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TODO list for PostgreSQL
========================
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Last updated:		Thu May 10 18:36:37 EDT 2001
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Current maintainer:	Bruce Momjian (pgman@candle.pha.pa.us)
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The most recent version of this document can be viewed at
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the PostgreSQL web site, http://www.PostgreSQL.org.
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A dash (-) marks changes that will appear in the upcoming 7.2 release.
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Bracketed items "[]" have more detailed information at
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/todo.html.
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RELIABILITY
-----------

PARSER

* SELECT pg_class FROM pg_class generates strange error
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* Alter TABLE ADD COLUMN does not honor DEFAULT or add CONSTRAINT
* Unique index on base column not honored on inserts from inherited table
  INSERT INTO inherit_table (unique_index_col) VALUES (dup) should fail
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  [inheritance] 
MISC

* Plpgsql does not handle quoted mixed-case identifiers
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* SELECT cash_out(1) causes crash
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ENHANCEMENTS
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* Add replication of distributed databases [replication]
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	o automatic failover
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	o load balancing
	o master/slave replication
	o multi-master replication
	o partition data across servers
	o sample implementation in contrib/rserv
	o queries across databases or servers (two-phase commit)
* Point-in-time data recovery using backup and write-ahead log
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* Allow row re-use without vacuum (Vadim)
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* More access control over who can  (Karel)
* Improve control over user privileges, including table creation and 
  lock use [privileges]
* Permission to DELETE table also allows UPDATE
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* Allow elog() to return error codes, module name, file name, line
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  number, not just messages [elog]
* Allow international error message support and add error codes [elog]
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* Remove unused files during database vacuum or postmaster startup
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* Add table name mapping for numeric file names
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* Overhaul pg_hba.conf host-based authentication
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* Incremental backups
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* Add domain capability
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* Add IPv6 capability to INET/CIDR types
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* Add conversion function from text to inet
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* Store binary-compatible type information in the system
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* Allow nulls in arrays
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* Allow arrays to be ORDER'ed
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* Support construction of array result values in expressions
* Remove Money type, add money formatting for decimal type
* Declare typein/out functions in pg_proc with a special "C string" data type
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* Make binary/file in/out interface for TOAST columns
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* Functions returning sets do not totally work
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* SELECT col FROM tab WHERE numeric_col = 10.1 fails
* Allow better handling of numeric constants, type conversion [typeconv]
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* Missing optimizer selectivities for date, r-tree, etc. [optimizer]
* SELECT cash_out(2) crashes because of opaque
* Add SQL standard function bit_length()
* Make oid use unsigned int more reliably, pg_atoi()

MULTILANGUAGE SUPPORT

* Add nchar (as distinguished from ordinary varchar),
* Allow LOCALE on a per-column basis, default to ASCII
* Add SHOW command to see locale
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* Support multiple simultaneous character sets, per SQL92
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* Reject character sequences those are not valid in their charset
* Make functions more multi-byte aware, i.e. trim()
* Make n of CHAR(n)/VARCHAR(n) the number of letters, not bytes
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* Automatically create rules on views so they are updateable, per SQL92
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* Add the functionality for "with check option" clause of create view
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* Allow NOTIFY in rules involving conditionals
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* Evaluate INSERT rules at end of query, rather than beginning
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INDEXES
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* Allow CREATE INDEX zman_index ON test (date_trunc( 'day', zman ) datetime_ops)
  fails index can't store constant parameters
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* Add FILLFACTOR to index creation
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* Re-enable partial indexes
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* Allow inherited tables to inherit index, UNIQUE constraint, and primary key
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  [inheritance]
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* Prevent pg_attribute from having duplicate oids for indexes (Tom)
* Add UNIQUE capability to non-btree indexes
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* Certain indexes will not shrink, e.g. oid indexes with many inserts (Vadim)
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* Have UPDATE/DELETE clean out indexes
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* Add btree index support for reltime, tinterval, regproc
* Add rtree index support for line, lseg, path, point
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* Use indexes for min() and max()
* Use index to restrict rows returned by multi-key index when used with
  non-consecutive keys or OR clauses, so fewer heap accesses
* Allow SELECT * FROM tab WHERE int2col = 4 use int2col index, int8,
  float4, numeric/decimal too [optimizer]
* Use indexes with CIDR '<<' (contains) operator
* Allow LIKE indexing optimization for non-ASCII locales
* Be smarter about insertion of already-ordered data into btree index
* Gather more accurate dispersion statistics using indexes
* Add deleted bit to index tuples to reduce heap access
* Prevent index uniqueness checks when UPDATE does not modifying column
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SYSTEM TABLES

