A thought to start the new year: Perhaps it's time for the final push to complete the core SQL conformance for PostgreSQL.
Where do we stand? The PostgreSQL documentation lists in its appendix the currently
supported and
unsupported SQL features. As explained there, a certain subset of these features represents the "Core" features, which every conforming SQL implementation must supply, while the rest is purely optional. The unsupported features page currently lists 14 remaining Core features and subfeatures that are missing from PostgreSQL. Two of those are about client-side module support that is actually not mandatory if the implementation provides an embedded language (e.g., ECPG), so there are 12 items left.
So that's not so bad. Here's a list of the missing features:
E081-09 USAGE privilege
This would mean adding a USAGE privilege to domains.
Maybe this isn't very useful, although perhaps those working on SELinux support might have a more qualified opinion on it. But let's say if we get all the other things done and this is left, this would be a fairly straightforward and well-defined feature to add.
(This would then complete feature E081 Basic Privileges.)
E153 Updatable queries with subqueries
This presupposes updatable views and requires views to be updatable even if their
WHERE
clause contains a subquery.
This is probably the big one. In the current PostgreSQL architecture, updatable views are apparently quite difficult to implement correctly. The mailing list archives contain plenty of details.
F311-04 CREATE VIEW: WITH CHECK OPTION
This also presupposes updatable views and requires the
CHECK OPTION
feature. See above.
(This would then complete feature F311 Schema definition statement.)
F812 Basic flagging
This feature means that there should be some implementation-specific facility that raises a notice or warning when a not standard-conforming SQL statement or clause is used. Or in other words a facility that warns when a PostgreSQL extension is used.
A naive implementation might consist of just adding something like
elog(WARNING, "not SQL standard")
in about five hundred places, but the trick would be to implement it in a way that is easy to maintain in the future. The mailing list archives also contain some discussions about this, key word "SQL flagger".
S011 Distinct data types
This is a way to define user-defined types based on existing types, like
CREATE TYPE new AS old;
Unlike domains, this way the new type does not inherit any of the functions and operators from the old type. This might sound useless at first, but it can actually create better type safety. For example, you could create a type like
CREATE TYPE order_number AS int;
while preventing that someone tries to, say, multiply order numbers.
The implementation effort would probably be similar to that for domains or enums. Also, search the mailing list archives for "distinct types".
(This includes feature S011-01 USER_DEFINED_TYPES view.)
T321 Basic SQL-invoked routines
There are a number of bits missing from fully SQL-compatible SQL function definitions, besides the specific subfeatures mentioned below.
- Instead of a routine body like
AS $$ ... $$
, allow one unquoted SQL statement as routine body (see example below under RETURN
).
LANGUAGE SQL
is the default.
SPECIFIC xyz
clause, allowing the assignment of an explicit "specific routine name" that can be used to refer to the function even when overloaded. Probably not terribly useful for PostgreSQL.
DETERMINISTIC
/ NOT DETERMINISTIC
clause. DETERMINISTIC
means the same as IMMUTABLE
in PostgreSQL; NOT DETERMINSTIC
is then STABLE
or VOLATILE
.
CONTAINS SQL
/ READS SQL DATA
/ MODIFIES SQL DATA
clause. These also appear to overlap with the volatility property in PostgreSQL: MODIFIES
would make the function volatile, READS
would make it
STABLE
.
Also, for
DROP FUNCTION
the ability to drop a function by its "specific name" is required:
DROP SPECIFIC FUNCTION specific_name;
There are probably some more details missing, so part of finishing this item would also be some research.
T321-02 User-defined stored procedures with no overloading
Add a new command
CREATE PROCEDURE
that does that same thing as
CREATE FUNCTION .. RETURNS void
, and a
DROP PROCEDURE
command.
T321-04 CALL statement
Add a new command
CALL procname()
that does the same thing as
SELECT procname()
but requires
procname()
to not return a value, meaning it has to be a procedure in the above sense.
T321-05 RETURN statement
Add a new command
RETURN
callable only from within SQL functions. Then, instead of writing a function like
CREATE FUNCTION name(args) RETURNS type LANGUAGE SQL
AS $$ SELECT something $$;
write
CREATE FUNCTION name(args) RETURNS type LANGUAGE SQL
RETURN something;
That's it! Plus all the stuff I missed, of course. We only have about 2 weeks left(!) until the final commit fest for the 8.5 release, so it's a bit late to tackle these issues now, but maybe for the release after that?