GSoC 2017

Started by Alexander Korotkovover 9 years ago35 messageshackers
Jump to latest
#1Alexander Korotkov
aekorotkov@gmail.com

Hi all!

In 2016 PostgreSQL project didn't pass to GSoC program. In my
understanding the reasons for that are following.

1. We did last-minute submission of our application to GSoC.
2. In 2016 GSoC application form for mentoring organizations has been
changed. In particular, it required more detailed information about
possible project.

As result we didn't manage to make a good enough application that time.
Thus, our application was declined. See [1]/messages/by-id/CAA-aLv4p1jfuMpsRaY2jDUQqypkEXUxeb7z8Mp-0mW6M03St7A@mail.gmail.com and [2]/messages/by-id/CALxAEPuGpAjBSN-PTuxHfuLLqDS47BEbO_ZYxUYQR3ud1nwbww@mail.gmail.com for details.

I think that the right way to manage this in 2017 would be to start
collecting required information in advance. According to GSoC 2017
timeline [3]https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/timeline mentoring organization can submit their applications from
January 19 to February 9. Thus, now it's a good time to start collecting
project ideas and make call for mentors. Also, we need to decide who would
be our admin this year.

In sum, we have following questions:
1. What project ideas we have?
2. Who are going to be mentors this year?
3. Who is going to be project admin this year?

BTW, I'm ready to be mentor this year. I'm also open to be an admin if
needed.

[1]: /messages/by-id/CAA-aLv4p1jfuMpsRaY2jDUQqypkEXUxeb7z8Mp-0mW6M03St7A@mail.gmail.com
/messages/by-id/CAA-aLv4p1jfuMpsRaY2jDUQqypkEXUxeb7z8Mp-0mW6M03St7A@mail.gmail.com
[2]: /messages/by-id/CALxAEPuGpAjBSN-PTuxHfuLLqDS47BEbO_ZYxUYQR3ud1nwbww@mail.gmail.com
/messages/by-id/CALxAEPuGpAjBSN-PTuxHfuLLqDS47BEbO_ZYxUYQR3ud1nwbww@mail.gmail.com
[3]: https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/timeline

------
Alexander Korotkov
Postgres Professional: http://www.postgrespro.com
The Russian Postgres Company

#2Atri Sharma
atri.jiit@gmail.com
In reply to: Alexander Korotkov (#1)
Re: GSoC 2017

Count me in as a mentor

On 10-Jan-2017 3:24 PM, "Alexander Korotkov" <a.korotkov@postgrespro.ru>
wrote:

Show quoted text

Hi all!

In 2016 PostgreSQL project didn't pass to GSoC program. In my
understanding the reasons for that are following.

1. We did last-minute submission of our application to GSoC.
2. In 2016 GSoC application form for mentoring organizations has been
changed. In particular, it required more detailed information about
possible project.

As result we didn't manage to make a good enough application that time.
Thus, our application was declined. See [1] and [2] for details.

I think that the right way to manage this in 2017 would be to start
collecting required information in advance. According to GSoC 2017
timeline [3] mentoring organization can submit their applications from
January 19 to February 9. Thus, now it's a good time to start collecting
project ideas and make call for mentors. Also, we need to decide who would
be our admin this year.

In sum, we have following questions:
1. What project ideas we have?
2. Who are going to be mentors this year?
3. Who is going to be project admin this year?

BTW, I'm ready to be mentor this year. I'm also open to be an admin if
needed.

[1] /messages/by-id/CAA-
aLv4p1jfuMpsRaY2jDUQqypkEXUxeb7z8Mp-0mW6M03St7A%40mail.gmail.com
[2] /messages/by-id/CALxAEPuGpAjBSN-
PTuxHfuLLqDS47BEbO_ZYxUYQR3ud1nwbww%40mail.gmail.com
[3] https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/timeline

------
Alexander Korotkov
Postgres Professional: http://www.postgrespro.com
The Russian Postgres Company

#3Andrey Borodin
amborodin@acm.org
In reply to: Alexander Korotkov (#1)
Re: GSoC 2017

2017-01-10 14:53 GMT+05:00 Alexander Korotkov <a.korotkov@postgrespro.ru>:

1. What project ideas we have?

Hi!
I'd like to propose project on sorting algorithm research. I’m ready
to be a mentor on this project.