* Add unique indexes to pg_shadow.usename and pg_shadow.usesysid or
  switch to pg_shadow.oid as user id
* Add unique indexes on pg_database
* Check all system tables and add unique indexes as needed
* Remove pg_listener index
* Remove unused pg_variable, pg_inheritproc, pg_ipl tables
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* ALTER
	* ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN to inherited table put column in wrong place 
	  [inheritance]
	* Add ALTER TABLE DROP COLUMN feature [drop]
	* Add ALTER FUNCTION 
	* Add ALTER TABLE DROP CONSTRAINT
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* CLUSTER
	* cluster all tables at once
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	* prevent lose of indexes, permissions, inheritance
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	* Automatically keep clustering on a table
	* Keep statistics about clustering, perhaps during VACUUM ANALYZE
	  [optimizer]
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* COPY
	* Update reltuples in COPY
	* Allow specification of column names
	* Allow dump/load of CSV format
* CURSOR
	* Allow BINARY option to SELECT, like we do with DECLARE
	* MOVE 0 should not move to end of cursor
	* Allow cursors to be DECLAREd/OPENed/CLOSEed outside transactions
	* Allow DELETE WHERE CURRENT OF cursor
* INSERT
	* Allow INSERT/UPDATE of system-generated oid value for a row
	* Allow INSERT INTO tab (col1, ..) VALUES (val1, ..), (val2, ..)
	* Allow INSERT INTO my_table VALUES (a, b, c, DEFAULT, x, y, z, ...)
	* Disallow missing columns in INSERT ... VALUES, per ANSI
	* Allow INSERT/UPDATE ... RETURNING new.col or old.col (Philip)
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* Add SIMILAR TO to allow character classes, 'pg_[a-c]%'
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* Auto-destroy sequence on DROP of table with SERIAL, perhaps with a separate 
  SERIAL type
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* Allow LOCK TABLE tab1, tab2, tab3 so all tables locked in unison [lock]
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* Allow RULE recompilation
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* Add BETWEEN ASYMMETRIC/SYMMETRIC
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* SHOW/SET
	* Add SHOW command to display locks
	* Add a global RESET command for use with connection pooling
	* Add SET or BEGIN timeout parameter to cancel query if waiting too long
	* Add SET REAL_FORMAT and SET DOUBLE_PRECISION_FORMAT using printf args
	* Remove SET KSQO option now that OR processing is improved (Tom)
	* Add SET PERFORMANCE_TIPS option to suggest INDEX, VACUUM, VACUUM
	  ANALYZE, and CLUSTER
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* Change LIMIT val,val to offset,limit to match MySQL
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* Allow Pl/PgSQL's RAISE function to take expressions
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* Make NULL's come out at the beginning or end depending on the
  ORDER BY direction
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* fix array handling in ECPG
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* have pg_dump use LEFT OUTER JOIN in multi-table SELECTs
  or multiple SELECTS to avoid bad system catalog entries
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* allow psql \d to show primary and foreign keys
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* allow psql \d to show temporary table structure
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* add XML interface capability
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* Remove <=6.3 version compatibility in ODBC?
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REFERENTIAL INTEGRITY

* Add MATCH PARTIAL referential integrity
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* -Check that primary key exists at foreign key definition time
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* Prevent column dropping if column is used by foreign key
* Propagate column or table renaming to foreign key constraints
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* Add deferred trigger queue file (Jan)
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* Allow oid to act as a foreign key
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* Implement dirty reads and use them in RI triggers
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* Enforce referential integrity for system tables
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* INSERT & UPDATE/DELETE in transaction of primary key fails with 
  deferredTriggerGetPreviousEvent or "change violation" [foreign]
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* Make constraints clearer in dump file
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* Change foreign key constraint for array -> element to mean element
   in array
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* Automatically drop constraints/functions when object is dropped

TRANSACTIONS

* Implement UNDO using transaction log
* Allow autocommit so always in a transaction block
* Overhaul bufmgr/lockmgr/transaction manager
* Allow nested transactions (Vadim)
* Handle transaction rollover [transactions]
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EXOTIC FEATURES

* Add sql3 recursive unions
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* Add the concept of dataspaces/tablespaces [tablespaces]
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* Allow SQL92 schemas
* Allow queries across multiple databases
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* Add pre-parsing phase that converts non-ANSI features to supported features
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* SQL*Net listener that makes PostgreSQL appear as an Oracle database 
  to clients
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MISCELLANEOUS
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* Increase identifier length(NAMEDATALEN) if small performance hit
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* Create a background process for each database that runs while
  database is idle, finding superceeded rows, gathering stats and vacuuming
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* Populate backend status area and write program to dump status data
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* Put sort files in their own directory
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* Show location of syntax error in query [yacc]
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* Encrpyt passwords in pg_shadow table using MD5 (Vince)
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* Allow Java server-side programming [java]
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* Add sed-like regular expression search/replace capability
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* Change representation of whole-tuple parameters to functions
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PERFORMANCE
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FSYNC
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* Delay fsync() when other backends are about to commit too [fsync]
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	* Determine optimal commit_delay value
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* Determine optimal fdatasync/fsync, O_SYNC/O_DSYNC options
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	* Allow multiple blocks to be written to WAL with one write()
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* Cache most recent query plan(s) (Karel) [prepare]
* Shared catalog cache, reduce lseek()'s by caching table size in shared area
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VACUUM

