Summer time! 🌞 For some, that's sunshine, beaches, lotion, all that fun stuff. Or, well, hiding inside near the air conditioner. It's hot! For QuestDB, it's another set of improvements. This release contains a bundle of smaller improvements, with new features laying down major groundwork. And - of course - the usual motion of performance improvements. Hot indeed. 🔥

Upgrade! Apply liberal amounts of sun screen!

Breaking Changes 💥

• QuestDB no longer supports FreeBSD. We test major browser versions on each release. That means everything we write needs to account for multiple OS paradigms. FreeBSD has very small market share, and more often than not we'd trip over edge cases. To speed things up, we've made the decision to drop support. This means FreeBSD is no longer tested during development.

• NFS is an unsupported file system. NFS has been unsupported for some time, but only warnings were presented to the user. QuestDB will now refuse to start if running on an NFS disk. We recommend using ZFS. For a full list of supported filesystems, check out the Capacity Planning documentation.

New Features 🐣

• JSON Support: The json_extract() function is our first step towards robust JSON support. This function leverages the wonderful simdjson library written by Daniel Lemire. Simply store documents in a VARCHAR column, and then use the function to extract JSON fields into values. There is some performance overhead versus our native format, so we recommend using it to as a way to test a schema before putting the data into native columns. Read more in the documentation.

• New financial SQL Functions: mid price function and spread function for financial calculations. Simple. But effective.

• Smarter Web Console: Vague errors aren't helpful. The Web Console will now help you to troubleshoot common database configuration problems, with clear visual indicators to help you identify and resolve issues.

• More parallel execution: Enhanced GROUP BY operations and parallel execution, particularly benefiting queries with aggregate functions such as avg() and sum().

• HTTP Basic Authentication: QuestDB Open Source now offers Basic Auth to protect its HTTP endpoints. See how to configure this here.

Performance 🚀

• JIT-optimized IN(numeric values) operator for faster query execution.

• Optimized aggregate queries with the LAST function on designated timestamps.

• Speed improvements for self-join queries on symbol columns and more efficient pattern lookups for short ASCII patterns.

Bug Fixes 🐛

• Fixes for various issues including VARCHAR column queries via sqlx::postgres, invalid column errors in GROUP BY with JOIN, and more.

• Improved error handling, such as preventing ugly error messages when the log directory does not exist and ensuring REST interface returns HTTP 408 on timeouts.

• Ensured consistent escaping of VARCHAR fields in CSV exports.

• Improved compatibility with InfluxDB clients and integrations, by supporting Basic Authentication.

Pull requests

• fix(pgwire): Fix for querying VARCHAR columns via sqlx::postgres in Rust by @mtopolnik in https://github.com/questdb/questdb/pull/4685
• fix(core): prevent ugly error message when log directory does not exist by @jerrinot in https://github.com/questdb/questdb/pull/4669
• fix(pgwire): fix for using vararg functions with bind variables in Go by @glasstiger in https://github.com/questdb/questdb/pull/4695
• perf(sql): JIT-optimise IN(numeric values) operator by @zebs97 in https://github.com/questdb/questdb/pull/4661
• feat(http): implement HTTP basic auth by @jerrinot in https://github.com/questdb/questdb/pull/4672
• fix(sql): fix invalid column error in group by with join by @puzpuzpuz in https://github.com/questdb/questdb/pull/4637
• perf(sql): optimise aggregate query with LAST function on designated timestamp by @siddharth0815 in https://github.com/questdb/questdb/pull/4676
• fix(http): ensure REST interface consistently returns HTTP 408 on timeouts by @jerrinot in https://github.com/questdb/questdb/pull/4711
• fix(core): fix insert default column order after column type change by @ideoma in https://github.com/questdb/questdb/pull/4699
• fix(http): missing varchar escaping quotes in CSV export by @puzpuzpuz in https://github.com/questdb/questdb/pull/4735
• perf(sql): optimize l2price with up to 5 argument pairs by @puzpuzpuz in https://github.com/questdb/questdb/pull/4728
• fix(sql): fix to_date function to accept varchar type by @ideoma in https://github.com/questdb/questdb/pull/4740
• feat(sql): add spread function for finance by @sklarsa in https://github.com/questdb/questdb/pull/4744
• fix(core): 💥 breaking change - enforce fail-fast on NFS by @jerrinot in https://github.com/questdb/questdb/pull/4742
• perf(sql): speed up self-join queries on symbol columns by @puzpuzpuz in https://github.com/questdb/questdb/pull/4720
• feat(sql): add mid price SQL function by @sklarsa in https://github.com/questdb/questdb/pull/4734
• feat(sql): add variant of timestamp_floor supporting an offset origin by @nwoolmer in https://github.com/questdb/questdb/pull/4692
• perf(sql): more efficient pattern lookup for short ASCII patterns by @puzpuzpuz in https://github.com/questdb/questdb/pull/4706
• feat(sql): new json_extract function to extract JSON fields from varchars by @amunra in https://github.com/questdb/questdb/pull/4633
• feat(sql): increase coverage of SQL queries that use vectorized execution plan by @bluestreak01 in https://github.com/questdb/questdb/pull/4690
• fix(ilp): client - avoid spuriously sending duplicate data by @mtopolnik in https://github.com/questdb/questdb/pull/4762
• feat(core): table suspension reason in wal_tables() and warnings endpoint by @glasstiger in https://github.com/questdb/questdb/pull/4607

New Contributors

• @zebs97 made their first contribution in https://github.com/questdb/questdb/pull/4661

Full Changelog: https://github.com/questdb/questdb/compare/8.0.1...8.0.3