E.2. Release 18
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## E.2. Release 18 #

Release date: 2025-09-25

### E.2.1. Overview #

PostgreSQL 18 contains many new features and enhancements, including:

- An asynchronous I/O (AIO) subsystem that can improve performance of sequential scans, bitmap heap scans, vacuums, and other operations.

- pg_upgrade now retains optimizer statistics.

- Support for "skip scan" lookups that allow using multicolumn B-tree indexes in more cases.

- `uuidv7()` function for generating timestamp-ordered UUIDs.

- Virtual generated columns that compute their values during read operations. This is now the default for generated columns.

- OAuth authentication support.

- `OLD` and `NEW` support for `RETURNING` clauses in INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, and MERGE commands.

- Temporal constraints, or constraints over ranges, for PRIMARY KEY, UNIQUE, and FOREIGN KEY constraints.

The above items and other new features of PostgreSQL 18 are explained in more detail in the sections below.

### E.2.2. Migration to Version 18 #

A dump/restore using pg_dumpall or use of pg_upgrade or logical replication is required for those wishing to migrate data from any previous release. See Section 18.6 for general information on migrating to new major releases.

Version 18 contains a number of changes that may affect compatibility with previous releases. Observe the following incompatibilities:

- Change initdb default to enable data checksums (Greg Sabino Mullane) §

  Checksums can be disabled with the new initdb option `--no-data-checksums`. pg_upgrade requires matching cluster checksum settings, so this new option can be useful to upgrade non-checksum old clusters.

- Change time zone abbreviation handling (Tom Lane) §

  The system will now favor the current session's time zone abbreviations before checking the server variable timezone_abbreviations. Previously `timezone_abbreviations` was checked first.

- Deprecate MD5 password authentication (Nathan Bossart) §

  Support for MD5 passwords will be removed in a future major version release. CREATE ROLE and ALTER ROLE now emit deprecation warnings when setting MD5 passwords. These warnings can be disabled by setting the md5_password_warnings parameter to `off`.

- Change VACUUM and ANALYZE to process the inheritance children of a parent (Michael Harris) §

  The previous behavior can be performed by using the new `ONLY` option.

- Prevent `COPY FROM` from treating `\.` as an end-of-file marker when reading CSV files (Daniel Vérité, Tom Lane) § §

  psql will still treat `\.` as an end-of-file marker when reading CSV files from `STDIN`. Older psql clients connecting to PostgreSQL 18 servers might experience `\copy` problems. This release also enforces that `\.` must appear alone on a line.

- Disallow unlogged partitioned tables (Michael Paquier) §

  Previously `ALTER TABLE SET [UN]LOGGED` did nothing, and the creation of an unlogged partitioned table did not cause its children to be unlogged.

- Execute `AFTER` triggers as the role that was active when trigger events were queued (Laurenz Albe) §

  Previously such triggers were run as the role that was active at trigger execution time (e.g., at COMMIT). This is significant for cases where the role is changed between queue time and transaction commit.

- Remove non-functional support for rule privileges in GRANT/REVOKE (Fujii Masao) §

  These have been non-functional since PostgreSQL 8.2.

- Remove column `pg_backend_memory_contexts`.`parent` (Melih Mutlu) §

  This is no longer needed since `pg_backend_memory_contexts`.`path` was added.

- Change `pg_backend_memory_contexts`.`level` and `pg_log_backend_memory_contexts()` to be one-based (Melih Mutlu, Atsushi Torikoshi, David Rowley, Fujii Masao) § § §

  These were previously zero-based.

- Change full text search to use the default collation provider of the cluster to read configuration files and dictionaries, rather than always using libc (Peter Eisentraut) §

  Clusters that default to non-libc collation providers (e.g., ICU, builtin) that behave differently than libc for characters processed by LC_CTYPE could observe changes in behavior of some full-text search functions, as well as the pg_trgm extension. When upgrading such clusters using pg_upgrade, it is recommended to reindex all indexes related to full-text search and pg_trgm after the upgrade.

### E.2.3. Changes #

Below you will find a detailed account of the changes between PostgreSQL 18 and the previous major release.

#### E.2.3.1. Server #

##### E.2.3.1.1. Optimizer #

- Automatically remove some unnecessary table self-joins (Andrey Lepikhov, Alexander Kuzmenkov, Alexander Korotkov, Alena Rybakina) §

  This optimization can be disabled using server variable enable_self_join_elimination.

- Convert some `IN (VALUES ...)` to `x = ANY ...` for better optimizer statistics (Alena Rybakina, Andrei Lepikhov) §

- Allow transforming `OR`-clauses to arrays for faster index processing (Alexander Korotkov, Andrey Lepikhov) §

- Speed up the processing of `INTERSECT`, `EXCEPT`, window aggregates, and view column aliases (Tom Lane, David Rowley) § § § §

- Allow the keys of `SELECT DISTINCT` to be internally reordered to avoid sorting (Richard Guo) §

  This optimization can be disabled using enable_distinct_reordering.

- Ignore `GROUP BY` columns that are functionally dependent on other columns (Zhang Mingli, Jian He, David Rowley) §

  If a `GROUP BY` clause includes all columns of a unique index, as well as other columns of the same table, those other columns are redundant and can be dropped from the grouping. This was already true for non-deferred primary keys.

- Allow some `HAVING` clauses on `GROUPING SETS` to be pushed to `WHERE` clauses (Richard Guo) § § § §

  This allows earlier row filtering. This release also fixes some `GROUPING SETS` queries that used to return incorrect results.

- Improve row estimates for `generate_series()` using `numeric` and `timestamp` values (David Rowley, Song Jinzhou) § §

- Allow the optimizer to use `Right Semi Join` plans (Richard Guo) §

  Semi-joins are used when needing to find if there is at least one match.

