What's New in v2.1.0-alpha.20180507

Warning:
This version of CockroachDB is no longer supported. For more details, see the Release Support Policy.

May 7, 2018

This release includes usability enhancements, PostgreSQL compatibility improvements, and general bug fixes.

Tip:
The EXPORT CSV feature in this release allows you to quickly get data out of CockroachDB and into a format that can be ingested by downstream systems. Unlike the existing ability to export data via a SELECT that outputs to a CSV file, EXPORT uses all nodes in the cluster to parallelize CSV creation for significantly faster processing. Note that this is a prototype feature, so we’d love for you to try it out and create issues if you’d like any enhancements or find any bugs.

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General Changes

  • Added a /_status/diagnostics/{node_id} debug endpoint, which returns an anonymized diagnostics report. #24813 #24997
  • The header of new log files generated by cockroach start now includes the cluster ID once it has been determined. #24926
  • The cluster ID is now reported with tag [config] in the first log file, not only when log files are rotated. #24993
  • Stopped spamming the server logs with "error closing gzip response writer" messages. #25106
  • Enforced stricter validation of security certificates. #24687

Enterprise Edition Changes

SQL Language Changes

  • ROLE and STORED are no longer reserved keywords and can again be used as unrestricted names for databases, tables and columns. #24629 #24554
  • The experimental SQL features SHOW TESTING_RANGES and ALTER ... TESTING_RELOCATE have been renamed SHOW EXPERIMENTAL_RANGES and ALTER ... EXPERIMENTAL_RELOCATE. #24696
  • The current_schema() and current_schemas() built-in functions now only consider valid schemas, like PostgreSQL does. #24718
  • Clarified the error message produced upon accessing a virtual schema with no database prefix (e.g., when database is not set). #24772
  • Improved the error message returned on object creation when no current database is set or only invalid schemas are in the search_path. #24770
  • Added more ways to specify an index name for statements that require one (e.g., DROP INDEX, ALTER INDEX ... RENAME, etc.), improving PostgreSQL compatibility. #24778
  • Errors detected by SHOW SYNTAX are now tracked internally like other SQL errors. #24819
  • Added support for lpad() and rpad() string functions. #24891
  • Computed columns can now be added with ALTER TABLE ... ADD COLUMN. #24464
  • Added the TIMETZ column type and datum. #24343
  • The EXPLAIN output for UPDATE statements now also report CHECK expressions, for consistency with INSERT. #23373
  • Reduced the amount of RAM used when a query performs further computations on the result of a mutation statement (INSERT/DELETE/UPSERT/UPSERT) combined with RETURNING. #23373
  • Added the 'base64' option to the encode() and decode() built-in functions. #25002
  • IMPORT now supports hex-encoded byte literals for BYTES columns. #24859
  • Set Returning Functions (SRF) can now be accessed using (SRF).x, where x is the name of a column returned from the SRF or a *. For example, SELECT (information_schema._pg_expandarray(ARRAY['c', 'b', 'a'])).x and SELECT (information_schema._pg_expandarray(ARRAY['c', 'b', 'a'])).* are now both valid. Also, the naming of the resulting columns from SRFs now provide more information about the resulting tuple. #24832
  • Removed the METADATA, QUALIFY, and EXPRS options for EXPLAIN. #25101
  • CockroachDB now properly reports an error when a query attempts to use ORDER BY within a function argument list, which is an unsupported feature. #25146
  • AS OF SYSTEM TIME queries now accept a negative interval to produce a relative time from the statement's statement_timestamp() time. #24768

Command-Line Changes

  • The cockroach demo command now shows the Admin UI URL on startup. #24738
  • cockroach dump now supports self and cyclic foreign key references. #24716

Admin UI Changes

  • Updated the window title for each page to make browser history more useful. #24634
  • Changed the label "bytes" to "used capacity" in the Nodes table. #24843
  • The names of dropped schema objects on DROP DATABASE ... CASCADE are now displayed. #24852
  • The Cluster Overview now adjusts to take the advantage of the size of the screen. #24849
  • Fixed a bug where the Node List could get cut off. #24849
  • Improve responsiveness of the Prometheus metrics endpoint on very overloaded nodes. #25083
  • Time series charts now display data points at more consistent timestamps. #24856

Bug Fixes

  • Converted a panic related to an unsupported type to an error. #24688
  • ALTER INDEX ... RENAME can now be used on the primary index. #24776
  • Fixed a scenario in which a node could deadlock while starting up. #24808
  • It is once again possible to use a simply qualified table name in qualified stars (e.g., SELECT mydb.kv.* FROM kv) for compatibility with CockroachDB v1.x. #24811
  • Ranges in partitioned tables now properly split to respect their configured maximum size. #24896
  • Fixed a bug where SELECT * FROM [DELETE FROM ... RETURNING ...] LIMIT 1 or WITH d AS (DELETE FROM ... RETURNING ...) SELECT * FROM d LIMIT 1 would fail to properly delete some rows. The is fixed for SELECT * FROM [INSERT ... RETURNING ...] LIMIT 1 or WITH d AS (INSERT ... RETURNING ...) SELECT * FROM d LIMIT 1 as well. #23373
  • Removed a limitation where UPDATE, INSERT, or UPSERT would fail if the number of modified rows was too large. #23373
  • UPSERT now properly reports the count of modified rows when RETURNING is not specified. #23373
  • When adding a column, CockroachDB now verifies that the column is reference by no more than one foreign key. Existing tables with a column that is used by multiple foreign key constraints should be manually changed to have at most one foreign key per column. #25060
  • Corrected the documentation for the age() built-in function. #25132
  • Fixed a bug cuasing PREPARE to hang when run in the same transaction as a CREATE TABLE statement. #23816

Performance Improvements

  • Improved the performance of hash joins. #24577
  • Aggregations are now streamed based on the ordering on the GROUP BY columns. #24113
  • Some SELECTs with limits no longer require a second low-level scan, resulting in much faster execution. #24790

Build Changes

  • Build metadata, like the commit SHA and build time, is now properly injected into the binary when using Go 1.10 and building from a symlink. #25008

Doc Updates

Contributors

This release includes 224 merged PRs by 37 authors. We would like to thank the following contributors from the CockroachDB community, with special thanks to first-time contributors Bob Potter, Karan Vaidya, dchenk, and phelanm.

  • Bob Potter
  • Brett Snyder
  • Jingguo Yao
  • Karan Vaidya
  • Vijay Karthik
  • dchenk
  • phelanm
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