The new release includes performance improvements and advanced SQL
features which will support bigger data warehouses, higher-volume
transaction processing, and more complex distributed enterprise
software.
Major new features in this release include:
Roles:
PostgreSQL now supports database roles, which simplify the
management of large numbers of users with complex
overlapping database rights.
IN/OUT Parameters:
PostgreSQL functions now support IN, OUT and INOUT
parameters, which substantially improves support of complex
business logic for J2EE and .NET applications.
Two-Phase Commit (2PC):
Long in demand for WAN applications and heterogeneous data
centers using PostgreSQL, this feature allows
ACID-compliant transactions across widely separated
servers.
Some Performance Enhancements found in this release include:
Improved Multiprocessor (SMP) Performance:
The buffer manager for 8.1 has been enhanced to scale almost
linearly with the number of processors, leading to significant
performance gains on 8-way, 16-way, dual-core, and multi-core
CPU servers.
Bitmap Scan:
Indexes will be dynamically converted to bitmaps in memory when
appropriate, giving up to twenty times faster index performance
on complex queries against very large tables.
Table Partitioning:
The query planner is now able to avoid scanning whole sections
of a large table using a technique known as Constraint
Exclusion.
Shared Row Locking:
PostgreSQL's "better than row-level locking" now supports even
higher levels of concurrency through the addition of shared
row locks for foreign keys.
For a more complete listing of changes in this release, please see the
Release Notes visible at:
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/release.html#RELEASE-8-1
are savepoints (within transactions), point-in-time recovery and
tablespaces. Check out the release notes and the shiny new
PostgreSQL.org website at:
http://www.PostgreSQL.org/docs/8.0/static/release.html#RELEASE-8-0
The port uses the new postgresql ports' layout and is split into a
server and a client part. The following knobs can be used by ports
depending on PostgreSQL:
# USE_PGSQL - Add PostgreSQL client dependency.
# If no version is given (by the maintainer via the port or
# by the user via defined variable), try to find the
# currently installed version. Fall back to default if
# necessary (PostgreSQL-7.4 = 74).
# DEFAULT_PGSQL_VER
# - PostgreSQL default version. Can be overridden within a port.
# Default: 74.
# WANT_PGSQL_VER
# - Maintainer can set an arbitrary version of PostgreSQL by
# using it.
# BROKEN_WITH_PGSQL
# - This variable can be defined if the ports doesn't support
# one or more versions of PostgreSQL.
PR: 75344
Approved by: portmgr@ (kris), ade & sean (mentors)
Note that none of these ports are (yet) hooked into the tree,
and will not compile unless you set a specific environmental
variable. This should be warning enough to leave well alone
for now :)
Submitted by: maintainer
