From: Doug McNaught <doug@wireboard.com> To: lwn@lwn.net Subject: ["Marc G. Fournier" <scrappy@postgresql.org>] [GENERAL] PostgreSQL v7.2 Final Release Date: 05 Feb 2002 11:19:54 -0500 For Immediate Release February 5th, 2002 After almost a full year of development since PostgreSQL v7.1 was released, the PostgreSQL Global Development Group is proud to announce the availability of our latest development milestone ... PostgreSQL v7.2, another step forward for the project. A full list of changes to v7.2 can be found in the HISTORY file, included with the release, as well as under all ftp mirrors as: /pub/README.v7_2 Highlights of this release are as follows: VACUUM Vacuuming no longer locks tables, thus allowing normal user access during the vacuum. A new "VACUUM FULL" command does access during the vacuum. A new "VACUUM FULL" command does old-style vacuum by locking the table and shrinking the on-disk copy of the table. Transactions There is no longer a problem with installations that exceed four billion transactions. OID's OID's are now optional. Users can now create tables without OID's for cases where OID usage is excessive. Optimizer The system now computes histogram column statistics during "ANALYZE", allowing much better optimizer choices. Security A new MD5 encryption option allows more secure storage and transfer of passwords. A new Unix-domain socket authentication option is available on Linux and BSD systems. Statistics Administrators can use the new table access statistics module to get fine-grained information about table and index usage. Internationalization Program and library messages can now be displayed in several languages. .. with many many more bug fixes, enhancements and performance related changes ... Source for this release is available on all mirrors under: /pub/source/v7.2 As always, any bugs with this release should be reported to pgsql-bugs@postgresql.org ... and, as with all point releases, this release requires a complete dump and reload from previous releases, due to internal structure changes ... Marc G. Fournier Co-ordinator PostgreSQL Global Development Group