Contents

PostgreSQL 15

PostgreSQL 15 is the current development version of PostgreSQL, likely to be released in late 2022.

Initial commit marking the start of PostgreSQL 15 development is 596b5af1 (2021-06-28).

Release schedule and pre-release test versions

Backend changes

General

ABI

  • PostgreSQL forks can now explicitly declare their ABI as incompatible (commit d6d1dfcc)

Backup

Hooks

Added:

Modified:

Permissions

postmaster

  • option --with-zstd added (commit 6c417bbc)
  • option --forkboot renamed to --forkaux (commit 50017f77)
  • CREATE privilege on the public schema is now always revoked by default from PUBLIC, and it is now owned by pg_database_owner role (commit b073c3cc)
  • option -C now displays runtime-computed GUCs (commit 0c39c292)

Sequences

  • unlogged sequences added (commit 344d62fb)

Statistics collector

  • replaced by shared memory implementation (commit 5891c7a8)

vacuum

  • VACUUM VERBOSE and autovacuum operations now report the details of how relfrozenxid and relminmxid were advanced (commit 872770fd)

WAL

  • full-page writes can be compressed with:
  • support for custom resource managers added (commit 5c279a6d)
  • support for WAL prefetching added (commit 5dc0418f)

Data type changes

General:

  • new type category for "internal use" types added (commit 07eee5a0)

Modified:

  • JSON
    • following SQL/JSON standard constructors added (commits f79b803d and  f4fb45d1):
      • JSON_ARRAY()
      • JSON_ARRAYAGG()
      • JSON_OBJECT()
      • JSON_OBJECTAGG()
    • JSON_TABLE() constructor added (commit 4e34747c)
    • following SQL/JSON query functions added (commit 1a36bc9d):
      • JSON_EXISTS()
      • JSON_QUERY()
      • JSON_VALUE()
  • NUMERIC
    • scale can be negative or greater than precision (commit 085f931f)
  • xid
    • support for MIN() and MAX() aggregates added (commit 400fc6b6)

Partitioning changes

SQL changes

General

  • equality of NULL values in UNIQUE constraints configurable via UNIQUE [ NULLS [ NOT ] DISTINCT ] option (commit 94aa7cc5)
  • IS JSON predicate added (commit 33a37760)
  • following SQL standard JSON functions added (commits 606948b0 and 49082c2c):
    • JSON()
    • JSON_SCALAR()
    • JSON_SERIALIZE()

Added:

Modified:

System catalog changes

Tables

Added:

Modified:

Views

Added:

System function changes

Added:

Modified:

Removed:

Configuration changes

General:

  • GUC flag GUC_RUNTIME_COMPUTED added for displaying runtime-computed GUCs (commit 0c39c292)

Added:

Modified:

Removed:

Users / roles

Procedural language changes

PL/Perl

  • minimum required version is now Perl 5.8.3 (commit 92e6a98c)

PL/pgSQL

  • enforcement of variable CONSTANT markings improved (commit ccd10a9b)

PL/Python

  • support for Python 2 removed (initial commit 19252e8e)

Replication changes

Replication protocol

  • revised BASE_BACKUP command with more flexible syntax (commit 0ba281cb):
    • PROGRESS [ boolean ] (previously did not accept a boolean value)
    • CHECKPOINT { 'fast' | 'spread' } (supersedes the previous FAST option)
    • WAL [ boolean ] (previously did not accept a boolean value)
    • WAIT [ boolean ] (supersedes the previous WAIT option)
    • TABLESPACE_MAP [ boolean ] (previously did not accept a boolean value)
    • VERIFY_CHECKSUMS [ boolean ] (supersedes the previous NOVERIFY_CHECKSUMS option)
  • TWO_PHASE option added to CREATE_REPLICATION_SLOT (commit cda03cfe)
  • BASE_BACKUP command revised with more flexible syntax (commit 0ba281cb)
  • IDENTIFY_SYSTEM no longer needs to be executed before START_REPLICATION (commit 8e7811e9)

Logical replication

  • support for prepared transactions added (commit a8fd13ca)
  • support for for streaming prepared transactions added (commit 63cf61cd)
  • support for publishing all tables of a schema added (commit 5a283246)
  • support for logical decoding of sequences added (commit 0da92dc5)
  • support for row filters added (commit 52e4f0cd)
  • subscriptions can optionally be disabled on error (commit 705e20f8)
  • support for specifying individual table columns added (commit 923def9a)
  • consistent logical replication of values effected by GUCs DateStyle, IntervalStyle and extra_float_digits enforced  (commit f3d4019d)

libpq changes

  •  support for IPv4 and IPv6 addresses in a server's Subject Alternative Names added (commit c1932e54)
  • PQcancel() now uses the PGconn's tcp_user_timeout and tcp_keepalives_{count|idle|interval} settings (commit 5987feb7)
  • PQsslAttribute(NULL, "library") returns the name of the SSL library in use without requiring a connection handle (commit ebc8b7d4)