- Allow merge joins to use incremental sorts (Richard Guo) §

- Improve the efficiency of planning queries accessing many partitions (Ashutosh Bapat, Yuya Watari, David Rowley) § §

- Allow partitionwise joins in more cases, and reduce its memory usage (Richard Guo, Tom Lane, Ashutosh Bapat) § §

- Improve cost estimates of partition queries (Nikita Malakhov, Andrei Lepikhov) §

- Improve SQL-language function plan caching (Alexander Pyhalov, Tom Lane) § §

- Improve handling of disabled optimizer features (Robert Haas) §

##### E.2.3.1.2. Indexes #

- Allow skip scans of btree indexes (Peter Geoghegan) § §

  This allows multi-column btree indexes to be used in more cases such as when there are no restrictions on the first or early indexed columns (or there are non-equality ones), and there are useful restrictions on later indexed columns.

- Allow non-btree unique indexes to be used as partition keys and in materialized views (Mark Dilger) § §

  The index type must still support equality.

- Allow `GIN` indexes to be created in parallel (Tomas Vondra, Matthias van de Meent) §

- Allow values to be sorted to speed range-type GiST and btree index builds (Bernd Helmle) §

##### E.2.3.1.3. General Performance #

- Add an asynchronous I/O subsystem (Andres Freund, Thomas Munro, Nazir Bilal Yavuz, Melanie Plageman) § § § § § § § § § § §

  This feature allows backends to queue multiple read requests, which allows for more efficient sequential scans, bitmap heap scans, vacuums, etc. This is enabled by server variable io_method, with server variables io_combine_limit and io_max_combine_limit added to control it. This also enables effective_io_concurrency and maintenance_io_concurrency values greater than zero for systems without `fadvise()` support. The new system view `pg_aios` shows the file handles being used for asynchronous I/O.

- Improve the locking performance of queries that access many relations (Tomas Vondra) §

- Improve the performance and reduce memory usage of hash joins and `GROUP BY` (David Rowley, Jeff Davis) § § § § §

  This also improves hash set operations used by `EXCEPT`, and hash lookups of subplan values.

- Allow normal vacuums to freeze some pages, even though they are all-visible (Melanie Plageman) § §

  This reduces the overhead of later full-relation freezing. The aggressiveness of this can be controlled by server variable and per-table setting vacuum_max_eager_freeze_failure_rate. Previously vacuum never processed all-visible pages until freezing was required.

- Add server variable vacuum_truncate to control file truncation during VACUUM (Nathan Bossart, Gurjeet Singh) §

  A storage-level parameter with the same name and behavior already existed.

- Increase server variables effective_io_concurrency's and maintenance_io_concurrency's default values to 16 (Melanie Plageman) § §

  This more accurately reflects modern hardware.

##### E.2.3.1.4. Monitoring #

- Increase the logging granularity of server variable log_connections (Melanie Plageman) §

  This server variable was previously only boolean, which is still supported.

- Add `log_connections` option to report the duration of connection stages (Melanie Plageman) §

- Add log_line_prefix escape `%L` to output the client IP address (Greg Sabino Mullane) §

- Add server variable log_lock_failures to log lock acquisition failures (Yuki Seino, Fujii Masao) § §

  Specifically it reports `SELECT ... NOWAIT` lock failures.

- Modify `pg_stat_all_tables` and its variants to report the time spent in VACUUM, ANALYZE, and their automatic variants (Sami Imseih) §

  The new columns are `total_vacuum_time`, `total_autovacuum_time`, `total_analyze_time`, and `total_autoanalyze_time`.

- Add delay time reporting to VACUUM and ANALYZE (Bertrand Drouvot, Nathan Bossart) § §

  This information appears in the server log, the system views `pg_stat_progress_vacuum` and `pg_stat_progress_analyze`, and the output of VACUUM and ANALYZE when in `VERBOSE` mode; tracking must be enabled with the server variable track_cost_delay_timing.

- Add WAL, CPU, and average read statistics output to `ANALYZE VERBOSE` (Anthonin Bonnefoy) § §

- Add full WAL buffer count to `VACUUM`/`ANALYZE (VERBOSE)` and autovacuum log output (Bertrand Drouvot) §

- Add per-backend I/O statistics reporting (Bertrand Drouvot) § §

  The statistics are accessed via `pg_stat_get_backend_io()`. Per-backend I/O statistics can be cleared via `pg_stat_reset_backend_stats()`.

- Add `pg_stat_io` columns to report I/O activity in bytes (Nazir Bilal Yavuz) §

  The new columns are `read_bytes`, `write_bytes`, and `extend_bytes`. The `op_bytes` column, which always equaled `BLCKSZ`, has been removed.

- Add WAL I/O activity rows to `pg_stat_io` (Nazir Bilal Yavuz, Bertrand Drouvot, Michael Paquier) § § §

  This includes WAL receiver activity and a wait event for such writes.

- Change server variable track_wal_io_timing to control tracking WAL timing in `pg_stat_io` instead of `pg_stat_wal` (Bertrand Drouvot) §

- Remove read/sync columns from `pg_stat_wal` (Bertrand Drouvot) § §

  This removes columns `wal_write`, `wal_sync`, `wal_write_time`, and `wal_sync_time`.

- Add function `pg_stat_get_backend_wal()` to return per-backend WAL statistics (Bertrand Drouvot) §

  Per-backend WAL statistics can be cleared via `pg_stat_reset_backend_stats()`.

- Add function `pg_ls_summariesdir()` to specifically list the contents of `PGDATA`/`pg_wal/summaries` (Yushi Ogiwara) §

- Add column `pg_stat_checkpointer`.`num_done` to report the number of completed checkpoints (Anton A. Melnikov) §

  Columns `num_timed` and `num_requested` count both completed and skipped checkpoints.

- Add column `pg_stat_checkpointer`.`slru_written` to report SLRU buffers written (Nitin Jadhav) §

  Also, modify the checkpoint server log message to report separate shared buffer and SLRU buffer values.

- Add columns to `pg_stat_database` to report parallel worker activity (Benoit Lobréau) §

  The new columns are `parallel_workers_to_launch` and `parallel_workers_launched`.

- Have query id computation of constant lists consider only the first and last constants (Dmitry Dolgov, Sami Imseih) § § §

  Jumbling is used by pg_stat_statements.