===Topic===
Sorting algorithms benchmark and implementation.

===Idea===
Currently the PostgreSQL uses Hoare’s Quicksort implementation based
on work of Bentley and McIlroy [1]Bentley, Jon L., and M. Douglas McIlroy. "Engineering a sort function." Software: Practice and Experience 23.11 (1993): 1249-1265. from 1993, while there exist some
more novel algorithms [2]Musser, David R. "Introspective sorting and selection algorithms." Softw., Pract. Exper. 27.8 (1997): 983-993., [3]Auger, Nicolas, Cyril Nicaud, and Carine Pivoteau. "Merge Strategies: from Merge Sort to TimSort." (2015)., and [4]Beniwal, Sonal, and Deepti Grover. "Comparison of various sorting algorithms: A review." International Journal of Emerging Research in Management &Technology 2 (2013). which are actively used by
highly optimized code like Java and .NET. Probably, use of optimized
sorting algorithm could yield general system performance improvement.
Also, use of non-comparison based algorithms deserves attention and
benchmarking [5]Mcllroy, Peter M., Keith Bostic, and M. Douglas Mcllroy. "Engineering radix sort." Computing systems 6.1 (1993): 5-27..

===Project details===
The project has four essential parts:
1. Implementation of benchmark for sorting. Making sure that
operations using sorting are represented proportionally to some
“average” use cases.
2. Selection of benchmark algorithms. Selection can be based,
for example, on scientific papers or community opinions.
3. Benchmark implementation of selected algorithms. Analysis of
results, picking of winner.
4. Industrial implementation for pg_qsort(), pg_qsort_args() and
gen_qsort_tuple.pl. Implemented patch is submitted to commitfest,
other patch is reviewed by the student.

[1]: Bentley, Jon L., and M. Douglas McIlroy. "Engineering a sort function." Software: Practice and Experience 23.11 (1993): 1249-1265.
function." Software: Practice and Experience 23.11 (1993): 1249-1265.
[2]: Musser, David R. "Introspective sorting and selection algorithms." Softw., Pract. Exper. 27.8 (1997): 983-993.
Softw., Pract. Exper. 27.8 (1997): 983-993.
[3]: Auger, Nicolas, Cyril Nicaud, and Carine Pivoteau. "Merge Strategies: from Merge Sort to TimSort." (2015).
Strategies: from Merge Sort to TimSort." (2015).
[4]: Beniwal, Sonal, and Deepti Grover. "Comparison of various sorting algorithms: A review." International Journal of Emerging Research in Management &Technology 2 (2013).
algorithms: A review." International Journal of Emerging Research in
Management &Technology 2 (2013).
[5]: Mcllroy, Peter M., Keith Bostic, and M. Douglas Mcllroy. "Engineering radix sort." Computing systems 6.1 (1993): 5-27.
"Engineering radix sort." Computing systems 6.1 (1993): 5-27.

Best regards, Andrey Borodin.

--
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers

#4Andrey Borodin
amborodin@acm.org
In reply to: Alexander Korotkov (#1)
Re: GSoC 2017

2017-01-10 14:53 GMT+05:00 Alexander Korotkov <a.korotkov@postgrespro.ru>:

1. What project ideas we have?

I have one more project of interest which I can mentor.

Topic. GiST API advancement

===Idea===
GiST API was designed at the beginning of 90th to reduce boilerplate
code around data access methods over balanced tree. Now, after 30
years, there are some ideas on improving this API.

