PostgreSQL 7.2

• Release notes
• Released: 2002-02-04 (announcement)
• Final minor version: 7.2.8
• EOL: 2007-02
• Documentation: PostgreSQL 7.2

Major features

• a large number of pg_stat_* statistics views added (see below)
• VACUUM no longer locks tables
• PL/Python added
• dblink added
• internationalization of messages

Backend changes

General

• Transaction ID wraparound enabled (commit bc7d37a5)

Locking changes

• lightweight lockmanager added (commit 499abb0c)

SPI changes

• following functions added (commit d27f363e):
  • SPI_cursor_open()
  • SPI_cursor_find()
  • SPI_cursor_fetch()
  • SPI_cursor_fetch()
  • SPI_freeplan()
  • SPI_freetuptable()
• function SPI_copytupledesc() added (commit f59f3c88)

SQL changes

Added:

• ANALYZE (commit f905d65e)

Modified:

• ALTER USER
  • PASSWORD option can be specified as ENCRYPTED or UNENCRYPTED (commit 38bb1abc)
• CREATE INDEX
  
  • support for partial indexes added (initial commit f31dc0ad)
• CREATE LANGUAGE
  • LANCOMPILER keyword deprecated (commit ee8ed85d)
• CREATE SEQUENCE
  • support for temporary sequences added (commit a0c12d5e)
• CREATE TABLE AS
  • LOCAL clause added (commit bcb5aac8)
• EXPLAIN
  • ANALYZE option added (commit 89fa5518)
• GRANT
  • can now change permissions for multiple users in a single invocation (commit 7ceed2a9)
• LOCK
  • multiple tables can now be specified (commit 77a69a2e)
• RESET
  • RESET ALL syntax added (commit 4ee76ad8)
• SHOW
  • SHOW ALL syntax added (commit 4ee76ad8)
• VACUUM
  • option FREEZE added (commit bc7d37a5)
  • option FULL added (initial commit 320b6db0)

DDL changes

• Table OIDs no longer mandatory

System catalogue changes

Tables

Modified:

• pg_aggregate
  • column aggsortop added (commit 2e7a6889)
• pg_attribute
  • column attstattarget added (commit f905d65e)
  • column attndims added (commit f905d65e)
  • column attdispersion removed (commit f905d65e)
  • column attnelems removed (commit f905d65e)
• pg_database
  • column datvacuumxid added (commit bc7d37a5)
  • column datfrozenxid added (commit bc7d37a5)
• pg_description:
  • column classoid added (commit bf56f075)
  • column objsubid added (commit bf56f075)
• pg_index
  • column indhaskeytype removed (commit f933766b)
  • column indislossy removed (commit f933766b)
• pg_statistic - major refactoring (commit f905d65e)

Removed:

• pg_inheritproc (commit 1e7b79ce)
• pg_ipl (commit 1e7b79ce)
• pg_log (commit 2589735d)

Note: tables removed in commit 1e7b79ce were unused.

Views

Added (all commit 8d80b0d9):

• pg_stat_activity
• pg_stat_database
• pg_stat_all_tables
• pg_stat_sys_tables
• pg_stat_user_tables
• pg_statio_all_tables
• pg_statio_sys_tables
• pg_statio_user_tables
• pg_stat_all_indexes
• pg_stat_sys_indexes
• pg_stat_user_indexes
• pg_statio_all_indexes
• pg_statio_sys_indexes
• pg_statio_user_indexes
• pg_statio_all_sequences
• pg_statio_sys_sequences
• pg_statio_user_sequences

System functions

Added:

• bit_length() (commit 444c5bf1)
• col_description() (commit bf56f075)
• convert() (commit ab9b6c45)
• decode() (commit 7771436e)
• encode() (commit 7771436e)
• has_table_privilege() (commit c9499e68)
• pg_client_encoding() (commit f426465b)
• pg_get_expr() (commit f31dc0ad)
• pg_stat_get_backend_activity() (commit 140ddb78)
• pg_stat_get_backend_dbid() (commit 140ddb78)
• pg_stat_get_backend_idset() (commit 140ddb78)
• pg_stat_get_backend_pid() (commit 140ddb78)
• pg_stat_get_backend_userid() (commit 140ddb78)

Modified:

• current_time()
  • precision of the returned time can be specified (commit bd97e4e7)
• current_timestamp()
  • precision of the returned timestamp can be specified (commit bd97e4e7)
• obj_description()
  • obj_description ( object oid, catalog name ) variant added (commit bf56f075)
• to_char()
  • to_char(interval, text) version added (commit 2a34134b)

Configuration changes

Added:

• australian_timezones (commit 7dac7785)
• authentication_timeout (commit 35b7601b)
• dynamic_library_path (commit 761a0bb6)
• log_duration (commit 548d646e)
• max_files_per_process (commit f9f25828)
• max_fsm_pages (commit e0c9301c)
• max_fsm_relations (commit e0c9301c)
• max_locks_per_transaction (commit e0c9301c
• password_encryption (commit 38bb1abc)
• trace_lwlocks (commit 499abb0c)
• vacuum_mem (commit c969fed7)

Removed:

• trace_spinlocks (commit 499abb0c)

Procedural language changes

PL/pgSQL

• support for CURSOR and REFCURSOR syntax (commit d27f363e)

PL/Python

• added (initial commit 0bef7ba5)

Server utilities

• pg_ctl
  • reload option added to to send SIGHUP (commit 196700c3)

Core utilities

Modified:

• pg_dump
  • use pg_get_indexdef() function to generate CREATE INDEX commands and avoid emitting default opclasses (1929a90b)
  • NLS support added (commit b5593821)

Contrib modules

Added:

• btree_gist (commit a9289708)
• fulltextindex (commit 8f0ca623)
• fuzzystrmatch (commit d8783c51)
• ora2pg (commit 0d2c4d5a)
• pg_controldata (commit b25e60d8)
• pgstattuple commit 9a23885f)
• rtree_gist (commit 16f85390)
• tsearch (commit b5770567)
• xml (commit 113bb9b5)

Modified:

• pgcrypto - following functions added (commit 2518e273):
  • crypt()
  • hmac()
  • decrypt()
  • encrypt()
  • gen_salt()