- Adjust query id computations to group together queries using the same relation name (Michael Paquier, Sami Imseih) §

  This is true even if the tables in different schemas have different column names.

- Add column `pg_backend_memory_contexts`.`type` to report the type of memory context (David Rowley) §

- Add column `pg_backend_memory_contexts`.`path` to show memory context parents (Melih Mutlu) §

##### E.2.3.1.5. Privileges #

- Add function `pg_get_acl()` to retrieve database access control details (Joel Jacobson) § §

- Add function `has_largeobject_privilege()` to check large object privileges (Yugo Nagata) §

- Allow ALTER DEFAULT PRIVILEGES to define large object default privileges (Takatsuka Haruka, Yugo Nagata, Laurenz Albe) §

- Add predefined role `pg_signal_autovacuum_worker` (Kirill Reshke) §

  This allows sending signals to autovacuum workers.

##### E.2.3.1.6. Server Configuration #

- Add support for the OAuth authentication method (Jacob Champion, Daniel Gustafsson, Thomas Munro) §

  This adds an `oauth` authentication method to `pg_hba.conf`, libpq OAuth options, a server variable oauth_validator_libraries to load token validation libraries, and a configure flag `--with-libcurl` to add the required compile-time libraries.

- Add server variable ssl_tls13_ciphers to allow specification of multiple colon-separated TLSv1.3 cipher suites (Erica Zhang, Daniel Gustafsson) §

- Change server variable ssl_groups's default to include elliptic curve X25519 (Daniel Gustafsson, Jacob Champion) §

- Rename server variable `ssl_ecdh_curve` to ssl_groups and allow multiple colon-separated ECDH curves to be specified (Erica Zhang, Daniel Gustafsson) §

  The previous name still works.

- Make cancel request keys 256 bits (Heikki Linnakangas, Jelte Fennema-Nio) § §

  This is only possible when the server and client support wire protocol version 3.2, introduced in this release.

- Add server variable autovacuum_worker_slots to specify the maximum number of background workers (Nathan Bossart) §

  With this variable set, autovacuum_max_workers can be adjusted at runtime up to this maximum without a server restart.

- Allow specification of the fixed number of dead tuples that will trigger an autovacuum (Nathan Bossart, Frédéric Yhuel) §

  The server variable is autovacuum_vacuum_max_threshold. Percentages are still used for triggering.

- Change server variable max_files_per_process to limit only files opened by a backend (Andres Freund) §

  Previously files opened by the postmaster were also counted toward this limit.

- Add server variable num_os_semaphores to report the required number of semaphores (Nathan Bossart) §

  This is useful for operating system configuration.

- Add server variable extension_control_path to specify the location of extension control files (Peter Eisentraut, Matheus Alcantara) § §

##### E.2.3.1.7. Streaming Replication and Recovery #

- Allow inactive replication slots to be automatically invalidated using server variable idle_replication_slot_timeout (Nisha Moond, Bharath Rupireddy) §

- Add server variable max_active_replication_origins to control the maximum active replication origins (Euler Taveira) §

  This was previously controlled by max_replication_slots, but this new setting allows a higher origin count in cases where fewer slots are required.

##### E.2.3.1.8. Logical Replication #

- Allow the values of generated columns to be logically replicated (Shubham Khanna, Vignesh C, Zhijie Hou, Shlok Kyal, Peter Smith) § § § §

  If the publication specifies a column list, all specified columns, generated and non-generated, are published. Without a specified column list, publication option `publish_generated_columns` controls whether generated columns are published. Previously generated columns were not replicated and the subscriber had to compute the values if possible; this is particularly useful for non-PostgreSQL subscribers which lack such a capability.

- Change the default CREATE SUBSCRIPTION streaming option from `off` to `parallel` (Vignesh C) §

- Allow ALTER SUBSCRIPTION to change the replication slot's two-phase commit behavior (Hayato Kuroda, Ajin Cherian, Amit Kapila, Zhijie Hou) § §

- Log conflicts while applying logical replication changes (Zhijie Hou, Nisha Moond) § § § § §

  Also report in new columns of `pg_stat_subscription_stats`.

#### E.2.3.2. Utility Commands #

- Allow generated columns to be virtual, and make them the default (Peter Eisentraut, Jian He, Richard Guo, Dean Rasheed) § § §

  Virtual generated columns generate their values when the columns are read, not written. The write behavior can still be specified via the `STORED` option.

- Add `OLD`/`NEW` support to `RETURNING` in DML queries (Dean Rasheed) §

  Previously `RETURNING` only returned new values for INSERT and UPDATE, and old values for DELETE; MERGE would return the appropriate value for the internal query executed. This new syntax allows the `RETURNING` list of `INSERT`/`UPDATE`/`DELETE`/`MERGE` to explicitly return old and new values by using the special aliases `old` and `new`. These aliases can be renamed to avoid identifier conflicts.

- Allow foreign tables to be created like existing local tables (Zhang Mingli) §

  The syntax is `CREATE FOREIGN TABLE ... LIKE`.

- Allow `LIKE` with nondeterministic collations (Peter Eisentraut) §

- Allow text position search functions with nondeterministic collations (Peter Eisentraut) §

  These used to generate an error.

- Add builtin collation provider `PG_UNICODE_FAST` (Jeff Davis) §

  This locale supports case mapping, but sorts in code point order, not natural language order.

- Allow VACUUM and ANALYZE to process partitioned tables without processing their children (Michael Harris) §

  This is enabled with the new `ONLY` option. This is useful since autovacuum does not process partitioned tables, just its children.

- Add functions to modify per-relation and per-column optimizer statistics (Corey Huinker) § § §

  The functions are `pg_restore_relation_stats()`, `pg_restore_attribute_stats()`, `pg_clear_relation_stats()`, and `pg_clear_attribute_stats()`.

- Add server variable file_copy_method to control the file copying method (Nazir Bilal Yavuz) §

  This controls whether `CREATE DATABASE ... STRATEGY=FILE_COPY` and `ALTER DATABASE ... SET TABLESPACE` uses file copy or clone.