===Project details===
Opclass developer must specify 4 core operations to make a type GiST-indexable:
1. Split: a function to split set of datatype instances into two parts.
2. Penalty calculation: a function to measure penalty for unification
of two keys.
3. Collision check: a function which determines whether two keys may
have overlap or are not intersecting.
4. Unification: a function to combine two keys into one so that
combined key collides with both input keys.

Functions 2 and 3 can be improved.
For example, Revised R*-tree[1]Beckmann, Norbert, and Bernhard Seeger. "A revised r*-tree in comparison with related index structures." Proceedings of the 2009 ACM SIGMOD International Conference on Management of data. ACM, 2009. algorithm of insertion cannot be
expressed in terms of penalty-based algorithms. There was some
attempts to bring parts of RR*-tree insertion, but they come down to
ugly hacks [2]/messages/by-id/CAJEAwVFMo-FXaJ6Lkj8Wtb1br0MtBY48EGMVEJBOodROEGykKg@mail.gmail.com. Current GiST API, due to penalty-based insertion
algorithm, does not allow to implement important feature of RR*-tree:
overlap optimization. As Norbert Beckman, author of RR*-tree, put it
in discussion: “Overlap optimization is one of the main elements, if
not the main query performance tuning element of the RR*-tree. You
would fall back to old R-Tree times if that would be left off.”

Collision check currently returns binary result:
1. Query may be collides with subtree MBR
2. Query do not collides with subtree
This result may be augmented with a third state: subtree is totally
within query. In this case GiST scan can scan down subtree without key
checks.

Potential effect of these improvements must be benchmarked. Probably,
implementation of these two will spawn more ideas on GiST performance
improvements.

Finally, GiST do not provide API for bulk loading. Alexander Korotkov
during GSoC 2011 implemented buffered GiST build. This index
construction is faster, but yields the index tree with virtually same
querying performance. There are different algorithms aiming to provide
better indexing tree due to some knowledge of data, e.g. [3]Achakeev, Daniar, Bernhard Seeger, and Peter Widmayer. "Sort-based query-adaptive loading of r-trees." Proceedings of the 21st ACM international conference on Information and knowledge management. ACM, 2012.

[1]: Beckmann, Norbert, and Bernhard Seeger. "A revised r*-tree in comparison with related index structures." Proceedings of the 2009 ACM SIGMOD International Conference on Management of data. ACM, 2009.
comparison with related index structures." Proceedings of the 2009 ACM
SIGMOD International Conference on Management of data. ACM, 2009.
[2]: /messages/by-id/CAJEAwVFMo-FXaJ6Lkj8Wtb1br0MtBY48EGMVEJBOodROEGykKg@mail.gmail.com
[3]: Achakeev, Daniar, Bernhard Seeger, and Peter Widmayer. "Sort-based query-adaptive loading of r-trees." Proceedings of the 21st ACM international conference on Information and knowledge management. ACM, 2012.
query-adaptive loading of r-trees." Proceedings of the 21st ACM
international conference on Information and knowledge management. ACM,
2012.

Best regards, Andrey Borodin.

--
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers

#5Jim Nasby
Jim.Nasby@BlueTreble.com
In reply to: Alexander Korotkov (#1)
Re: GSoC 2017

On 1/10/17 1:53 AM, Alexander Korotkov wrote:

1. What project ideas we have?

Perhaps allowing SQL-only extensions without requiring filesystem files
would be a good project.
--
Jim Nasby, Data Architect, Blue Treble Consulting, Austin TX
Experts in Analytics, Data Architecture and PostgreSQL
Data in Trouble? Get it in Treble! http://BlueTreble.com
855-TREBLE2 (855-873-2532)

--
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers

#6Pavel Stehule
pavel.stehule@gmail.com
In reply to: Jim Nasby (#5)
Re: GSoC 2017

2017-01-12 21:21 GMT+01:00 Jim Nasby <Jim.Nasby@bluetreble.com>:

On 1/10/17 1:53 AM, Alexander Korotkov wrote:

1. What project ideas we have?

Perhaps allowing SQL-only extensions without requiring filesystem files
would be a good project.

