PostgreSQL 16

PostgreSQL 16 is the future development version of PostgreSQL, likely to be released in late 2023.

Initial commit marking the start of PostgreSQL 16 development is d31d3097 (2022-06-30).

CommitFests

Following CommitFests are for PostgreSQL 16 code submissions:

• CommitFest 42 (2023-03-01 - 2023-03-31; future)
• CommitFest 41 (2023-01-01 - 2023-01-31; future)
• CommitFest 40 (2022-11-01 - 2022-11-30; open)
• CommitFest 39 (2022-09-01 - 2022-09-30; in progress)
• CommitFest 38 (2022-07-01 - 2022-07-31; closed)

Note that the last CommitFest (March 2023) generally stays open a few days beyond the official end date until feature freeze is announced, usually in early April.

Backend changes

Build system

• support for Meson build system added (initial commit e6927270)

SQL changes

General:

• FROM clause subquery aliases no longer required (commit bcedd8f5)
• SYSTEM_USER reserved keyword now supported ((commit 0823d061)

Modified:

• ALTER DEFAULT PRIVILEGES
  • now requires privileges instead of membership (commit 48a257d4)
• CREATE STATISTICS
  • the statistics name is now optional (commit 624aa2a1)
• CREATE TABLE
  • CREATE TABLE ... STORAGE ... syntax added (commit 784cedda)
• REINDEX
  • database name no longer mandatory (commit 2cbc3c17)
  • system catalog tables will only be reindexed with REINDEX SYSTEM (commit 2cbc3c17)

System catalog changes

Tables

Modified:

• pg_class
  • type of column relfilenode changed from oid to int8 (commit 05d4cbf9)

System function changes

Modified:

• pg_read_file()
  • can be called as pg_read_file ( filename text, missing_ok boolean ) (commit 283129e3)
• pg_stat_get_backend_idset()
  • returns actual backend IDs (commit d7e39d72)

Configuration changes

General:

• GUC_NO_RESET flag added (commit 38536642)

Modified:

• shared_preload_libraries
  • now processed in single-user mode (commit 6c31ac09)
• wal_sync_method
  • fdatasync option now supported on Windows (commit 9430fb40)

Platform support changes

HP/Intel Itanium

• support removed (commit 0ad5b48e)

HP-UX

• port removed (commit 9db300ce)

Windows

• support removed for versions older than Windows 10 (commit 495ed0ef)

Logging changes

• internal log_status_format() added for use by emit_log_hook etc. (commit b40baa96)
• checkpoint and recovery point LSNs displayed in LogCheckpointEnd log message (commit 62c46eee)
• autovacuum log output and VACUUM VERBOSE output now include a line containing the total number of heap pages which had one or more tuples frozen, and the total number of tuples frozen (commit d977ffd9)

Users / roles

• superuser privileges can no longer be removed from the bootstrap user (commit e530be2c)

Replication changes

Logical replication

• publications can include both a schema and individual tables from the same schema (commit 13a185f5)

Foreign data wrapper changes

• TRUNCATE triggers on foreign tables now permitted (commit 3b00a944)

Core utilities

Modified:

• createuser
  • following options added (commit 08951a7c):
    • -a/--admin
    • --bypassrls/--no-bypassrls
    • -m/--member
    • --valid-until
• vacuumdb
  • options --schema and --exclude-schema added (commit 7781f4e3)

psql

• \pset option xheader_width added (commit a45388d6)

Contrib module changes

auto_explain

• option auto_explain.log_parameter_max_length added (commit d4bfe412)