March 2026 – select * from depesz;

Waiting for PostgreSQL 19 – json format for COPY TO

On 20th of March 2026, Andrew Dunstan committed patch:

json format for COPY TO
 
This introduces the JSON format option for the COPY TO command, allowing
users to export query results or table data directly as a stream of JSON
objects (one per line, NDJSON style).
 
The JSON format is currently supported only for COPY TO operations; it
is not available for COPY FROM.
 
JSON format is incompatible with some standard text/CSV formatting
options, including HEADER, DEFAULT, NULL, DELIMITER, FORCE QUOTE,
FORCE NOT NULL, and FORCE NULL.
 
Column list support is included: when a column list is specified, only
the named columns are emitted in each JSON object.
 
Regression tests covering valid JSON exports and error handling for
incompatible options have been added to src/test/regress/sql/copy.sql.
 
Author: Joe Conway <mail@joeconway.com>
Author: jian he <jian.universality@gmail.com>
Co-Authored-By: Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net>
Reviewed-by: Andrey M. Borodin <x4mmm@yandex-team.ru>
Reviewed-by: Dean Rasheed <dean.a.rasheed@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Daniel Verite <daniel@manitou-mail.org>
Reviewed-by: Davin Shearer <davin@apache.org>
Reviewed-by: Masahiko Sawada <sawada.mshk@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org>
Reviewed-by: Junwang Zhao <zhjwpku@gmail.com>
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/CALvfUkBxTYy5uWPFVwpk_7ii2zgT07t3d-yR_cy4sfrrLU%3Dkcg%40mail.gmail.com
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/6a04628d-0d53-41d9-9e35-5a8dc302c34c@joeconway.com

Continue reading Waiting for PostgreSQL 19 – json format for COPY TO

Waiting for PostgreSQL 19 – Add support for EXCEPT TABLE in ALTER PUBLICATION.

On 20th of March 2026, Amit Kapila committed patch:

Add support for EXCEPT TABLE in ALTER PUBLICATION.
 
Following commit fd366065e0, which added EXCEPT TABLE support to
CREATE PUBLICATION, this commit extends ALTER PUBLICATION to allow
modifying the exclusion list.
 
New Syntax:
ALTER PUBLICATION name SET  publication_all_object [, ... ]
 
where publication_all_object is one of:
ALL TABLES [ EXCEPT TABLE ( except_table_object [, ... ] ) ]
ALL SEQUENCES
 
If the EXCEPT clause is provided, the existing exclusion list in
pg_publication_rel is replaced with the specified relations. If the
EXCEPT clause is omitted, any existing exclusions for the publication
are cleared. Similarly, SET ALL SEQUENCES updates
 
Note that because this is a SET command, specifying only one object
type (e.g., SET ALL SEQUENCES) will reset the other unspecified flags
(e.g., setting puballtables to false).
 
Consistent with CREATE PUBLICATION, only root partitioned tables or
standard tables can be specified in the EXCEPT list. Specifying a
partition child will result in an error.
 
Author: vignesh C <vignesh21@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: shveta malik <shveta.malik@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Amit Kapila <amit.kapila16@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Peter Smith <smithpb2250@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Nisha Moond <nisha.moond412@gmail.com>
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/CALDaNm3=JrucjhiiwsYQw5-PGtBHFONa6F7hhWCXMsGvh=tamA@mail.gmail.com

Continue reading Waiting for PostgreSQL 19 – Add support for EXCEPT TABLE in ALTER PUBLICATION.

Waiting for PostgreSQL 19 – Add pg_plan_advice contrib module.

On 12nd of March 2026, Robert Haas committed patch:

Add pg_plan_advice contrib module.
 
Provide a facility that (1) can be used to stabilize certain plan choices
so that the planner cannot reverse course without authorization and
(2) can be used by knowledgeable users to insist on plan choices contrary
to what the planner believes best. In both cases, terrible outcomes are
possible: users should think twice and perhaps three times before
constraining the planner's ability to do as it thinks best; nevertheless,
there are problems that are much more easily solved with these facilities
than without them.
 
This patch takes the approach of analyzing a finished plan to produce
textual output, which we call "plan advice", that describes key
decisions made during plan; if that plan advice is provided during
future planning cycles, it will force those key decisions to be made in
the same way.  Not all planner decisions can be controlled using advice;
for example, decisions about how to perform aggregation are currently
out of scope, as is choice of sort order. Plan advice can also be edited
by the user, or even written from scratch in simple cases, making it
possible to generate outcomes that the planner would not have produced.
Partial advice can be provided to control some planner outcomes but not
others.
 
Currently, plan advice is focused only on specific outcomes, such as
the choice to use a sequential scan for a particular relation, and not
on estimates that might contribute to those outcomes, such as a
possibly-incorrect selectivity estimate. While it would be useful to
users to be able to provide plan advice that affects selectivity
estimates or other aspects of costing, that is out of scope for this
commit.
 