Implementation safe evaluation untrusted PL functions - evaluation under
different user under different process.

Regards

Pavel

Show quoted text

--
Jim Nasby, Data Architect, Blue Treble Consulting, Austin TX
Experts in Analytics, Data Architecture and PostgreSQL
Data in Trouble? Get it in Treble! http://BlueTreble.com
855-TREBLE2 (855-873-2532)

--
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers

In reply to: Pavel Stehule (#6)
Re: GSoC 2017

A new data type, and/or a new index type could both be nicely scoped bits
of work.

On Thu, Jan 12, 2017 at 12:27 PM, Pavel Stehule <pavel.stehule@gmail.com>
wrote:

2017-01-12 21:21 GMT+01:00 Jim Nasby <Jim.Nasby@bluetreble.com>:

On 1/10/17 1:53 AM, Alexander Korotkov wrote:

1. What project ideas we have?

Perhaps allowing SQL-only extensions without requiring filesystem files
would be a good project.

Implementation safe evaluation untrusted PL functions - evaluation under
different user under different process.

Regards

Pavel

--
Jim Nasby, Data Architect, Blue Treble Consulting, Austin TX
Experts in Analytics, Data Architecture and PostgreSQL
Data in Trouble? Get it in Treble! http://BlueTreble.com
855-TREBLE2 (855-873-2532)

--
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers

--
Peter van Hardenberg
San Francisco, California
"Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt."—Kurt Vonnegut

#8Alvaro Herrera
alvherre@2ndquadrant.com
In reply to: Jim Nasby (#5)
Re: GSoC 2017

Jim Nasby wrote:

On 1/10/17 1:53 AM, Alexander Korotkov wrote:

1. What project ideas we have?

Perhaps allowing SQL-only extensions without requiring filesystem files
would be a good project.

Don't we already have that in patch form? Dimitri submitted it as I
recall.

--
�lvaro Herrera https://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Remote DBA, Training & Services

--
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers

#9Jim Nasby
Jim.Nasby@BlueTreble.com
In reply to: Alvaro Herrera (#8)
Re: GSoC 2017

On 1/13/17 4:08 PM, Alvaro Herrera wrote:

Jim Nasby wrote:

On 1/10/17 1:53 AM, Alexander Korotkov wrote:

1. What project ideas we have?

Perhaps allowing SQL-only extensions without requiring filesystem files
would be a good project.

Don't we already have that in patch form? Dimitri submitted it as I
recall.

My recollection is that he tried to boil the ocean and also support
handing compiled C libraries to the database, which was enough to sink
the patch. It might be nice to support that if we could, and maybe it
could be a follow-on project.

I do think complete lack of support for non-FS extensions is *seriously*
hurting use of the feature thanks to environments like RDS and heroku.
As Pavel mentioned, untrusted languages are in a similar boat. So maybe
the best way to address these things is to advertise them as "increase
usability in cloud environments" since cloud excites people.
--
Jim Nasby, Data Architect, Blue Treble Consulting, Austin TX
Experts in Analytics, Data Architecture and PostgreSQL
Data in Trouble? Get it in Treble! http://BlueTreble.com
855-TREBLE2 (855-873-2532)

--
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers

#10Jim Nasby
Jim.Nasby@BlueTreble.com
In reply to: Peter van Hardenberg (#7)
Re: GSoC 2017

On 1/13/17 3:09 PM, Peter van Hardenberg wrote:

A new data type, and/or a new index type could both be nicely scoped
bits of work.

Did you have any particular data/index types in mind?

Personally I'd love something that worked like a python dictionary, but
I'm not sure how that'd work without essentially supporting a variant
data type. I've got code for a variant type[1], and I don't think
there's any holes in it, but the casting semantics are rather ugly. IIRC
that problem appeared to be solvable if there was a hook in the current
casting code right before Postgres threw in the towel and said a cast
was impossible.

