342891861cc2d08dea2b1c8b190e15e5a36551</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Move user functions related to WAL into xlogfuncs.c
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/a030bfa6e41edae8a9a68dc8cef7fc7813f69a0a">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/a030bfa6e41edae8a9a68dc8cef7fc7813f69a0a</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bruce Momjian pushed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Allow pg_upgrade to upgrade an old cluster that doesn't have a
+  'postgres' database.
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/a50d860ae1dfca56148dd41692b963bb859bf1d6">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/a50d860ae1dfca56148dd41692b963bb859bf1d6</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Update pg_upgrade comment on missing 'postgres' database.
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/09d1174e5ad3ec7c90c99e2ad4dd896368b018ce">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/09d1174e5ad3ec7c90c99e2ad4dd896368b018ce</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Adjust pg_upgrade "new database skip" code, e.g. 'postgres', to more
+  cleanly handle old/new database mismatches.
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/84b8fcaa923259d6f7daf228183ecbeb924dc950">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/84b8fcaa923259d6f7daf228183ecbeb924dc950</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Peter Eisentraut pushed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Clean up whitespace and indentation in parser and scanner files.
+  These are not touched by pgindent, so clean them up a bit manually.
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/654e1f96b0642124fb2996f1b7e64140b2898f14">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/654e1f96b0642124fb2996f1b7e64140b2898f14</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Add note about using GNU tar warning options for base backups
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/39b2d9ffb01ab356f6f5e0d441472ade7608b12a">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/39b2d9ffb01ab356f6f5e0d441472ade7608b12a</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Fix archive_command example.  The given archive_command example
+  didn't use %p or %f, which wouldn't really work in practice.
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/27ef415a716d75de3213cb6bcd6cf20e24eb0f4f">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/27ef415a716d75de3213cb6bcd6cf20e24eb0f4f</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Robert Haas pushed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Initialize myProcLocks queues just once, at postmaster startup.  In
+  assert-enabled builds, we assert during the shutdown sequence that
+  the queues have been properly emptied, and during process startup
+  that we are inheriting empty queues.  In non-assert enabled builds,
+  we just save a few cycles.
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/c2891b46a4b04b80e1fe28ad0bfd75b40e97ea3e">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/c2891b46a4b04b80e1fe28ad0bfd75b40e97ea3e</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Check the return value of getcwd(), instead of assuming success.
+  Kevin Grittner
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/c9f48b572c773ab88d02e26ccb5b6ff5fea64c05">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/c9f48b572c773ab88d02e26ccb5b6ff5fea64c05</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Silence bogus compiler warning.
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/b76c61f1e862f5e8e41ffc7154e83688742aab0e">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/b76c61f1e862f5e8e41ffc7154e83688742aab0e</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Heikki Linnakangas pushed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Support range data types.  Selectivity estimation functions are
+  missing for some range type operators, which is a TODO.  Jeff Davis
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/4429f6a9e3e12bb4af6e3677fbc78cd80f160252">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/4429f6a9e3e12bb4af6e3677fbc78cd80f160252</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Oops, forgot to fix the catversion when I committed the range types
+  patch.  It was inadvertently changed to 201111111, which is a wrong
+  date.  Change it to current date, and remove the comment that was
+  supposed to remind me to fix it before committing.
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/780571cc9fcfc1d2c4a0212c19975f2ef0b2eb42">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/780571cc9fcfc1d2c4a0212c19975f2ef0b2eb42</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Andrew Dunstan pushed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Do not treat a superuser as a member of every role for HBA purposes.
+  This makes it possible to use reject lines with group roles.  Andrew
+  Dunstan, reviewed by Robert Haas.
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/94cd0f1ad8af722a48a30a1087377b52ca99d633">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/94cd0f1ad8af722a48a30a1087377b52ca99d633</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Role membership of superusers is only by explicit membership for
+  HBA.  Document that this rule applies to 'samerole' as well as to
+  named roles.  Per gripe from Tom Lane.
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/f66c8252ab9a64dd49a0af2b481a2621dd008768">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/f66c8252ab9a64dd49a0af2b481a2621dd008768</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Alvaro Herrera pushed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Implement a dry-run mode for isolationtester.  This mode prints out
+  the permutations that would be run by the given spec file, in the
+  same format used by the permutation lines in spec files.  This helps
+  in building new spec files.  Author: Alexander Shulgin, with some
+  tweaks by me
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/7ed36056751cc900418871b39595100cbb06de21">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/7ed36056751cc900418871b39595100cbb06de21</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Unbreak isolationtester on Win32.  I broke it in a previous commit
+  because I neglected to install the necessary incantations to have
+  getopt() work on Windows.  Per red blots in buildfarm.
+  <a href="http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/e145891c984540a86788f88b604c766c934b17ea">http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/e145891c984540a86788f88b604c766c934b17ea</a>
+</p>
+
+<h2>Rejected Patches (for now)</h2>
+<p>
+No one was disappointed this week :-)
+</p>
+
+<h2>Pending Patches</h2>
+<p>
+Scott Mead sent in two revisions of a patch to see some context around
+<IDLE> IN TRANSACTION.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Shigeru HANADA sent in another revision of the patch to add a
+PostgreSQL FDW.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Peter Eisentraut sent in another revision of the patch to enable psql
+to switch automatically between normal and \x mode depending on the
+width of the output.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Robert Haas sent in three revisions of a patch to drop the "=>"
+notation from hstore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Andrew Dunstan sent in another revision of the patch to add an
+--exclude-table-data option to pg_dump.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+KaiGai Kohei sent in two more revisions of the patch to fix certain
+types of information leaks in VIEWs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Andrew Dunstan sent in another revision of the patch to add a \setenv
+command to psql.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+KaiGai Kohei sent in a patch to add checks for INSERT permission on
+new tables constructed by SELECT INTO or CREATE TABLE AS.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon Riggs and Robert Haas traded revisions of a patch to skip busy
+pages during VACUUM.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Alvaro Herrera sent in another revision of the patch to add foreign
+key locks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pavan Deolasee sent in a patch to store hot members of PGPROC out of
+band, a performance optimization.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gabriele Bartolini sent in a WIP patch to allow arrays to be foreign
+keys to scalar primary keys.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tomas Vondra sent in a patch that would allow optional "cleaning" of
+queries tracked in pg_stat_statements, compressing the result and
+making it more readable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Greg Smith sent in a patch adds a new function to the pageinspect
+extension for measuring total free space, in either tables or indexes.
+It returns the free space as a percentage, so higher numbers mean more
+bloat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+J Smith sent in a fix to some corner-case bugs in the unaccent module.
+
+</p>
+
-- 
2.39.5