Reviewed-by: Lukas Fittl <lukas@fittl.com>
Reviewed-by: Jakub Wartak <jakub.wartak@enterprisedb.com>
Reviewed-by: Greg Burd <greg@burd.me>
Reviewed-by: Jacob Champion <jacob.champion@enterprisedb.com>
Reviewed-by: Haibo Yan <tristan.yim@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Dian Fay <di@nmfay.com>
Reviewed-by: Ajay Pal <ajay.pal.k@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: John Naylor <johncnaylorls@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Alexandra Wang <alexandra.wang.oss@gmail.com>
Discussion: http://postgr.es/m/CA+TgmoZ-Jh1T6QyWoCODMVQdhTUPYkaZjWztzP1En4=ZHoKPzw@mail.gmail.com

Continue reading Waiting for PostgreSQL 19 – Add pg_plan_advice contrib module.

Waiting for PostgreSQL 19 – Introduce the REPACK command

On 10th of March 2026, Álvaro Herrera committed patch:

Introduce the REPACK command
 
REPACK absorbs the functionality of VACUUM FULL and CLUSTER in a single
command.  Because this functionality is completely different from
regular VACUUM, having it separate from VACUUM makes it easier for users
to understand; as for CLUSTER, the term is heavily overloaded in the
IT world and even in Postgres itself, so it's good that we can avoid it.
 
We retain those older commands, but de-emphasize them in the
documentation, in favor of REPACK; the difference between VACUUM FULL
and CLUSTER (namely, the fact that tuples are written in a specific
ordering) is neatly absorbed as two different modes of REPACK.
 
This allows us to introduce further functionality in the future that
works regardless of whether an ordering is being applied, such as (and
especially) a concurrent mode.
 
Author: Antonin Houska <ah@cybertec.at>
Reviewed-by: Mihail Nikalayeu <mihailnikalayeu@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Álvaro Herrera <alvherre@kurilemu.de>
Reviewed-by: Robert Treat <rob@xzilla.net>
Reviewed-by: Euler Taveira <euler@eulerto.com>
Reviewed-by: Matheus Alcantara <matheusssilv97@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Junwang Zhao <zhjwpku@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: jian he <jian.universality@gmail.com>
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/82651.1720540558@antos
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/202507262156.sb455angijk6@alvherre.pgsql

Continue reading Waiting for PostgreSQL 19 – Introduce the REPACK command

Waiting for PostgreSQL 19 – Allow table exclusions in publications via EXCEPT TABLE.

On 4th of March 2026, Amit Kapila committed patch:

Allow table exclusions in publications via EXCEPT TABLE.
 
Extend CREATE PUBLICATION ... FOR ALL TABLES to support the EXCEPT TABLE
syntax. This allows one or more tables to be excluded. The publisher will
not send the data of excluded tables to the subscriber.
 
To support this, pg_publication_rel now includes a prexcept column to flag
excluded relations. For partitioned tables, the exclusion is applied at
the root level; specifying a root table excludes all current and future
partitions in that tree.
 
Follow-up work will implement ALTER PUBLICATION support for managing these
exclusions.
 
Author: vignesh C <vignesh21@gmail.com>
Author: Shlok Kyal <shlok.kyal.oss@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: shveta malik <shveta.malik@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Amit Kapila <amit.kapila16@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Peter Smith <smithpb2250@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Dilip Kumar <dilipbalaut@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Zhijie Hou <houzj.fnst@fujitsu.com>
Reviewed-by: Nisha Moond <nisha.moond412@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: David G. Johnston <david.g.johnston@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Ashutosh Sharma <ashu.coek88@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Chao Li <li.evan.chao@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Andrei Lepikhov <lepihov@gmail.com>
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/CALDaNm3=JrucjhiiwsYQw5-PGtBHFONa6F7hhWCXMsGvh=tamA@mail.gmail.com

Continue reading Waiting for PostgreSQL 19 – Allow table exclusions in publications via EXCEPT TABLE.

Waiting for PostgreSQL 19 – Add non-text output formats to pg_dumpall

On 26th of February 2026, Andrew Dunstan committed patch:

Add non-text output formats to pg_dumpall
 
pg_dumpall can now produce output in custom, directory, or tar formats
in addition to plain text SQL scripts. When using non-text formats,
pg_dumpall creates a directory containing:
- toc.glo: global data (roles and tablespaces) in custom format
- map.dat: mapping between database OIDs and names
- databases/: subdirectory with per-database archives named by OID
 
pg_restore is extended to handle these pg_dumpall archives, restoring
globals and then each database. The --globals-only option can be used
to restore only the global objects.
 
This enables parallel restore of pg_dumpall output and selective
restoration of individual databases from a cluster-wide backup.
 
Author: Mahendra Singh Thalor <mahi6run@gmail.com>
Co-Author: Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net>
Reviewed-By: Tushar Ahuja <tushar.ahuja@enterprisedb.com>
Reviewed-By: Jian He <jian.universality@gmail.com>
Reviewed-By: Vaibhav Dalvi <vaibhav.dalvi@enterprisedb.com>
Reviewed-By: Srinath Reddy <srinath2133@gmail.com>
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/cb103623-8ee6-4ba5-a2c9-f32e3a4933fa@dunslane.net

Continue reading Waiting for PostgreSQL 19 – Add non-text output formats to pg_dumpall

=$
|

Month: March 2026