1: https://github.com/BlueTreble/variant/
--
Jim Nasby, Data Architect, Blue Treble Consulting, Austin TX
Experts in Analytics, Data Architecture and PostgreSQL
Data in Trouble? Get it in Treble! http://BlueTreble.com
855-TREBLE2 (855-873-2532)

--
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers

#11Anastasia Lubennikova
a.lubennikova@postgrespro.ru
In reply to: Alexander Korotkov (#1)
Re: GSoC 2017

I'm ready to be a mentor.

10.01.2017 12:53, Alexander Korotkov:

Hi all!

In 2016 PostgreSQL project didn't pass to GSoC program. In my
understanding the reasons for that are following.

1. We did last-minute submission of our application to GSoC.
2. In 2016 GSoC application form for mentoring organizations has been
changed. In particular, it required more detailed information about
possible project.

As result we didn't manage to make a good enough application that
time. Thus, our application was declined. See [1] and [2] for details.

I think that the right way to manage this in 2017 would be to start
collecting required information in advance. According to GSoC 2017
timeline [3] mentoring organization can submit their applications from
January 19 to February 9. Thus, now it's a good time to start
collecting project ideas and make call for mentors. Also, we need to
decide who would be our admin this year.

In sum, we have following questions:
1. What project ideas we have?
2. Who are going to be mentors this year?
3. Who is going to be project admin this year?

BTW, I'm ready to be mentor this year. I'm also open to be an admin
if needed.

[1]
/messages/by-id/CAA-aLv4p1jfuMpsRaY2jDUQqypkEXUxeb7z8Mp-0mW6M03St7A@mail.gmail.com
[2]
/messages/by-id/CALxAEPuGpAjBSN-PTuxHfuLLqDS47BEbO_ZYxUYQR3ud1nwbww@mail.gmail.com
[3] https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/timeline

------
Alexander Korotkov
Postgres Professional: http://www.postgrespro.com
The Russian Postgres Company

--
Anastasia Lubennikova
Postgres Professional: http://www.postgrespro.com
The Russian Postgres Company

#12Stephen Frost
sfrost@snowman.net
In reply to: Alexander Korotkov (#1)
Re: GSoC 2017

All,

* Alexander Korotkov (a.korotkov@postgrespro.ru) wrote:

Also, we need to decide who would
be our admin this year.

I don't see anyone jumping at the bit to be the admin (it's not exactly
a fun and exciting job, after all), so, unless someone really wants it
(or someone wishs to object), I volunteer as tribute to be the admin
this year.

As such, we need to get this whole thing moving, and pretty quickly, as
Alexander noted.

The first thing we need is an "Ideas" page which includes:

- Brief descriptions of projects that can be completed in about 12 weeks.
- For each project, a list of prerequisites, description of programming
skills needed and estimation of difficulty level.
- A list of potential mentors.

The GSoC 2016 page was a start on this. I copied that page and updated
it to be a somewhat clearer format, but it could probably use more work.

Here's what google says about the ideas page:

----------
The best pages include links to more detailed descriptions and related
materials for each project. They might even include actual use cases!

Keep in mind that this page is often the first view of your organization
by Google and potential student applicants. A link to your bug tracker
does not an Ideas Page make. Put your best foot forward. In addition to
a basic list, you might also consider providing links to relevant
resources for mentors and students, particular FAQ entries, the
timeline, etc. You might include a section on communication, giving
specific advice on which mailing lists, channels and emails to use and
how to use them. If your organization puts together an application
template for students, you should include that on your page as well.
Think of your Ideas Page as the GSoC portal to your organization.
----------

Would be great for folks to review what's there, maybe provide actual
use-cases for the existing project suggestions, verify that the projects
listed are still valid and appropriate at this point, and, please:

ADD YOUR PROJECTS.

https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/GSoC_2017

More information about what the project definition should look like is
included here:

http://write.flossmanuals.net/gsoc-mentoring/defining-a-project/

Before submitting it to Google, I'm going to either expand or nuke
everything under the 'core' section, so if there's something that that
you are really interested in, expand it out so we can have it properly
included in our application to Google.