##### E.2.3.2.1. Constraints #

- Allow the specification of non-overlapping `PRIMARY KEY`, `UNIQUE`, and foreign key constraints (Paul A. Jungwirth) § §

  This is specified by `WITHOUT OVERLAPS` for `PRIMARY KEY` and `UNIQUE`, and by `PERIOD` for foreign keys, all applied to the last specified column.

- Allow `CHECK` and foreign key constraints to be specified as `NOT ENFORCED` (Amul Sul) § §

  This also adds column `pg_constraint`.`conenforced`.

- Require primary/foreign key relationships to use either deterministic collations or the the same nondeterministic collations (Peter Eisentraut) §

  The restore of a pg_dump, also used by pg_upgrade, will fail if these requirements are not met; schema changes must be made for these upgrade methods to succeed.

- Store column `NOT NULL` specifications in `pg_constraint` (Álvaro Herrera, Bernd Helmle) § §

  This allows names to be specified for `NOT NULL` constraint. This also adds `NOT NULL` constraints to foreign tables and `NOT NULL` inheritance control to local tables.

- Allow ALTER TABLE to set the `NOT VALID` attribute of `NOT NULL` constraints (Rushabh Lathia, Jian He) §

- Allow modification of the inheritability of `NOT NULL` constraints (Suraj Kharage, Álvaro Herrera) § §

  The syntax is `ALTER TABLE ... ALTER CONSTRAINT ... [NO] INHERIT`.

- Allow `NOT VALID` foreign key constraints on partitioned tables (Amul Sul) §

- Allow dropping of constraints `ONLY` on partitioned tables (Álvaro Herrera) §

  This was previously erroneously prohibited.

##### E.2.3.2.2. COPY #

- Add `REJECT_LIMIT` to control the number of invalid rows `COPY FROM` can ignore (Atsushi Torikoshi) §

  This is available when `ON_ERROR = 'ignore'`.

- Allow `COPY TO` to copy rows from populated materialized views (Jian He) §

- Add `COPY` `LOG_VERBOSITY` level `silent` to suppress log output of ignored rows (Atsushi Torikoshi) §

  This new level suppresses output for discarded input rows when `on_error = 'ignore'`.

- Disallow `COPY FREEZE` on foreign tables (Nathan Bossart) §

  Previously, the `COPY` worked but the `FREEZE` was ignored, so disallow this command.

##### E.2.3.2.3. EXPLAIN #

- Automatically include `BUFFERS` output in `EXPLAIN ANALYZE` (Guillaume Lelarge, David Rowley) §

- Add full WAL buffer count to `EXPLAIN (WAL)` output (Bertrand Drouvot) §

- In `EXPLAIN ANALYZE`, report the number of index lookups used per index scan node (Peter Geoghegan) §

- Modify `EXPLAIN` to output fractional row counts (Ibrar Ahmed, Ilia Evdokimov, Robert Haas) § §

- Add memory and disk usage details to `Material`, `Window Aggregate`, and common table expression nodes to `EXPLAIN` output (David Rowley, Tatsuo Ishii) § § § §

- Add details about window function arguments to `EXPLAIN` output (Tom Lane) §

- Add `Parallel Bitmap Heap Scan` worker cache statistics to `EXPLAIN ANALYZE` (David Geier, Heikki Linnakangas, Donghang Lin, Alena Rybakina, David Rowley) §

- Indicate disabled nodes in `EXPLAIN ANALYZE` output (Robert Haas, David Rowley, Laurenz Albe) § § §

#### E.2.3.3. Data Types #

- Improve Unicode full case mapping and conversion (Jeff Davis) § §

  This adds the ability to do conditional and title case mapping, and case map single characters to multiple characters.

- Allow `jsonb` `null` values to be cast to scalar types as `NULL` (Tom Lane) §

  Previously such casts generated an error.

- Add optional parameter to `json{b}_strip_nulls` to allow removal of null array elements (Florents Tselai) §

- Add function `array_sort()` which sorts an array's first dimension (Junwang Zhao, Jian He) §

- Add function `array_reverse()` which reverses an array's first dimension (Aleksander Alekseev) §

- Add function `reverse()` to reverse bytea bytes (Aleksander Alekseev) §

- Allow casting between integer types and `bytea` (Aleksander Alekseev) §

  The integer values are stored as `bytea` two's complement values.

- Update Unicode data to Unicode 16.0.0 (Peter Eisentraut) §

- Add full text search stemming for Estonian (Tom Lane) §

- Improve the `XML` error codes to more closely match the SQL standard (Tom Lane) §

  These errors are reported via `SQLSTATE`.

#### E.2.3.4. Functions #

- Add function `casefold()` to allow for more sophisticated case-insensitive matching (Jeff Davis) §

  This allows more accurate comparisons, i.e., a character can have multiple upper or lower case equivalents, or upper or lower case conversion changes the number of characters.

- Allow `MIN()`/`MAX()` aggregates on arrays and composite types (Aleksander Alekseev, Marat Buharov) § §

- Add a `WEEK` option to `EXTRACT()` (Tom Lane) §

- Improve the output `EXTRACT(QUARTER ...)` for negative values (Tom Lane) §

- Add roman numeral support to `to_number()` (Hunaid Sohail) §

  This is accessed via the `RN` pattern.

- Add `UUID` version 7 generation function `uuidv7()` (Andrey Borodin) §

  This `UUID` value is temporally sortable. Function alias `uuidv4()` has been added to explicitly generate version 4 UUIDs.

- Add functions `crc32()` and `crc32c()` to compute CRC values (Aleksander Alekseev) §

- Add math functions `gamma()` and `lgamma()` (Dean Rasheed) §

- Allow `=>` syntax for named cursor arguments in PL/pgSQL (Pavel Stehule) §

  We previously only accepted `:=`.

