Re: [HACKERS] [DOCS] Annotated release notes

2003-11-10 Thread Bruce Momjian

OK, release notes updated to:

listitemparaAllow polymorphic PL/pgSQL functions (Tom, Joe)/para/listitem
listitemparaAllow polymorphic SQL functions (Joe)/para
   para
Allow functions to accept arbitrary data types for input, and return arbitrary 
types.
   /para
   /listitem


---

Joe Conway wrote:
 Bruce Momjian wrote:
  http://candle.pha.pa.us/main/writings/pgsql/sgml/release.html#RELEASE-7-4
  
  I need people to check this and help me with the items marked 'bjm'.  I
  am confused about the proper text for those sections.
 
   Allow polymorphic SQL functions (Joe)
   bjm ??
 
 What isn't clear about this? Should/can we refer to related sections of 
 the manual?
 http://developer.postgresql.org/docs/postgres/xfunc-sql.html#AEN28722
 http://developer.postgresql.org/docs/postgres/extend-type-system.html#EXTEND-TYPES-POLYMORPHIC
 
   Allow user defined aggregates to use polymorphic functions (Joe)
   bjm ??
 
 Same question. From this url:
 http://developer.postgresql.org/docs/postgres/xaggr.html
 see this paragraph:
 
   Aggregate functions may use polymorphic state transition functions or 
 final functions, so that the same functions can be used to implement 
 multiple aggregates. See Section 33.2.1  for an explanation of 
 polymorphic functions. Going a step further, the aggregate function 
 itself may be specified with a polymorphic base type and state type, 
 allowing a single aggregate definition to serve for multiple input data 
 types. Here is an example of a polymorphic aggregate:
 
 CREATE AGGREGATE array_accum (
  sfunc = array_append,
  basetype = anyelement,
  stype = anyarray,
  initcond = '{}'
 );
 
 Joe
 
 
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Re: [HACKERS] [DOCS] Annotated release notes

2003-11-04 Thread Carroll, Catherine A.
I'm hoping one of you an answer a question for me.  I am accessing
Service Center data via an Oracle ODBC driver for reporting and queries.
How can I get the resolution field using these methods.  

Thanks, 

Catherine Carroll 
TSG Solutions Center 
Washington Mutual Bank 
565 Lakeview Parkway 
Suite 250 
Vernon Hills, IL 60061 

847-549-3878 
618-558-1678 


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Re: [HACKERS] [DOCS] Annotated release notes

2003-11-03 Thread Josh Berkus
Ms. Carroll,

 I'm hoping one of you an answer a question for me.  I am accessing
 Service Center data via an Oracle ODBC driver for reporting and queries.
 How can I get the resolution field using these methods.

Howdy from one of your customers!

I'm not certain how, exactly, you got the set of addresses to which you 
e-mailed.  However, your response went to several PostgreSQL Database mailing 
lists.  PostgreSQL is a different database than Oracle, and we cannot help 
you with Oracle problems.

If, however, WAMU decides that you want to evaluate switching from Oracle to 
PostgreSQL, we'd be more than happy to help you.

-- 
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

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Re: [HACKERS] [DOCS] Annotated release notes

2003-11-01 Thread elein

I included some text about the information schema in
this issue of general bits.  I also did some documentation
of comparison of the changes in the postgresql.conf.

Anyone who wants to grab parts of those items in that
issue has my permission. I don't have time to re-edit
for the release note format.  But maybe there is some
clarification text you can use.

http://cookie.varlena.com:8080/varlena/GeneralBits/48.php

elein

On Thu, Oct 30, 2003 at 11:59:05PM -0500, Bruce Momjian wrote:
 
 OK, I have committed changes to release.sgml so most complex entries
 have a paragraph describing the change.  You can see the result at:
 
   http://candle.pha.pa.us/main/writings/pgsql/sgml/release.html#RELEASE-7-4
 
 I need people to check this and help me with the items marked 'bjm'.  I
 am confused about the proper text for those sections.
 