Also, Google has said that they actually *like* "Umbrella" projects. As
such, I believe we should encourage projects which are closely related
to PostgreSQL to submit projects for consideration. I don't think "just
uses PostgreSQL" would be reasonable, but I do think something like "Add
feature XYZ to the pgconf.eu code base to help PostgreSQL-based
organizations and community conferences" would be.

Let's make this year's PostgreSQL GSoC awesome!

Thanks!

Stephen

In reply to: Jim Nasby (#10)
Re: GSoC 2017

A new currency type would be nice, and if kept small in scope, might be
manageable. Bringing Christoph Berg's PostgreSQL-units into core and
extending it could be interesting. Peter E's URL and email types might be
good candidates. What else? Informix Datablades had a media type way back
in the day... That's still a gap in community Postgres.

On Mon, Jan 16, 2017 at 6:43 PM, Jim Nasby <Jim.Nasby@bluetreble.com> wrote:

On 1/13/17 3:09 PM, Peter van Hardenberg wrote:

A new data type, and/or a new index type could both be nicely scoped
bits of work.

Did you have any particular data/index types in mind?

Personally I'd love something that worked like a python dictionary, but
I'm not sure how that'd work without essentially supporting a variant data
type. I've got code for a variant type[1], and I don't think there's any
holes in it, but the casting semantics are rather ugly. IIRC that problem
appeared to be solvable if there was a hook in the current casting code
right before Postgres threw in the towel and said a cast was impossible.

1: https://github.com/BlueTreble/variant/

--
Jim Nasby, Data Architect, Blue Treble Consulting, Austin TX
Experts in Analytics, Data Architecture and PostgreSQL
Data in Trouble? Get it in Treble! http://BlueTreble.com
855-TREBLE2 (855-873-2532)

--
Peter van Hardenberg
San Francisco, California
"Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt."—Kurt Vonnegut

#14Jim Nasby
Jim.Nasby@BlueTreble.com
In reply to: Peter van Hardenberg (#13)
Re: GSoC 2017

On 1/23/17 3:45 PM, Peter van Hardenberg wrote:

A new currency type would be nice, and if kept small in scope, might be
manageable.

I'd be rather nervous about this. My impression of community consensus
on this is a currency type that doesn't somehow support conversion
between different currencies is pretty useless, and supporting
conversions opens a 55 gallon drum of worms. I could certainly be
mistaken in my impression, but I think there'd need to be some kind of
consensus on what a currency type should do before putting that up for GSoC.

But, speaking of types, I wish we had a timestamp type that stored what
the original timezone was, as well as the relevant TZDATA entry that was
in place for that timestamp when it was created. Since it'd be
completely impractical to store TZDATA as part of the dataum, there
would need to be an immutable catalog table that stored the contents of
TZDATA any time it changed, as well as a fast way to find the surrogate
key for the current TZDATA.
--
Jim Nasby, Data Architect, Blue Treble Consulting, Austin TX
Experts in Analytics, Data Architecture and PostgreSQL
Data in Trouble? Get it in Treble! http://BlueTreble.com
855-TREBLE2 (855-873-2532)

--
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers

In reply to: Jim Nasby (#14)
Re: GSoC 2017

On Mon, Jan 23, 2017 at 4:12 PM, Jim Nasby <Jim.Nasby@bluetreble.com> wrote:

On 1/23/17 3:45 PM, Peter van Hardenberg wrote:

A new currency type would be nice, and if kept small in scope, might be
manageable.