- Allow `regexp_match[es]()`/`regexp_like()`/`regexp_replace()`/`regexp_count()`/`regexp_instr()`/`regexp_substr()`/`regexp_split_to_table()`/`regexp_split_to_array()` to use named arguments (Jian He) §

#### E.2.3.5. libpq #

- Add function `PQfullProtocolVersion()` to report the full, including minor, protocol version number (Jacob Champion, Jelte Fennema-Nio) §

- Add libpq connection parameters and environment variables to specify the minimum and maximum acceptable protocol version for connections (Jelte Fennema-Nio) § §

- Report search_path changes to the client (Alexander Kukushkin, Jelte Fennema-Nio, Tomas Vondra) § §

- Add `PQtrace()` output for all message types, including authentication (Jelte Fennema-Nio) § § § § §

- Add libpq connection parameter `sslkeylogfile` which dumps out SSL key material (Abhishek Chanda, Daniel Gustafsson) §

  This is useful for debugging.

- Modify some libpq function signatures to use `int64_t` (Thomas Munro) §

  These previously used `pg_int64`, which is now deprecated.

#### E.2.3.6. psql #

- Allow psql to parse, bind, and close named prepared statements (Anthonin Bonnefoy, Michael Paquier) § §

  This is accomplished with new commands `\parse`, `\bind_named`, and `\close_prepared`.

- Add psql backslash commands to allowing issuance of pipeline queries (Anthonin Bonnefoy) § § §

  The new commands are `\startpipeline`, `\syncpipeline`, `\sendpipeline`, `\endpipeline`, `\flushrequest`, `\flush`, and `\getresults`.

- Allow adding pipeline status to the psql prompt and add related state variables (Anthonin Bonnefoy) §

  The new prompt character is `%P` and the new psql variables are `PIPELINE_SYNC_COUNT`, `PIPELINE_COMMAND_COUNT`, and `PIPELINE_RESULT_COUNT`.

- Allow adding the connection service name to the psql prompt or access it via psql variable (Michael Banck) §

- Add psql option to use expanded mode on all list commands (Dean Rasheed) §

  Adding backslash suffix `x` enables this.

- Change psql's `\conninfo` to use tabular format and include more information (Álvaro Herrera, Maiquel Grassi, Hunaid Sohail) §

- Add function's leakproof indicator to psql's `\df+`, `\do+`, `\dAo+`, and `\dC+` outputs (Yugo Nagata) §

- Add access method details for partitioned relations in `\dP+` (Justin Pryzby) §

- Add `default_version` to the psql `\dx` extension output (Magnus Hagander) §

- Add psql variable `WATCH_INTERVAL` to set the default `\watch` wait time (Daniel Gustafsson) §

#### E.2.3.7. Server Applications #

- Change initdb to default to enabling checksums (Greg Sabino Mullane) § §

  The new initdb option `--no-data-checksums` disables checksums.

- Add initdb option `--no-sync-data-files` to avoid syncing heap/index files (Nathan Bossart) §

  initdb option `--no-sync` is still available to avoid syncing any files.

- Add vacuumdb option `--missing-stats-only` to compute only missing optimizer statistics (Corey Huinker, Nathan Bossart) § §

  This option can only be run by superusers and can only be used with options `--analyze-only` and `--analyze-in-stages`.

- Add pg_combinebackup option `-k`/`--link` to enable hard linking (Israel Barth Rubio, Robert Haas) §

  Only some files can be hard linked. This should not be used if the backups will be used independently.

- Allow pg_verifybackup to verify tar-format backups (Amul Sul) §

- If pg_rewind's `--source-server` specifies a database name, use it in `--write-recovery-conf` output (Masahiko Sawada) §

- Add pg_resetwal option `--char-signedness` to change the default `char` signedness (Masahiko Sawada) §

##### E.2.3.7.1. pg_dump/pg_dumpall/pg_restore #

- Add pg_dump option `--statistics` (Jeff Davis) § §

- Add pg_dump and pg_dumpall option `--sequence-data` to dump sequence data that would normally be excluded (Nathan Bossart) § §

- Add pg_dump, pg_dumpall, and pg_restore options `--statistics-only`, `--no-statistics`, `--no-data`, and `--no-schema` (Corey Huinker, Jeff Davis) §

- Add option `--no-policies` to disable row level security policy processing in pg_dump, pg_dumpall, pg_restore (Nikolay Samokhvalov) §

  This is useful for migrating to systems with different policies.

##### E.2.3.7.2. pg_upgrade #

- Allow pg_upgrade to preserve optimizer statistics (Corey Huinker, Jeff Davis, Nathan Bossart) § § § §

  Extended statistics are not preserved. Also add pg_upgrade option `--no-statistics` to disable statistics preservation.

- Allow pg_upgrade to process database checks in parallel (Nathan Bossart) § § § § § § § § § § §

  This is controlled by the existing `--jobs` option.

- Add pg_upgrade option `--swap` to swap directories rather than copy, clone, or link files (Nathan Bossart) §

  This mode is potentially the fastest.

- Add pg_upgrade option `--set-char-signedness` to set the default `char` signedness of new cluster (Masahiko Sawada) § §

  This is to handle cases where a pre-PostgreSQL 18 cluster's default CPU signedness does not match the new cluster.

##### E.2.3.7.3. Logical Replication Applications #

- Add pg_createsubscriber option `--all` to create logical replicas for all databases (Shubham Khanna) §

- Add pg_createsubscriber option `--clean` to remove publications (Shubham Khanna) § §

- Add pg_createsubscriber option `--enable-two-phase` to enable prepared transactions (Shubham Khanna) §

- Add pg_recvlogical option `--enable-failover` to specify failover slots (Hayato Kuroda) §

  Also add option `--enable-two-phase` as a synonym for `--two-phase`, and deprecate the latter.

- Allow pg_recvlogical `--drop-slot` to work without `--dbname` (Hayato Kuroda) §

#### E.2.3.8. Source Code #

- Separate the loading and running of injection points (Michael Paquier, Heikki Linnakangas) § §

  Injection points can now be created, but not run, via `INJECTION_POINT_LOAD()`, and such injection points can be run via `INJECTION_POINT_CACHED()`.