 ---
 
 Tatsuo Ishii wrote:
   Tatsuo Ishii wrote:
 I've been pushing this agenda for a few releases now, but some people have
 been, er, boycotting it.  I think, too, that release notes *must* be
 written incrementally at the same time that the feature change is made.
 This is the only way we can get accurate and complete release notes, and
 the descriptions could even include some context, some motivations, etc.
 We have release cycles of 10 months, and there is no way we can make
 sensible release notes by gathering individual commit messages over that
 period of time.  Heck, ECPG has a full Informix compatibility mode and
 there is no mention of that anywhere, because there was no commit Add
 Informix mode.
 
 I suggest we just do it like the documentation:  If you don't document it,
 it doesn't exist.  If you don't write a line for the release notes, it
 doesn't exist either.

I tend to agree it. For every release I and my colleague have been
working on creating detailed release notes (of course in Japanese),
otherwise we cannot tell people what are changed, added or fixed since
there is little info in the official release note. This is painful
since we have to dig into the mail archives and cvs commit messages to
look for what each item of the official release note actually
means. These work take at least 2 to 3 weeks with several people
involved. The hardest part is what are fixed. The only useful
information seems to be the cvs commit messages, however typical
messages are something like see recent discussions in the mail
archive for more details. This is not very helpful at least for
me. Once I proposed that we add a sequence number to each mail and the
commit messages point to the number. This way we could easily trace
what are the bug report and what are the actual intention for the
fix. For some reason noboy was interested in. Maybe this is due to
coulture gap... (In Japan giving a sequence number to each mail in
mailing lists is quite common).
   
   OK, if Tatsuo and SRA are having problems, I have to address it.  I can
   supply a more detailed list to Tatsuo/SRA, or I can beef up the release
   notes to contain more information.  Seems some in the community would
   like to have this detail so I might as well do it and have it in the
   official docs.  One idea would be to add a section at the bottom of the
   release notes that goes into detail on changes listed in the release
   notes above --- that way, people can still skim the 300-line release
   notes, and if they want detailed information about the optimizer changes
   or subtle pg_dump fixes, that will be at the bottom.
   
   How does that sound?  I can start on this for 7.4 next week.  It
   basically means going through the CVS logs again and pulling out
   additional details.
  
  Sounds good. However this kind of information could become huge and I
  am afraid it does not suite well in the official docs in the source
  tree. I think putiing it in somewhere in a web site (maybe
  http://developer.postgresql.org/?) might be more appropreate.
  What do you think?
  --
  Tatsuo Ishii
  
 
 -- 
   Bruce Momjian|  http://candle.pha.pa.us
   [EMAIL PROTECTED]   |  (610) 359-1001
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Re: [HACKERS] [DOCS] Annotated release notes

2003-10-31 Thread Bruce Momjian
Joe Conway wrote:
 Bruce Momjian wrote:
  http://candle.pha.pa.us/main/writings/pgsql/sgml/release.html#RELEASE-7-4
  
  I need people to check this and help me with the items marked 'bjm'.  I
  am confused about the proper text for those sections.
 
   Allow polymorphic SQL functions (Joe)
   bjm ??
 
 What isn't clear about this? Should/can we refer to related sections of 
 the manual?
 http://developer.postgresql.org/docs/postgres/xfunc-sql.html#AEN28722
 http://developer.postgresql.org/docs/postgres/extend-type-system.html#EXTEND-TYPES-POLYMORPHIC
 
   Allow user defined aggregates to use polymorphic functions (Joe)
   bjm ??
 
 Same question. From this url:
 http://developer.postgresql.org/docs/postgres/xaggr.html
 see this paragraph:
 
   Aggregate functions may use polymorphic state transition functions or 
 final functions, so that the same functions can be used to implement 
 multiple aggregates. See Section 33.2.1  for an explanation of 
 polymorphic functions. Going a step further, the aggregate function 
 itself may be specified with a polymorphic base type and state type, 
 allowing a single aggregate definition to serve for multiple input data 
 types. Here is an example of a polymorphic aggregate:
 
 CREATE AGGREGATE array_accum (
  sfunc = array_append,
  basetype = anyelement,
  stype = anyarray,
  initcond = '{}'
 );

What had me really confused was the first release item:

Allow polymorphic SQL functions (Joe)

How does an SQL function query the data types passed to it?  Once I saw
that I thought I didn't underestand what polymorphic functions were.