I'd be rather nervous about this. My impression of community consensus on
this is a currency type that doesn't somehow support conversion between
different currencies is pretty useless, and supporting conversions opens a
55 gallon drum of worms. I could certainly be mistaken in my impression,
but I think there'd need to be some kind of consensus on what a currency
type should do before putting that up for GSoC.

There's a relatively simple solution to the currency conversion problem
which avoids running afoul of the various mistakes some previous
implementations have made. Track currencies separately and always ask for a
conversion chart at operation time.

Let the user specify the values they want at conversion time. That looks
like this:

=> select '1 CAD'::currency + '1 USD'::currency + '1 CHF'::currency
'1.00CAD 1.00USD 1.00CHF'

=> select convert('10.00CAD'::new_currency, ('USD, '1.25', 'CHF',
'1.50')::array, 'USD')
12.50USD

The basic concept is that the value of a currency type is that it would
allow you to operate in multiple currencies without accidentally adding
them. You'd flatten them to a single type if when and how you wanted for
any given operation but could work without fear of losing information.

I have no opinion about the most pleasing notation for the currency
conversion chart, but I imagine it would be reasonable to let users provide
a default set of conversion values somewhere.

There are interesting and worthwhile conversations to have about
non-decimal currencies, but I think it would be totally reasonable not to
support them at all in a first release. As for currency precision, I would
probably consider leaning on numeric under the hood for the actual currency
values themselves but IANAA (though I have done quite a lot of work on
billing systems).

If it would be helpful, I could provide a detailed proposal on the wiki for
others to critique?

-
Peter van Hardenberg
San Francisco, California
"Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt."—Kurt Vonnegut

#16Bruce Momjian
bruce@momjian.us
In reply to: Peter van Hardenberg (#15)
Re: GSoC 2017

On 24 January 2017 at 03:42, Peter van Hardenberg <pvh@pvh.ca> wrote:

The basic concept is that the value of a currency type is that it would
allow you to operate in multiple currencies without accidentally adding
them. You'd flatten them to a single type if when and how you wanted for any
given operation but could work without fear of losing information.

I don't think this even needs to be tied to currencies. I've often
thought this would be generally useful for any value with units. This
would prevent you from accidentally adding miles to kilometers or
hours to parsecs which is just as valid as preventing you from adding
CAD to USD.

Then you could imagine having a few entirely optional helper functions
that could automatically provide conversion factors using units.dat or
currency exchange rates. But even if you don't use these helper
functions they would still be useful.

--
greg

--
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers

#17Tom Lane
tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us
In reply to: Bruce Momjian (#16)
Re: GSoC 2017

Greg Stark <stark@mit.edu> writes:

On 24 January 2017 at 03:42, Peter van Hardenberg <pvh@pvh.ca> wrote:

The basic concept is that the value of a currency type is that it would
allow you to operate in multiple currencies without accidentally adding
them. You'd flatten them to a single type if when and how you wanted for any
given operation but could work without fear of losing information.

I don't think this even needs to be tied to currencies. I've often
thought this would be generally useful for any value with units.

There already is an extension somewhere for attaching units to numeric
values, which would be a place to start from for this purpose. The
things I think are unique to the currency situation are:

* Time-varying conversion ratios.

* Conventional number of decimal places for any given currency.

* Idiosyncratic I/O formats (symbol to left or right of number,
odd rules for negatives, etc). I think the space here is covered
by the POSIX currency locale rules.

regards, tom lane

--
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers

#18Brad DeJong
Brad.Dejong@infor.com
In reply to: Tom Lane (#17)
Re: GSoC 2017

On January 27, 2017 07:08, Tom Lane wrote:

... The things I think are unique to the currency situation are: ...

Add the potential for regulatory requirements to change at any time - sort of like timezone information. So no hard coded behavior.
rounding method/accuracy
storage precision different than display precision
conversion method (multiply, divide, triangulate, other)
use of spot rates (multiple rate sources) rather than/in addition to time-varying rates

responding to the overall idea of a currency type

Numeric values with units so that you get a warning/error when you mix different units in calculations? Ability to specify rounding methods and intermediate precisions for calculations?
+1 Good ideas with lots of potential applications.

