postgresql/doc/TODO

TODO list for PostgreSQL
========================
Last updated:		Thu May 31 10:48:15 EDT 2001

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

The most recent version of this document can be viewed at
the PostgreSQL web site, http://www.PostgreSQL.org.

A dash (-) marks changes that will appear in the upcoming 7.2 release.

Bracketed items "[]" have more detailed information at
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/todo.html.


RELIABILITY
-----------

* -SELECT pg_class FROM pg_class generates strange error (Bruce)
* PL/PgSQL does not handle quoted mixed-case identifiers

ENHANCEMENTS
------------

URGENT

* Add replication of distributed databases [replication]
	o automatic failover
	o load balancing
	o master/slave replication
	o multi-master replication
	o partition data across servers
	o sample implementation in contrib/rserv
	o queries across databases or servers (two-phase commit)
* Point-in-time data recovery using backup and write-ahead log
* Allow row re-use without vacuum (Vadim)

ADMIN

* Improve control over user privileges, including table creation and
  lock use [privileges] (Karel, others)
* -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) [elog]
* Allow international error message support and add error codes [elog]
* Remove unused files during database vacuum or postmaster startup
* Add table name mapping for numeric file names
* Overhaul pg_hba.conf host-based authentication
* Encrpyt passwords in pg_shadow table using MD5 (Vince)
* Incremental backups

TYPES

* Add domain capability
* Add IPv6 capability to INET/CIDR types
* Add conversion function from text to inet
* Store binary-compatible type information in the system
* Support construction of array result values in expressions
* Remove Money type, add money formatting for decimal type
* Declare typein/out functions in pg_proc with a special "C string" data type
* Add non-large-object binary field
* Make binary/file in/out interface for TOAST columns
* Functions returning sets do not totally work
* SELECT col FROM tab WHERE numeric_col = 10.1 fails
* Allow better handling of numeric constants, type conversion [typeconv]
* Missing optimizer selectivities for date, r-tree, etc. [optimizer]
* SELECT cash_out(2) crashes because of opaque
* -Add SQL standard function bit_length() (Peter E)
* Make oid use unsigned int more reliably, pg_atoi()
* ARRAYS
	* Allow nulls in arrays
	* Allow arrays to be ORDER'ed
	* fix array handling in ECPG

MULTILANGUAGE SUPPORT

* Add NCHAR (as distinguished from ordinary varchar),
* Allow LOCALE on a per-column basis, default to ASCII
* Support multiple simultaneous character sets, per SQL92
* Reject character sequences those are not valid in their charset
* Make functions more multi-byte aware, i.e. trim()
* Make n of CHAR(n)/VARCHAR(n) the number of letters, not bytes

VIEWS

* Automatically create rules on views so they are updateable, per SQL92
* Add the functionality for WITH CHECK OPTION clause of CREATE VIEW
* Allow NOTIFY in rules involving conditionals
* Evaluate INSERT rules at end of query, rather than beginning

INDEXES

* Allow CREATE INDEX zman_index ON test (date_trunc( 'day', zman ) datetime_ops)
  fails index can't store constant parameters
* Add FILLFACTOR to index creation
* Re-enable partial indexes
* Allow inherited tables to inherit index, UNIQUE constraint, and primary key
  [inheritance]
* UNIQUE INDEX on base column not honored on inserts from inherited table
  INSERT INTO inherit_table (unique_index_col) VALUES (dup) should fail
  [inheritance]
* Prevent pg_attribute from having duplicate oids for indexes (Tom)
* Add UNIQUE capability to non-btree indexes
* Certain indexes will not shrink, e.g. oid indexes with many inserts (Vadim)
* Have UPDATE/DELETE clean out indexes
* Add btree index support for reltime, tinterval, regproc
* Add rtree index support for line, lseg, path, point
* Use indexes for min() and max()
* Use index to restrict rows returned by multi-key index when used with
  non-consecutive keys or OR clauses, so fewer heap accesses
* Allow SELECT * FROM tab WHERE int2col = 4 to use int2col index, int8,
  float4, numeric/decimal too [optimizer]
* Use indexes with CIDR '<<' (contains) operator
* Allow LIKE indexing optimization for non-ASCII locales
* Be smarter about insertion of already-ordered data into btree index
* -Gather more accurate dispersion statistics using indexes (Tom)
* Add deleted bit to index tuples to reduce heap access
* Prevent index uniqueness checks when UPDATE does not modifying column