Right now we have:

listitemparaAllow user defined aggregates to use polymorphic functions 
(Joe)/para
   para
bjm ??
   /para
   /listitem
listitemparaAllow polymorphic user defined aggregates  
(Joe)/para/listitem

These seem like duplicates.  Are polymorphic functions currently most
useful for aggregates?  Why would someone want polymorphic aggregates? 
That is what I was hoping for.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian|  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  [EMAIL PROTECTED]   |  (610) 359-1001
  +  If your life is a hard drive, |  13 Roberts Road
  +  Christ can be your backup.|  Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

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Re: [HACKERS] [DOCS] Annotated release notes

2003-10-31 Thread Joe Conway
Bruce Momjian wrote:
What had me really confused was the first release item:

Allow polymorphic SQL functions (Joe)

How does an SQL function query the data types passed to it?  Once I
saw that I thought I didn't underestand what polymorphic functions
were.
It doesn't need to. For example:

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION makearray(anyelement, anyelement) returns
anyarray as 'select ARRAY[$1, $2]' language sql;
regression=# select makearray(1,2);
 makearray
---
 {1,2}
(1 row)
regression=# select makearray('a'::text,'b');
 makearray
---
 {a,b}
(1 row)

listitemparaAllow user defined aggregates to use polymorphic
functions (Joe)/para listitemparaAllow polymorphic user defined
aggregates  (Joe)/para/listitem
These seem like duplicates.
They aren't. The first says you could create an aggregate with defined
base and state datatypes, but where the state/final functions might be
polymorphic. The second says that the base and state types might be
polymorphic.
Are polymorphic functions currently most useful for aggregates?  Why
would someone want polymorphic aggregates? That is what I was hoping
for.
Well, one example is a calculation aggregate (let's say median) which
you might want to use for any numeric data type. Or an array 
accumulator, e.g.

CREATE AGGREGATE myagg1
(
  BASETYPE = float8,
  SFUNC = array_append,
  STYPE = float8[],
  INITCOND = '{}'
);
CREATE AGGREGATE
CREATE AGGREGATE myagg1p
(
  BASETYPE = anyelement,
  SFUNC = array_append,
  STYPE = anyarray,
  INITCOND = '{}'
);
CREATE AGGREGATE
Joe

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Re: [HACKERS] [DOCS] Annotated release notes

2003-10-30 Thread Joe Conway
Bruce Momjian wrote:
	http://candle.pha.pa.us/main/writings/pgsql/sgml/release.html#RELEASE-7-4

I need people to check this and help me with the items marked 'bjm'.  I
am confused about the proper text for those sections.
 Allow polymorphic SQL functions (Joe)
 bjm ??
What isn't clear about this? Should/can we refer to related sections of 
the manual?
http://developer.postgresql.org/docs/postgres/xfunc-sql.html#AEN28722
http://developer.postgresql.org/docs/postgres/extend-type-system.html#EXTEND-TYPES-POLYMORPHIC

 Allow user defined aggregates to use polymorphic functions (Joe)
 bjm ??
Same question. From this url:
http://developer.postgresql.org/docs/postgres/xaggr.html
see this paragraph:
 Aggregate functions may use polymorphic state transition functions or 
final functions, so that the same functions can be used to implement 
multiple aggregates. See Section 33.2.1  for an explanation of 
polymorphic functions. Going a step further, the aggregate function 
itself may be specified with a polymorphic base type and state type, 
allowing a single aggregate definition to serve for multiple input data 
types. Here is an example of a polymorphic aggregate:

CREATE AGGREGATE array_accum (
sfunc = array_append,
basetype = anyelement,
stype = anyarray,
initcond = '{}'
);
Joe

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