Built-in currency type?
-1 I suspect this is one of those things that seems like a good idea but really isn't.

--
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers

#19Thomas Kellerer
spam_eater@gmx.net
In reply to: Bruce Momjian (#16)
Re: GSoC 2017

Greg Stark wrote

I don't think this even needs to be tied to currencies. I've often
thought this would be generally useful for any value with units. This
would prevent you from accidentally adding miles to kilometers or
hours to parsecs which is just as valid as preventing you from adding
CAD to USD.

There is already such a concept - not tied to currencies or units in
general. The SQL standard calls it DISTINCT types. And it can prevent
comparing apples to oranges.

I don't have the exact syntax at hand, but it's something like this:

create distinct type customer_id_type as integer;
create distinct type order_id_type as integer;

create table customers (id customer_id_type primary key);
create table orders (id order_id_type primary key, customer_id
customer_id_type not null);

And because those columns are defined with different types, the database
will refuse to compare customers.id with orders.id (just like it would
refuse to compare an integer with a date).

So an accidental join like this:

select *
from orders o
join customers c using (id);

would throw an error because the data types of the IDs can not be compared.

--
View this message in context: http://postgresql.nabble.com/GSoC-2017-tp5938331p5941383.html
Sent from the PostgreSQL - hackers mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

--
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers

#20Jim Nasby
Jim.Nasby@BlueTreble.com
In reply to: Brad DeJong (#18)
Re: GSoC 2017

On 1/27/17 8:17 AM, Brad DeJong wrote:

Add the potential for regulatory requirements to change at any time - sort of like timezone information. So no hard coded behavior.

Well, I wish we had support for storing those changing requirements as
well. If we had that it would greatly simplify having a timestamp type
that stores the original timezone.

BTW, time itself fits in the multi-unit pattern, since months don't have
a fixed conversion to days (and technically seconds don't have a fixed
conversion to anything thanks to leap seconds).
--
Jim Nasby, Data Architect, Blue Treble Consulting, Austin TX
Experts in Analytics, Data Architecture and PostgreSQL
Data in Trouble? Get it in Treble! http://BlueTreble.com
855-TREBLE2 (855-873-2532)

--
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers

In reply to: Jim Nasby (#20)
#22Bruce Momjian
bruce@momjian.us
In reply to: Thomas Kellerer (#19)
#23Ruben Buchatskiy
ruben@ispras.ru
In reply to: Alexander Korotkov (#1)
#24Amit Langote
Langote_Amit_f8@lab.ntt.co.jp
In reply to: Ruben Buchatskiy (#23)
#25Stephen Frost
sfrost@snowman.net
In reply to: Amit Langote (#24)
#26Stephen Frost
sfrost@snowman.net
In reply to: Stephen Frost (#25)
#27Stephen Frost
sfrost@snowman.net
In reply to: Ruben Buchatskiy (#23)
#28Robert Haas
robertmhaas@gmail.com
In reply to: Ruben Buchatskiy (#23)
#29Pavel Stehule
pavel.stehule@gmail.com
In reply to: Robert Haas (#28)
#30Dmitry Melnik
dm@ispras.ru
In reply to: Robert Haas (#28)
#31Alexander Korotkov
aekorotkov@gmail.com
In reply to: Stephen Frost (#26)
#32Thomas Munro
thomas.munro@gmail.com
In reply to: Alexander Korotkov (#31)
#33Jim Nasby
Jim.Nasby@BlueTreble.com
In reply to: Thomas Munro (#32)
#34Robert Haas
robertmhaas@gmail.com
In reply to: Jim Nasby (#33)
#35Tom Lane
tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us
In reply to: Robert Haas (#34)