SYSTEM TABLES

* Add unique indexes to pg_shadow.usename and pg_shadow.usesysid or
  switch to pg_shadow.oid as user id
* Add unique indexes on pg_database
* Check all system tables and add unique indexes as needed
* Remove pg_listener index
* -Remove unused pg_variable, pg_inheritproc, pg_ipl tables (Bruce)
* Add pg_depend table to track object dependencies

COMMANDS

* Add SIMILAR TO to allow character classes, 'pg_[a-c]%'
* Auto-destroy sequence on DROP of table with SERIAL, perhaps with a separate
  SERIAL type
* Allow LOCK TABLE tab1, tab2, tab3 so all tables locked in unison [lock]
* Allow RULE recompilation
* Add BETWEEN ASYMMETRIC/SYMMETRIC
* Change LIMIT val,val to offset,limit to match MySQL
* Allow PL/PgSQL's RAISE function to take expressions
* ALTER
	* ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN does not honor DEFAULT and non-CHECK 
	  CONSTRAINT
	* ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN to inherited table put column in wrong place
	  [inheritance]
	* Add ALTER TABLE DROP COLUMN feature [drop]
	* Add ALTER FUNCTION
	* Add ALTER TABLE DROP non-CHECK CONSTRAINT
	* -Add ALTER TABLE DROP CHECK CONSTRAINT (Christopher Kings)
* CLUSTER
	* cluster all tables at once
	* prevent lose of indexes, permissions, inheritance
	* Automatically keep clustering on a table
	* -Keep statistics about clustering
	  [optimizer]
* COPY
	* Allow specification of column names
	* Allow dump/load of CSV format
* CURSOR
	* Allow BINARY option to SELECT, like we do with DECLARE
	* MOVE 0 should not move to end of cursor
	* Allow cursors to be DECLAREd/OPENed/CLOSEed outside transactions
	* Allow DELETE WHERE CURRENT OF cursor
* INSERT
	* Allow INSERT/UPDATE of system-generated oid value for a row
	* Allow INSERT INTO tab (col1, ..) VALUES (val1, ..), (val2, ..)
	* Allow INSERT INTO my_table VALUES (a, b, c, DEFAULT, x, y, z, ...)
	* Disallow missing columns in INSERT ... VALUES, per ANSI
	* Allow INSERT/UPDATE ... RETURNING new.col or old.col (Philip)
* SHOW/SET
	* Add SHOW command to display locks
	* Add SHOW command to show all settings
	* Add a global RESET command for use with connection pooling
	* Add SET or BEGIN timeout parameter to cancel query if waiting too long
	* Add SET REAL_FORMAT and SET DOUBLE_PRECISION_FORMAT using printf args
	* Remove SET KSQO option now that OR processing is improved (Tom)
	* Add SET PERFORMANCE_TIPS option to suggest INDEX, VACUUM, VACUUM
	  ANALYZE, and CLUSTER
	* Add SHOW command to see locale

CLIENTS

* Make NULL's come out at the beginning or end depending on the
  ORDER BY direction
* have pg_dump use LEFT OUTER JOIN in multi-table SELECTs
  or multiple SELECTS to avoid bad system catalog entries
* allow psql \d to show foreign keys
* allow psql \d to show temporary table structure
* add XML interface capability
* Remove <=6.3 version compatibility in ODBC?

REFERENTIAL INTEGRITY

* Add MATCH PARTIAL referential integrity
* -Check that primary key exists at foreign key definition time
* Prevent column dropping if column is used by foreign key
* Propagate column or table renaming to foreign key constraints
* Add deferred trigger queue file (Jan)
* Allow oid to act as a foreign key
* Implement dirty reads and use them in RI triggers
* Enforce referential integrity for system tables
* INSERT & UPDATE/DELETE in transaction of primary key fails with
  deferredTriggerGetPreviousEvent or "change violation" [foreign]
* Make constraints clearer in dump file
* Make foreign keys easier to identify
* Change foreign key constraint for array -> element to mean element
   in array
* Automatically drop constraints/functions when object is dropped

TRANSACTIONS

* Implement UNDO using transaction log, overwriting storage manager? 
  [vacuum] (Vadim)
* Allow autocommit so always in a transaction block
* Overhaul bufmgr/lockmgr/transaction manager
* Allow nested transactions (Vadim)
* Handle transaction rollover [transactions]

EXOTIC FEATURES

* Add sql3 recursive unions
* Add the concept of dataspaces/tablespaces [tablespaces]
* Allow SQL92 schemas (Tom)
* Allow queries across multiple databases
* Add pre-parsing phase that converts non-ANSI features to supported features
* SQL*Net listener that makes PostgreSQL appear as an Oracle database
  to clients

