Tag: why-upgrade

Configuration changes across Pg versions

Back in 2018 I wrote why-upgrade.depesz.com – aggregator of changelogs between various versions of Pg.

Want to know what you will get when upgrading from 12.1 to 12.9? Here you go. Longer time changes? Like, from 9.5.20 to 14.1? I've got your back.

It even has a way to list every change that relates to anything related to indexes.

Today I updated the code, again to show which GUCs (configuration parameters) have changed between given versions. For example, getting diff from 13.5 to 14.1 shows you that:

  • two parameters were removed, and are no longer there
  • there are 17 new parameters
  • three parameters had their default values changed

And each GUC that is listed is (well, is supposed to but in some cases it can't) linked to relevant part of docs that describe what it is.

To make it work I compiled every version of Pg, since 7.2 (there have been 410 of them!), and extracted list of config params, and their default values.

Then, I fetched docs for all major versions of Pg, and extracted list of documentation fragments that relate to each config parameter.

This will require more work on each subsequent release, but I think I can manage it.

Any way – hope you'll find it helpful.

Fixes on why-upgrade.depesz.com

In case you're not familiar with this site, why-upgrade.depesz.com shows you aggregated changelog between any two releases, with optionally searching for some keywords.

Yesterday azeem on irc pointed me towards a problem on why-upgrade.depesz.com. Specifically, when displaying changes from 9.5.24 to 13.1 site showed 30 security fixes. But in reality there should be only 10.

Continue reading Fixes on why-upgrade.depesz.com

why-upgrade updates

Recent change in layout of PG Docs broke my spider for why-upgrade.depesz.com.

Today got some time and decided to bite the bullet.

Fixed spider code, used it to get new changelog, and while I was at it, did couple of slight modifications of the site:

  • display count of all changes that are there in given upgrade path (in section header)
  • fixed a bug that caused empty Security fixes: box to display, even when there are no security fixes.
  • added metainfo page, which shows some stats about why-upgrade “database".

All in all, not big changes, but I hope you'll find it useful.

What is the benefit of upgrading PostgreSQL?

Couple of times, in various places, I was asked: what is the benefit from upgrading to some_version.

So far, I just read release docs, and compiled list of what has changed.

But this is not necessarily simple – consider upgrade from 9.3.2 to 10.2. That's a lot of changes.

So, to be able to answer these questions faster in future, I created a site: Why upgrade PostgreSQL?.

Usage should be simple – pick from which version you want to upgrade, to which version you want to upgrade, and press gives me… button.

Hope you'll find it useful.