What's New in v2.1.0-alpha.20180416

April 16, 2018

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General Changes

• Prevent execution errors reporting a missing libtinfo.so.5 on Linux systems. #24513
• A CockroachDB process will now flush its logs upon receiving SIGHUP.
• Added a cluster setting for HLC to be monotonic across restarts #23744
• Added a cluster setting for HLC to panic on clock jumps. #23717
• Statistics on the types of errors encountered are now included in diagnostics reporting. #22912

Enterprise Edition Changes

• It is now possible to RESTORE views when using the into_db option. #24555
• Relaxed the limitation on using BACKUP in a mixed version cluster. #24493
• BACKUP and RESTORE are more resilient to non-URL-safe characters in query string authentication parameters. #24300
• The new jobs.registry.leniency cluster setting can be used to allow long-running import jobs to survive temporary node saturation. #23913
• Added configurable limits on the number of BACKUP/RESTORE requests each store will process. #23517

SQL Language Changes

• Added configurable limits on the number of IMPORT requests each store will process. #23517
• The new ALTER TABLE ... INJECT STATS command injects table statistics from a JSON object (which can be obtained via SHOW HISTOGRAM USING JSON). #24488
• The new SHOW STATISTICS USING JSON variant of SHOW STATISTICS outputs table statistics as a JSON object; it can be used to extract statistics from clusters to reproduce issues. #24488
• VIRTUAL and WORK are no longer reserved keywords and can again be used as unrestricted names. #24491
• Added the CANCEL SESSION statement as well as an IF EXISTS variant to CANCEL QUERY. #23861
• Added a new session_id column to the result of SHOW SESSIONS. #23861
• Added support for the information_schema.pg_expandarray() function. #24422
• DROP DATABASE and ALTER DATABASE ... RENAME now prevent the removal of a database name if that database is set as the current database (SET database / USE) and the session setting sql_safe_updates is also set. #24246
• Added support for naming array types via the _type form and quoted type names. #24190
• Added the quote_ident() built-in function for increased PostgreSQL compatibility. #24190
• The behavior of UPSERT and INSERT ... ON CONFLICT when a RETURNING clause is present is now more consistent when an update touches the same row twice or more. This is a CockroachDB-specific extension. #23698
• Added the statement_timeout session variable. #23399
• The type determined for constant NULL expressions has been renamed to "unknown" for better compatibility with PostgreSQL. #23142
• Attempts to modify virtual schemas with DDL statements now fail with a clearer error message. #23044
• CockroachDB now recognizes the special syntax SET SCHEMA <name> as an alias for SET search_path = <name> for better compatibility with PostgreSQL. #22997
• Added support for pg_sleep() function. #22804
• Division by zero now returns the correct error code. #22912
• The GC of table data after a DROP TABLE now respects changes to the GC TTL interval specified in the relevant replication zone. #22774
• The full names of tables/views/sequences are now properly logged in the system event log. #22842
• current_role is now recognized as an alias for current_user for better compatibility with PostgreSQL. #22828
• The special identifier current_catalog is now supported as an alias for current_database() for better compatibility with PostgreSQL. #22828
• Added the skip option to the IMPORT command. #23466
• The service latency tracked for SQL statements now includes the wait time of the execute message in the input queue. #22880

Command-Line Changes

• The cockroach gen autocomplete command can now generate zsh-compatible completion files by passing zsh as an argument. #24400
• Removed the cockroach load csv subcommand. #24319
• When cockroach gen haproxy is run, if an haproxy.cfg file already exists in the current directory, it now gets fully overwritten instead of potentially resulting in an unusable config. #24332
• The new cockroach demo command opens a SQL shell connected to a fully in-memory store, and an empty database named demo. It's useful for users or developers who wish to test out Cockroach's SQL dialect. #24259
• Replication zones now allow for specifying an ordered list of lease placement preferences. Whenever possible, CockroachDB will attempt to put the lease for a range on a store that satisfies the first set of constraints. If that's not possible, it'll attempt to put the lease on a store that satisfies the second set of constraints, and so on. If none of the preferences can be met, the lease will be placed as it is today. #23202
• Bracketed pastes are requested from the terminal emulator when possible. Pasting text into the interactive SQL shell is more reliable as a result. #23116
• The cockroach sql command now reminds you about SET database = ... and CREATE DATABASE if started with no current database. #23077
• Per-replica constraints in replication zones no longer have to add up to the total number of replicas in a range. If all replicas aren't specified, then the remaining replicas will be allowed on any store. #23057

Admin UI Changes

• Removed explicit back links on Events and Nodes pages. #23904
• Added a new debug page to display all cluster settings. #24064
• While the Logs page loads, a spinner is now shown instead of a "no data" message. #23496
• The Logs page now uses a monospaced font, properly renders newlines, and packs lines together more tightly. #23496
• The Node Map now shows how long a node has been dead. #23255

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug when using fractional units (e.g., 0.5GiB) for the --cache and --sql-max-memory flags of cockroach start. #24381
• Fixed the handling of role membership lookups within transactions. #24284
• Fixed a panic around inverted index queries using the -> operator. #24576
• JSONB values can now be cast to STRING values. #24518
• Fixed a panic caused by a WHERE condition that requires a column to equal a specific value and at the same time equal another column. #24506
• Fixed panics resulting from distributed execution of queries with OID types. #24431
• Fixed a bug where an expected transaction heartbeat failure aborted the transaction. #24134
• Fixed a bug causing index backfills to fail in a loop after exceeding the GC TTL of their source table. #24293
• Inverted index queries involving NULL are now properly handled. #24251
• Fixed a bug involving Npgsql and array values. #24227
• Fixed a panic caused by passing a Name type to has_database_privilege(). #24252
• On-disk checksums are now correctly generated during IMPORT. If there is existing data created by IMPORT that cannot be recreated, use cockroach dump to rewrite any affected tables. #24128
• Attempts to RESTORE to a time later than that covered by the latest BACKUP are now rejected. #23727
• Fixed a bug that could prevent disk space from being reclaimed. #23136
• Replication zone configs no longer accept negative numbers as input. #22870
• Fixed the occasional selection of sub-optimal rebalance targets. #23036
• The cockroach dump command is now able to dump sequences with non-default parameters. #23051
• SHOW TABLES is once again able to inspect virtual schemas. #22994
• The CREATE TABLE .. AS statement now properly supports placeholders in the subquery. #23006
• Fixed a bug where ranges could get stuck in an infinite "removal pending" state and would refuse to accept new writes. #22916
• Arrays now support IS [NOT] DISTINCT FROM operators. #23005
• Fixed incorrect index constraints on primary key columns on unique indexes. #22977
• Fixed a bug that prevented joins on interleaved tables with certain layouts from working. #22920
• The conversion from INTERVAL to FLOAT now properly returns the number of seconds in the interval. #22892
• Fix a panic cause sometimes by Flush protocol messages. #24119

Performance Improvements

• Deleting many rows at once now consumes less memory. #22991
• Fewer disk writes are required for each database write, increasing write throughput and reducing write latency. #22317
• Reduced the amount of memory used during garbage collection of old versions. #24209
• Greatly improved the performance of the DISTINCT operator when its inputs are known to be sorted. #24438 #24148
• Write requests that result in no-ops are no longer proposed through Raft. #24345

Build Changes

• Release binaries are now built with enough debug information to produce useful CPU profiles and backtraces. #24296

Contributors

This release includes 732 merged PRs by 38 authors. We would like to thank the following contributors from the CockroachDB community:

• Mahmoud Al-Qudsi
• Vijay Karthik (first-time contributor)