MISCELLANEOUS

* Increase identifier length(NAMEDATALEN) if small performance hit
* Create a background process for each database that runs while
  database is idle, finding superceeded rows, gathering stats and
  vacuuming (Tom)
* 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]
* Allow Java server-side programming [java]
* Add sed-like regular expression search/replace capability
* Change representation of whole-tuple parameters to functions

PERFORMANCE
-----------

FSYNC

* Delay fsync() when other backends are about to commit too [fsync]
	* Determine optimal commit_delay value
* Determine optimal fdatasync/fsync, O_SYNC/O_DSYNC options
	* Allow multiple blocks to be written to WAL with one write()

CACHE

* Cache most recent query plan(s) (Karel) [prepare]
* Shared catalog cache, reduce lseek()'s by caching table size in shared area

VACUUM

* Improve speed with indexes (perhaps recreate index instead) [vacuum]
* 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 random precentage of rows (Tom)
* Add LAZY VACUUM (Vadim)

MISCELLANEOUS

* Allow compression of log and meta data
* Do async I/O to do better read-ahead of data
* Experiment with multi-threaded backend [thread]
* Get faster regex() code from Henry Spencer <henry@zoo.utoronto.ca>
  when it is available
* Use mmap() rather than SYSV shared memory(?) [mmap]
* Improve Subplan list handling
* Allow Subplans to use efficient joins(hash, merge) with upper variable
* improve dynamic memory allocation by introducing tuple-context memory
  allocation (Tom)
* allow configuration of maximum number of open files
* -Improve statistics storage in pg_class [performance] (Tom)
* Add connection pooling [pool]
* Allow persistent backends [persistent]
* Create a transaction processor to aid in persistent connections and
  connection pooling
* Make blind writes go through the file descriptor cache
* Allow logging of query durations
* Add hash-based aggregates

SOURCE CODE
-----------
* Add use of 'const' for variables in source tree
* Does Mariposa source contain any other bug fixes?
* Convert remaining fprintf(stderr,...)/perror() to elog()
* Fix problems with libpq non-blocking/async code [async]
* Merge global and template BKI files (Peter E)
* Fix username/password length limits in all areas
* Remove compile-time upper limit on number of backends (MAXBACKENDS) (Tom)
* Make sure all block numbers are unsigned to increase maximum table size
* Merge LockMethodCtl and LockMethodTable into one shared structure (Bruce)
* HOLDER/HOLDERTAB reanme to PROCLOCKLINK/PROCLOCKLINKTAG (Tom)
* 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, like soundex
* Allow plug-in modules to emulate features from other databases
* Remove warnings created by -Wcast-align
* Move platform-specific ps status display info from ps_status.c to ports
* Allow ps status display to work on Solaris/SVr4-based systems
* -Decide on spelling of indexes/indices (Peter E)
* Add mention of VACUUM, log rotation to Administrator's Guide
* Use BlockNumber rather than int where appropriate

---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Developers who have claimed items are:
--------------------------------------
	* Billy is Billy G. Allie <Bill.Allie@mug.org>
	* Bruce is Bruce Momjian<pgman@candle.pha.pa.us>
	* D'Arcy is D'Arcy J.M. Cain <darcy@druid.net>
	* Edmund is Edmund Mergl <E.Mergl@bawue.de>
	* Hiroshi is Hiroshi Inoue <Inoue@tpf.co.jp>
	* Karel is Karel Zak <zakkr@zf.jcu.cz>
	* Jan is Jan Wieck <wieck@sapserv.debis.de>
	* Marc is Marc Fournier <scrappy@hub.org>
	* Mark is Mark Hollomon <mhh@mindspring.com>
	* Michael is Michael Meskes <meskes@postgresql.org>
	* Oleg is Oleg Bartunov <oleg@sai.msu.su>
	* Peter M is Peter T Mount <peter@retep.org.uk>
	* Peter E is Peter Eisentraut<peter_e@gmx.net>
	* Philip is Philip Warner <pjw@rhyme.com.au>
	* Ross is Ross J. Reedstrom <reedstrm@wallace.ece.rice.edu>
	* Ryan is Ryan Bradetich <rbrad@hpb50023.boi.hp.com>
	* Stephan is Stephan Szabo <sszabo@megazone23.bigpanda.com>
	* Tatsuo is Tatsuo Ishii <t-ishii@sra.co.jp>
	* Thomas is Thomas Lockhart <lockhart@alumni.caltech.edu>
	* Tom is Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
	* TomH is Tom I Helbekkmo <tih@Hamartun.Priv.NO>
	* Vadim is Vadim B. Mikheev <vadim4o@email.com>