[plug] New(ish) release of PostgreSQL

[Peter Wright]

I recall (many moons ago) some lengthy discussions on this list about
free/commercial databases running on Linux. It was pointed out that
PostgreSQL (probably the closest to a "serious" open-source database)
lacked a number of significant features as compared to most commercial
database systems.

Having just upgraded my Postgres-running Debian machine and cleverly
managed to screw things up so that I now am in the process of compiling
PostgreSQL 6.4 from source in order to convert my 6.4 DB to 6.5 format
(there not being a 6.4 package in Debian anymore), I went to the main site
to check out the current situation. Found out that as of 9/5, they have
increased a major version number(!) and are now at version 7.0.

A snippet from the news page (http://www.postgresql.org/news.html):

> 05-09-2000 - PostgreSQL Global Development Group Releases v7.0 Its been 8
> months since the last major release of PostgreSQL, and the PostgreSQL
> Global Development Group is now proud to announce our next leap forward
> with the release of v7.0. 
> 
> Although there have been a lot of changes between v6.5 and v7.0, most of
> them have been under-the-hood ... reducing, and in some cases,
> eliminating some of the limitations in previous versions of PostgreSQL. 
> 
> There are over 70 bug fixes, over 100 enhancements and over 30
> performance improvements in this new release ... all of which are
> documented in our HISTORY file, but some of the more visible changes are: 
> 
> * Foreign Keys
>	Foreign keys are now implemented, with the exception of PARTIAL
>	MATCH foreign keys. Many users have been asking for this feature,
>	and we are pleased to offer it. 
> * Optimizer Overhaul
>	Continuing on work started a year ago, the optimizer has been
>	overhauled, allowing improved query execution and better
>	performance with less memory usage. 
> * Updated psql
>	psql, our interactive terminal monitor, has been updated with a
>	variety of new features. See the psql manual page for details. 
> * Upcoming Features
>	In 7.1, we plan to have outer joins, storage for very long rows,
>	and a write-ahead logging system. 
> * Date/time datatypes cleaned up
>	We have brought the date/time datatypes into compliance with the
>	SQL standard, replacing the old partially-implemented SQL date/time
>	types with full-featured implementations. The default display
>	format for date/time data has also changed to be ISO style. This
>	may create a few compatibility issues for old applications. 
> * Query length limits removed
>	There is no longer any fixed limit on the length of a query string.
>	(The block-size limit on the length of a stored row still exists,
>	but we hope to fix that in 7.1) 
> * Removal of 8-argument limit on index keys and functions
>	The maximum number of keys in an index or arguments to a function
>	is now configurable, with default limit of 16, rather than the old
>	hard-coded limit of 8. 
> * Sorts and hashes now work for >2GB of data
>	Temporary files can now be split in the same way that oversize
>	relations are, so that data volume is only limited by available
>	disk space and not by OS limits on the size of an individual file. 

Well, once I've rescued my database from version 6.4 limbo, I'm certainly
going to have a bash at re-designing and re-implementing it in 7.0 with the
all-too-important foreign key stuff. I'm not a huge user of databases, but
I've always felt a bit worried just trying to maintain one moderately
complex DB without being able to use foreign keys. This should be quite a
nice improvement.

Anyway, woohoo.

Pete.
-- 
http://cygnus.uwa.edu.au/~pete/

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