* Improve speed with indexes (perhaps recreate index instead) [vacuum]
* Reduce lock time by moving tuples with read lock, then write
  lock and truncate table [vacuum]
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* -Make ANALYZE a separate command
* -Allow ANALYZE to ESTIMATE based on certain random precentage of rows
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* Add LAZY VACUUM (Vadim)

MISCELLANEOUS
* Allow compression of log and meta data
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* Do async I/O to do better read-ahead of data
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* Experiment with multi-threaded backend [thread]
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* Get faster regex() code from Henry Spencer <henry@zoo.utoronto.ca>
  when it is available
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* Use mmap() rather than SYSV shared memory(?) [mmap]
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* Improve Subplan list handling
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* Allow Subplans to use efficient joins(hash, merge) with upper variable
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* improve dynamic memory allocation by introducing tuple-context memory
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  allocation (Tom)
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* allow configuration of maximum number of open files
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* -Improve statistics storage in pg_class [performance]
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* Add connection pooling [pool]
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* Allow persistent backends [persistent]
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* Create a transaction processor to aid in persistent connections and
  connection pooling
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* Make blind writes go through the file descriptor cache
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* Allow logging of query durations
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SOURCE CODE
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* Add use of 'const' for variables in source tree
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* Does Mariposa source contain any other bug fixes?
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* Convert remaining fprintf(stderr,...)/perror() to elog()
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* Fix problems with libpq non-blocking/async code [async]
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* Merge global and template BKI files (Peter E)
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* Fix username/password length limits in all areas
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* Remove compile-time upper limit on number of backends (MAXBACKENDS) (Tom)
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* Make sure all block numbers are unsigned to increase maximum table size
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* Merge LockMethodCtl and LockMethodTable into one shared structure (Bruce)
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* HOLDER/HOLDERTAB reanme to PROCLOCKLINK/PROCLOCKLINKTAG (Tom)
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* Add version file format stamp to heap and other table types
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* Make elog(LOG) in WAL its own output type, distinct from DEBUG
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* Rename some /contrib modules from pg* to pg_*
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* Move some things from /contrib into main tree, like soundex
* Allow plug-in modules to emulate features from other databases
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* Remove warnings created by -Wcast-align
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* Move platform-specific ps status display info from ps_status.c to ports
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* Allow ps status display to work on Solaris/SVr4-based systems
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* Decide on spelling of indexes/indices
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* Add mention of VACUUM, log rotation to Administrator's Guide
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* Add PL/Python documentation
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Developers who have claimed items are:
--------------------------------------
	* Billy is Billy G. Allie <Bill.Allie@mug.org>
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	* Bruce is Bruce Momjian<pgman@candle.pha.pa.us>
	* D'Arcy is D'Arcy J.M. Cain <darcy@druid.net>
	* Edmund is Edmund Mergl <E.Mergl@bawue.de>
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	* Hiroshi is Hiroshi Inoue <Inoue@tpf.co.jp>
	* Karel is Karel Zak <zakkr@zf.jcu.cz>
	* Jan is Jan Wieck <wieck@sapserv.debis.de>
 	* Marc is Marc Fournier <scrappy@hub.org>
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	* Mark is Mark Hollomon <mhh@mindspring.com>
	* Michael is Michael Meskes <meskes@postgresql.org>
	* Oleg is Oleg Bartunov <oleg@sai.msu.su>
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	* Peter M is Peter T Mount <peter@retep.org.uk>
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	* Peter E is Peter Eisentraut<peter_e@gmx.net>
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	* Philip is Philip Warner <pjw@rhyme.com.au>
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	* Ross is Ross J. Reedstrom <reedstrm@wallace.ece.rice.edu>
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	* Ryan is Ryan Bradetich <rbrad@hpb50023.boi.hp.com>
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 	* Stephan is Stephan Szabo <sszabo@megazone23.bigpanda.com>
	* Tatsuo is Tatsuo Ishii <t-ishii@sra.co.jp>
	* Thomas is Thomas Lockhart <lockhart@alumni.caltech.edu>
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	* Tom is Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
	* TomH is Tom I Helbekkmo <tih@Hamartun.Priv.NO>
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	* Vadim is Vadim B. Mikheev <vadim4o@email.com>