This patch introduces generic support for ordered-set and hypothetical-set
aggregate functions, as well as implementations of the instances defined in
SQL:2008 (percentile_cont(), percentile_disc(), rank(), dense_rank(),
percent_rank(), cume_dist()). We also added mode() though it is not in the
spec, as well as versions of percentile_cont() and percentile_disc() that
can compute multiple percentile values in one pass over the data.
Unlike the original submission, this patch puts full control of the sorting
process in the hands of the aggregate's support functions. To allow the
support functions to find out how they're supposed to sort, a new API
function AggGetAggref() is added to nodeAgg.c. This allows retrieval of
the aggregate call's Aggref node, which may have other uses beyond the
immediate need. There is also support for ordered-set aggregates to
install cleanup callback functions, so that they can be sure that
infrastructure such as tuplesort objects gets cleaned up.
In passing, make some fixes in the recently-added support for variadic
aggregates, and make some editorial adjustments in the recent FILTER
additions for aggregates. Also, simplify use of IsBinaryCoercible() by
allowing it to succeed whenever the target type is ANY or ANYELEMENT.
It was inconsistent that it dealt with other polymorphic target types
but not these.
Atri Sharma and Andrew Gierth; reviewed by Pavel Stehule and Vik Fearing,
and rather heavily editorialized upon by Tom Lane
There's no inherent reason why an aggregate function can't be variadic
(even VARIADIC ANY) if its transition function can handle the case.
Indeed, this patch to add the feature touches none of the planner or
executor, and little of the parser; the main missing stuff was DDL and
pg_dump support.
It is true that variadic aggregates can create the same sort of ambiguity
about parameters versus ORDER BY keys that was complained of when we
(briefly) had both one- and two-argument forms of string_agg(). However,
the policy formed in response to that discussion only said that we'd not
create any built-in aggregates with varying numbers of arguments, not that
we shouldn't allow users to do it. So the logical extension of that is
we can allow users to make variadic aggregates as long as we're wary about
shipping any such in core.
In passing, this patch allows aggregate function arguments to be named, to
the extent of remembering the names in pg_proc and dumping them in pg_dump.
You can't yet call an aggregate using named-parameter notation. That seems
like a likely future extension, but it'll take some work, and it's not what
this patch is really about. Likewise, there's still some work needed to
make window functions handle VARIADIC fully, but I left that for another
day.
initdb forced because of new aggvariadic field in Aggref parse nodes.
Formerly we relied on checking after-the-fact to see if an expression
contained aggregates, window functions, or sub-selects when it shouldn't.
This is grotty, easily forgotten (indeed, we had forgotten to teach
DefineIndex about rejecting window functions), and none too efficient
since it requires extra traversals of the parse tree. To improve matters,
define an enum type that classifies all SQL sub-expressions, store it in
ParseState to show what kind of expression we are currently parsing, and
make transformAggregateCall, transformWindowFuncCall, and transformSubLink
check the expression type and throw error if the type indicates the
construct is disallowed. This allows removal of a large number of ad-hoc
checks scattered around the code base. The enum type is sufficiently
fine-grained that we can still produce error messages of at least the
same specificity as before.
Bringing these error checks together revealed that we'd been none too
consistent about phrasing of the error messages, so standardize the wording
a bit.
Also, rewrite checking of aggregate arguments so that it requires only one
traversal of the arguments, rather than up to three as before.
In passing, clean up some more comments left over from add_missing_from
support, and annotate some tests that I think are dead code now that that's
gone. (I didn't risk actually removing said dead code, though.)
All expression nodes now have an explicit output-collation field, unless
they are known to only return a noncollatable data type (such as boolean
or record). Also, nodes that can invoke collation-aware functions store
a separate field that is the collation value to pass to the function.
This avoids confusion that arises when a function has collatable inputs
and noncollatable output type, or vice versa.
Also, replace the parser's on-the-fly collation assignment method with
a post-pass over the completed expression tree. This allows us to use
a more complex (and hopefully more nearly spec-compliant) assignment
rule without paying for it in extra storage in every expression node.
Fix assorted bugs in the planner's handling of collations by making
collation one of the defining properties of an EquivalenceClass and
by converting CollateExprs into discardable RelabelType nodes during
expression preprocessing.
This adds collation support for columns and domains, a COLLATE clause
to override it per expression, and B-tree index support.
Peter Eisentraut
reviewed by Pavel Stehule, Itagaki Takahiro, Robert Haas, Noah Misch
to transformAggregateCall, instead of abusing fields in Aggref to carry them
temporarily. No change in functionality but hopefully the code is a bit
clearer now. Per gripe from Gokulakannan Somasundaram.
non-kluge method for controlling the order in which values are fed to an
aggregate function. At the same time eliminate the old implementation
restriction that DISTINCT was only supported for single-argument aggregates.
Possibly release-notable behavioral change: formerly, agg(DISTINCT x)
dropped null values of x unconditionally. Now, it does so only if the
agg transition function is strict; otherwise nulls are treated as DISTINCT
normally would, ie, you get one copy.
Andrew Gierth, reviewed by Hitoshi Harada
the opportunity to treat COUNT(*) as a zero-argument aggregate instead
of the old hack that equated it to COUNT(1); this is materially cleaner
(no more weird ANYOID cases) and ought to be at least a tiny bit faster.
Original patch by Sergey Koposov; review, documentation, simple regression
tests, pg_dump and psql support by moi.
Also performed an initial run through of upgrading our Copyright date to
extend to 2005 ... first run here was very simple ... change everything
where: grep 1996-2004 && the word 'Copyright' ... scanned through the
generated list with 'less' first, and after, to make sure that I only
picked up the right entries ...
It also works to create a non-polymorphic aggregate from polymorphic
functions, should you want to do that. Regression test added, docs still
lacking. By Joe Conway, with some kibitzing from Tom Lane.
extensions to support our historical behavior. An aggregate belongs
to the closest query level of any of the variables in its argument,
or the current query level if there are no variables (e.g., COUNT(*)).
The implementation involves adding an agglevelsup field to Aggref,
and treating outer aggregates like outer variables at planning time.
that used to do it in planner. That was an ancient kluge that was
never satisfactory; errors should be detected at parse time when possible.
But at the time we didn't have the support mechanism (expression_tree_walker
et al) to make it convenient to do in the parser.
entries, per pghackers discussion. This fixes aggregates to live in
namespaces, and also simplifies/speeds up lookup in parse_func.c.
Also, add a 'proimplicit' flag to pg_proc that controls whether a type
coercion function may be invoked implicitly, or only explicitly. The
current settings of these flags are more permissive than I would like,
but we will need to debate and refine the behavior; for now, I avoided
breaking regression tests as much as I could.
the parsetree representation. As yet we don't *do* anything with schema
names, just drop 'em on the floor; but you can enter schema-compatible
command syntax, and there's even a primitive CREATE SCHEMA command.
No doc updates yet, except to note that you can now extract a field
from a function-returning-row's result with (foo(...)).fieldname.
(Don't forget that an alias is required.) Views reimplemented as expanding
to subselect-in-FROM. Grouping, aggregates, DISTINCT in views actually
work now (he says optimistically). No UNION support in subselects/views
yet, but I have some ideas about that. Rule-related permissions checking
moved out of rewriter and into executor.
INITDB REQUIRED!
yet, but at least we can give a better error message:
regression=> select count(distinct f1) from int4_tbl;
ERROR: aggregate(DISTINCT ...) is not implemented yet
instead of 'parser: parse error at or near distinct'.