Core utilities

  • createdb
    • --icu-locale option added (commit f2553d43)
    • --locale-provider option added (commit f2553d43)
    • --strategy option added (commit 9c08aea6)
  • pg_basebackup
    • new COPY subprotocol implemented (commit cc333f32)
    • option -t/--target added (commit 3500ccc3)
    • option --compress extended to accept a compression method and an optional compression level (commit 5c649fe1)
    • option --compress can accept client-gzip or server-gzip as well as gzip (commit 0ad80329)
    • option --compress can accept lz4 or server-lz4 (commit dab29847)
    • option --compress can accept client-lz4 (commit 751b8d23)
    • option --compress can accept zstd, client-zstd or server-zstd (commit 7cf085f0)
    • option --compress can accept (client|server)-zstd:workers=N to provide parallel backup using multiple zstd workers (commit 51c0d186)
  • pgbench
    • COPY FREEZE used for faster benchmark table population (commit 06ba4a63)
    • following options added (commit 4a39f87a):
      • --max-tries
      • --failures-detailed
      • --verbose-errors
  • pg_dump
  • pg_dumpall
  • pg_receivewal
    • option --compression extended to support method[:detail] syntax (commits d62bcc8b and 042a923a)
    • support for LZ4 compression added (commit babbbb59)
    • can now stream from a slot's restart LSN (commit f61e1dd2)
  • pg_recvlogical
    • option --two-phase added (commit cda03cfe)
  • pg_restore
    • option --no-table-access-method added (commit 21586288)

Server utilities

  • initdb
    • option --icu-locale added (commit f2553d43)
    • option --locale-provider added (commit f2553d43)
  • pg_resetwal
    • option -u/--oldest-transaction-id added (commit 74cf7d46)
  • pg_rewind
    • option --config-file added (commit 0d5c3875)
  • pg_upgrade
    • option -N/--no-sync added (commit 3d5ffccb)
    • filenode and tablespace OIDs preserved (commit 9a974cbc)
    • postgres and template0 database OIDs preserved (commit aa010514)
    • files generated by pg_upgrade will now be stored in the upgraded cluster's data directory under pg_upgrade_output.d (commit 38bfae36)
    • all databases which cannot be connected to will now be listed (commit 26ebb0e2)
    • progress status will not be emitted if output is not a tty (commit 27b02e07)
    • support for upgrading from versions older than PostgreSQL 9.2 removed (commit e469f0aa)
  • pg_waldump
    • option --rmgr can be specified multiple times (commit c8bf5098)
    • short option for --block changed from -k to -B (commit 52b55684)
    • short option for --relation changed from -l to -R (commit 52b55684)
    • option --fork now accepts the fork name, not the fork number (commit 52b55684)
    • stats summary now emitted on receipt of SIGINT (commit f2c52eeb)
    • filtering by RelFileNode, BlockNumber, ForkNum and FPW added (commit 127aea2a)

psql

Contrib modules

Added:

Modified:

  • amcheck
    • verify_heapam() now supports sequences (commit c3b011d9)
    • additional TOAST pointer checks (commit bd807be6)
  • btree_gist
    • bool opclass added to allow creating GiST indexes on boolean columns (commit 57e3c516)
  • pgcrypto
    • now only built if OpenSSL support is configured (commit db7d1a7b)
  • postgres_fdw
    • support for parallel commit added (commit 04e706d4)
    • CASE expressions can be pushed to the remote server (commit 5d44fff0)
    • remote connection's application_name can be set via GUC postgres_fdw.application_name (commit 449ab635)
    • postgres_fdw.application_name can include certain escape sequences (commits 6e0cb3de and 94c49d53)
    • report warning when timeout expiration occurs while retrieving a query result (commit 815d61fc)
  • pg_stat_statements
    • columns temp_blk_read_time and temp_blk_write_time added to view pg_stat_statements for tracking I/O timing for temporary file blocks (commit 76cbf7ed)
    • JIT counters added (commit 57d6aea0)
  • sepgsql
    • permissive/enforcing state now included in log messages (commit 134d9746)
  • test_decoding
    • option include-sequences added (commit 80901b32)
  • xml2
    • function xml_is_well_formed() removed (commit fd2abeb7)

Testing changes

TAP tests

  • PostgresNode and TestLib Perl modules moved to custom namespace PostgreSQL::Test (b3b4d8e6)

Other

CommitFests

Following CommitFests were for PostgreSQL 15 code submissions:

Note that the March CommitFest generally stays open a few days beyond the official end date until feature freeze is announced, usually in early April.