- Support runtime arguments in injection points (Michael Paquier) §

- Allow inline injection point test code with `IS_INJECTION_POINT_ATTACHED()` (Heikki Linnakangas) §

- Improve the performance of processing long `JSON` strings using SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) (David Rowley) §

- Speed up CRC32C calculations using x86 AVX-512 instructions (Raghuveer Devulapalli, Paul Amonson) §

- Add ARM Neon and SVE CPU intrinsics for popcount (integer bit counting) (Chiranmoy Bhattacharya, Devanga Susmitha, Rama Malladi) § §

- Improve the speed of numeric multiplication and division (Joel Jacobson, Dean Rasheed) § § § §

- Add configure option `--with-libnuma` to enable NUMA awareness (Jakub Wartak, Bertrand Drouvot) § § §

  The function `pg_numa_available()` reports on NUMA awareness, and system views `pg_shmem_allocations_numa` and `pg_buffercache_numa` which report on shared memory distribution across NUMA nodes.

- Add TOAST table to `pg_index` to allow for very large expression indexes (Nathan Bossart) §

- Remove column `pg_attribute`.`attcacheoff` (David Rowley) §

- Add column `pg_class`.`relallfrozen` (Melanie Plageman) §

- Add `amgettreeheight`, `amconsistentequality`, and `amconsistentordering` to the index access method API (Mark Dilger) § §

- Add GiST support function `stratnum()` (Paul A. Jungwirth) §

- Record the default CPU signedness of `char` in pg_controldata (Masahiko Sawada) §

- Add support for Python "Limited API" in PL/Python (Peter Eisentraut) § §

  This helps prevent problems caused by Python 3.x version mismatches.

- Change the minimum supported Python version to 3.6.8 (Jacob Champion) §

- Remove support for OpenSSL versions older than 1.1.1 (Daniel Gustafsson) § §

- If LLVM is enabled, require version 14 or later (Thomas Munro) §

- Add macro `PG_MODULE_MAGIC_EXT` to allow extensions to report their name and version (Andrei Lepikhov) §

  This information can be access via the new function `pg_get_loaded_modules()`.

- Document that `SPI_connect()`/`SPI_connect_ext()` always returns success (`SPI_OK_CONNECT`) (Stepan Neretin) §

  Errors are always reported via `ereport()`.

- Add documentation section about API and ABI compatibility (David Wheeler, Peter Eisentraut) §

- Remove the experimental designation of Meson builds on Windows (Aleksander Alekseev) §

- Remove configure options `--disable-spinlocks` and `--disable-atomics` (Thomas Munro) § §

  Thirty-two-bit atomic operations are now required.

- Remove support for the HPPA/PA-RISC architecture (Tom Lane) §

#### E.2.3.9. Additional Modules #

- Add extension pg_logicalinspect to inspect logical snapshots (Bertrand Drouvot) §

- Add extension pg_overexplain which adds debug details to `EXPLAIN` output (Robert Haas) §

- Add output columns to `postgres_fdw_get_connections()` (Hayato Kuroda, Sagar Dilip Shedge) § § § §

  New output column `used_in_xact` indicates if the foreign data wrapper is being used by a current transaction, `closed` indicates if it is closed, `user_name` indicates the user name, and `remote_backend_pid` indicates the remote backend process identifier.

- Allow SCRAM authentication from the client to be passed to postgres_fdw servers (Matheus Alcantara, Peter Eisentraut) §

  This avoids storing postgres_fdw authentication information in the database, and is enabled with the postgres_fdw `use_scram_passthrough` connection option. libpq uses new connection parameters scram_client_key and scram_server_key.

- Allow SCRAM authentication from the client to be passed to dblink servers (Matheus Alcantara) §

- Add `on_error` and `log_verbosity` options to file_fdw (Atsushi Torikoshi) §

  These control how file_fdw handles and reports invalid file rows.

- Add `reject_limit` to control the number of invalid rows file_fdw can ignore (Atsushi Torikoshi) §

  This is active when `ON_ERROR = 'ignore'`.

- Add configurable variable `min_password_length` to passwordcheck (Emanuele Musella, Maurizio Boriani) §

  This controls the minimum password length.

- Have pgbench report the number of failed, retried, or skipped transactions in per-script reports (Yugo Nagata) §

- Add isn server variable `weak` to control invalid check digit acceptance (Viktor Holmberg) §

  This was previously only controlled by function `isn_weak()`.

- Allow values to be sorted to speed btree_gist index builds (Bernd Helmle, Andrey Borodin) §

- Add amcheck check function `gin_index_check()` to verify `GIN` indexes (Grigory Kryachko, Heikki Linnakangas, Andrey Borodin) §

- Add functions `pg_buffercache_evict_relation()` and `pg_buffercache_evict_all()` to evict unpinned shared buffers (Nazir Bilal Yavuz) §

  The existing function `pg_buffercache_evict()` now returns the buffer flush status.

- Allow extensions to install custom EXPLAIN options (Robert Haas, Sami Imseih) § § §

- Allow extensions to use the server's cumulative statistics API (Michael Paquier) § §

##### E.2.3.9.1. pg_stat_statements #

- Allow the queries of CREATE TABLE AS and DECLARE to be tracked by pg_stat_statements (Anthonin Bonnefoy) §

  They are also now assigned query ids.

- Allow the parameterization of SET values in pg_stat_statements (Greg Sabino Mullane, Michael Paquier) §

  This reduces the bloat caused by `SET` statements with differing constants.

- Add `pg_stat_statements` columns to report parallel activity (Guillaume Lelarge) §

  The new columns are `parallel_workers_to_launch` and `parallel_workers_launched`.

- Add `pg_stat_statements`.`wal_buffers_full` to report full WAL buffers (Bertrand Drouvot) §

##### E.2.3.9.2. pgcrypto #

- Add pgcrypto algorithms `sha256crypt` and `sha512crypt` (Bernd Helmle) §

- Add CFB mode to pgcrypto encryption and decryption (Umar Hayat) §

- Add function `fips_mode()` to report the server's FIPS mode (Daniel Gustafsson) §

- Add pgcrypto server variable `builtin_crypto_enabled` to allow disabling builtin non-FIPS mode cryptographic functions (Daniel Gustafsson, Joe Conway) §

  This is useful for guaranteeing FIPS mode behavior.

