Mostly bug fixes from 3.8.
- Use string methods instead of deprecated string functions.
- Only use SQL-standard way of escaping quotes.
- Added the functions escape_string() and escape/unescape_bytea()
(as suggested by Charlie Dyson and Kavous Bojnourdi a long time ago).
- Reverted code in clear() method that set date to current.
- Added code for backwards compatibility in OID munging code.
- Reorder attnames tests so that "interval" is checked for before "int."
- If caller supplies key dictionary, make sure that all has a namespace.
<explorer@flame.org> for most of the work on this update.
Pkgsrc changes from the previous version include removing Makefile.ssl and
some patches that have been integrated into this release of PostgreSQL. We
leave open the question of when to byte-compile the Python modules for the
PyGreSQL interface and just do it as before, although we should consider
doing the compilation as a post-install step to ensure that the timestamps
are correct. We also reorder some lines in the Makefile to include
Makefile.common below certain definitions (GNU_CONFIGURE, USE_BUILDLINK_ONLY)
as they may possibly trigger different portions of Makefile.common.
*** Please note that a dump/restore is required to migrate an existing ***
*** PostgreSQL installation to 7.2. ***
Major changes from version 7.1.3 are geared toward improving use in
high-volume applications and include:
VACUUM
Vacuuming no longer locks tables, thus allowing normal user access
during the vacuum. A new "VACUUM FULL" command does old-style
vacuum by locking the table and shrinking the on-disk copy of the
table.
Transactions
There is no longer a problem with installations that exceed four
billion transactions.
OID's
OID's are now optional. Users can now create tables without OID's
for cases where OID usage is excessive.
Optimizer
The system now computes histogram column statistics during
"ANALYZE", allowing much better optimizer choices.
Security
A new MD5 encryption option allows more secure storage and
transfer of passwords. A new Unix-domain socket authentication
option is available on Linux and BSD systems. PAM authentication
is also available.
Statistics
Administrators can use the new table access statistics module to
get fine-grained information about table and index usage.