### E.2.4. Acknowledgments #

The following individuals (in alphabetical order) have contributed to this release as patch authors, committers, reviewers, testers, or reporters of issues.

Abhishek Chanda
Adam Guo
Adam Rauch
Aidar Imamov
Ajin Cherian
Alastair Turner
Alec Cozens
Aleksander Alekseev
Alena Rybakina
Alex Friedman
Alex Richman
Alexander Alehin
Alexander Borisov
Alexander Korotkov
Alexander Kozhemyakin
Alexander Kukushkin
Alexander Kuzmenkov
Alexander Kuznetsov
Alexander Lakhin
Alexander Pyhalov
Alexandra Wang
Alexey Dvoichenkov
Alexey Makhmutov
Alexey Shishkin
Ali Akbar
Álvaro Herrera
Álvaro Mongil
Amit Kapila
Amit Langote
Amul Sul
Andreas Karlsson
Andreas Scherbaum
Andreas Ulbrich
Andrei Lepikhov
Andres Freund
Andrew
Andrew Bille
Andrew Dunstan
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Kane
Andrew Watkins
Andrey Borodin
Andrey Chudnovsky
Andrey Rachitskiy
Andrey Rudometov
Andy Alsup
Andy Fan
Anthonin Bonnefoy
Anthony Hsu
Anthony Leung
Anton Melnikov
Anton Voloshin
Antonin Houska
Antti Lampinen
Arseniy Mukhin
Artur Zakirov
Arun Thirupathi
Ashutosh Bapat
Asphator
Atsushi Torikoshi
Avi Weinberg
Aya Iwata
Ayush Tiwari
Ayush Vatsa
Bastien Roucariès
Ben Peachey Higdon
Benoit Lobréau
Bernd Helmle
Bernd Reiß
Bernhard Wiedemann
Bertrand Drouvot
Bertrand Mamasam
Bharath Rupireddy
Bogdan Grigorenko
Boyu Yang
Braulio Fdo Gonzalez
Bruce Momjian
Bykov Ivan
Cameron Vogt
Cary Huang
Cédric Villemain
Cees van Zeeland
ChangAo Chen
Chao Li
Chapman Flack
Charles Samborski
Chengwen Wu
Chengxi Sun
Chiranmoy Bhattacharya
Chris Gooch
Christian Charukiewicz
Christoph Berg
Christophe Courtois
Christopher Inokuchi
Clemens Ruck
Corey Huinker
Craig Milhiser
Crisp Lee
Dagfinn Ilmari Mannsåker
Daniel Elishakov
Daniel Gustafsson
Daniel Vérité
Daniel Westermann
Daniele Varrazzo
Daniil Davydov
Daria Shanina
Dave Cramer
Dave Page
David Benjamin
David Christensen
David Fiedler
David G. Johnston
David Geier
David Rowley
David Steele
David Wheeler
David Zhang
Davinder Singh
Dean Rasheed
Devanga Susmitha
Devrim Gündüz
Dian Fay
Dilip Kumar
Dimitrios Apostolou
Dipesh Dhameliya
Dmitrii Bondar
Dmitry Dolgov
Dmitry Koval
Dmitry Kovalenko
Dmitry Yurichev
Dominique Devienne
Donghang Lin
Dorjpalam Batbaatar
Drew Callahan
Duncan Sands
Dwayne Towell
Dzmitry Jachnik
Egor Chindyaskin
Egor Rogov
Emanuel Ionescu
Emanuele Musella
Emre Hasegeli
Eric Cyr
Erica Zhang
Erik Nordström
Erik Rijkers
Erik Wienhold
Erki Eessaar
Ethan Mertz
Etienne LAFARGE
Etsuro Fujita
Euler Taveira
Evan Si
Evgeniy Gorbanev
Fabio R. Sluzala
Fabrízio de Royes Mello
Feike Steenbergen
Feliphe Pozzer
Felix
Fire Emerald
Florents Tselai
Francesco Degrassi
Frank Streitzig
Frédéric Yhuel
Fredrik Widlert
Gabriele Bartolini
Gavin Panella
Geoff Winkless
George MacKerron
Gilles Darold
Grant Gryczan
Greg Burd
Greg Sabino Mullane
Greg Stark
Grigory Kryachko
Guillaume Lelarge
Gunnar Morling
Gunnar Wagner
Gurjeet Singh
Haifang Wang
Hajime Matsunaga
Hamid Akhtar
Hannu Krosing
Hari Krishna Sunder
Haruka Takatsuka
Hayato Kuroda
Heikki Linnakangas
Hironobu Suzuki
Holger Jakobs
Hubert Lubaczewski
Hugo Dubois
Hugo Zhang
Hunaid Sohail
Hywel Carver
Ian Barwick
Ibrar Ahmed
Igor Gnatyuk
Igor Korot
Ilia Evdokimov
Ilya Gladyshev
Ilyasov Ian
Imran Zaheer
Isaac Morland
Israel Barth Rubio
Ivan Kush
Jacob Brazeal
Jacob Champion
Jaime Casanova
Jakob Egger
Jakub Wartak
James Coleman
James Hunter
Jan Behrens
Japin Li
Jason Smith
Jayesh Dehankar
Jeevan Chalke
Jeff Davis
Jehan-Guillaume de Rorthais
Jelte Fennema-Nio
Jian He
Jianghua Yang
Jiao Shuntian
Jim Jones
Jim Nasby
Jingtang Zhang
Jingzhou Fu
Joe Conway
Joel Jacobson
John Hutchins
John Naylor
Jonathan Katz
Jorge Solórzano
José Villanova
Josef Šimánek
Joseph Koshakow
Julien Rouhaud
Junwang Zhao
Justin Pryzby
Kaido Vaikla
Kaimeh
Karina Litskevich
Karthik S
Kartyshov Ivan
Kashif Zeeshan
Keisuke Kuroda
Kevin Hale Boyes
Kevin K Biju
Kirill Reshke
Kirill Zdornyy
Koen De Groote
Koichi Suzuki
Koki Nakamura
Konstantin Knizhnik
Kouhei Sutou
Kuntal Ghosh
Kyotaro Horiguchi
Lakshmi Narayana Velayudam
Lars Kanis
Laurence Parry
Laurenz Albe
Lele Gaifax
Li Yong
Lilian Ontowhee
Lingbin Meng
Luboslav Špilák
Luca Vallisa
Lukas Fittl
Maciek Sakrejda
Magnus Hagander
Mahendra Singh Thalor
Mahendrakar Srinivasarao
Maiquel Grassi
Maksim Korotkov
Maksim Melnikov
Man Zeng
Marat Buharov
Marc Balmer
Marco Nenciarini
Marcos Pegoraro
Marina Polyakova
Mark Callaghan
Mark Dilger
Marlene Brandstaetter
Marlene Reiterer
Martin Rakhmanov
Masahiko Sawada
Masahiro Ikeda
Masao Fujii
Mason Mackaman
Mat Arye
Matheus Alcantara
Mats Kindahl
Matthew Gabeler-Lee
Matthew Kim
Matthew Sterrett
Matthew Woodcraft
Matthias van de Meent
Matthieu Denais
Maurizio Boriani
Max Johnson
Max Madden
Maxim Boguk
Maxim Orlov
Maximilian Chrzan
Melanie Plageman
Melih Mutlu
Mert Alev
Michael Banck
Michael Bondarenko
Michael Christofides
Michael Guissine
Michael Harris
Michaël Paquier
Michail Nikolaev
Michal Kleczek
Michel Pelletier
Mikaël Gourlaouen
Mikhail Gribkov
Mikhail Kot
Milosz Chmura
Muralikrishna Bandaru
Murat Efendioglu
Mutaamba Maasha
Naeem Akhter
Nat Makarevitch
Nathan Bossart
Navneet Kumar
Nazir Bilal Yavuz
Neil Conway
Niccolò Fei
Nick Davies
Nicolas Maus
Niek Brasa
Nikhil Raj
Nikita
Nikita Kalinin
Nikita Malakhov
Nikolay Samokhvalov
Nikolay Shaplov
Nisha Moond
Nitin Jadhav
Nitin Motiani
Noah Misch
Noboru Saito
Noriyoshi Shinoda
Ole Peder Brandtzæg
Oleg Sibiryakov
Oleg Tselebrovskiy
Olleg Samoylov
Onder Kalaci
Ondrej Navratil
Patrick Stählin
Paul Amonson
Paul Jungwirth
Paul Ramsey
Pavel Borisov
Pavel Luzanov
Pavel Nekrasov
Pavel Stehule
Peter Eisentraut
Peter Geoghegan
Peter Mittere
Peter Smith
Phil Eaton
Philipp Salvisberg
Philippe Beaudoin
Pierre Giraud
Pixian Shi
Polina Bungina
Przemyslaw Sztoch
Quynh Tran
Rafia Sabih
Raghuveer Devulapalli
Rahila Syed
Rama Malladi
Ran Benita
Ranier Vilela
Renan Alves Fonseca
Richard Guo
Richard Neill
Rintaro Ikeda
Robert Haas
Robert Treat
Robins Tharakan
Roman Zharkov
Ronald Cruz
Ronan Dunklau
Rui Zhao
Rushabh Lathia
Rustam Allakov
Ryo Kanbayashi
Ryohei Takahashi
RyotaK
Sagar Dilip Shedge
Salvatore Dipietro
Sam Gabrielsson
Sam James
Sameer Kumar
Sami Imseih
Samuel Thibault
Satyanarayana Narlapuram
Sebastian Skalacki
Senglee Choi
Sergei Kornilov
Sergey Belyashov
Sergey Dudoladov
Sergey Prokhorenko
Sergey Sargsyan
Sergey Soloviev
Sergey Tatarintsev
Shaik Mohammad Mujeeb
Shawn McCoy
Shenhao Wang
Shihao Zhong
Shinya Kato
Shlok Kyal
Shubham Khanna
Shveta Malik
Simon Riggs
Smolkin Grigory
Sofia Kopikova
Song Hongyu
Song Jinzhou
Soumyadeep Chakraborty
Sravan Kumar
Srinath Reddy
Stan Hu
Stepan Neretin
Stephen Fewer
Stephen Frost
Steve Chavez
Steven Niu
Suraj Kharage
Sven Klemm
Takamichi Osumi
Takeshi Ideriha
Tatsuo Ishii
Ted Yu
Tels
Tender Wang
Teodor Sigaev
Thom Brown
Thomas Baehler
Thomas Krennwallner
Thomas Munro
Tim Wood
Timur Magomedov
Tobias Wendorff
Todd Cook
Tofig Aliev
Tom Lane
Tomas Vondra
Tomasz Rybak
Tomasz Szypowski
Torsten Foertsch
Toshi Harada
Tristan Partin
Triveni N
Umar Hayat
Vallimaharajan G
Vasya Boytsov
Victor Yegorov
Vignesh C
Viktor Holmberg
Vinícius Abrahão
Vinod Sridharan
Virender Singla
Vitaly Davydov
Vladlen Popolitov
Vladyslav Nebozhyn
Walid Ibrahim
Webbo Han
Wenhui Qiu
Will Mortensen
Will Storey
Wolfgang Walther
Xin Zhang
Xing Guo
Xuneng Zhou
Yan Chengpen
Yang Lei
Yaroslav Saburov
Yaroslav Syrytsia
Yasir Hussain
Yasuo Honda
Yogesh Sharma
Yonghao Lee
Yoran Heling
Yu Liang
Yugo Nagata
Yuhang Qiu
Yuki Seino
Yura Sokolov
Yurii Rashkovskii
Yushi Ogiwara
Yusuke Sugie
Yuta Katsuragi
Yuto Sasaki
Yuuki Fujii
Yuya Watari
Zane Duffield
Zeyuan Hu
Zhang Mingli
Zhihong Yu
Zhijie Hou
Zsolt Parragi

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