I second the desire for a UUID type in PostgreSQL! I'm aware of the
pguuid project, but it's not the same as having it in core and isn't
very well maintained.
This is such a common database paradigm that it seems reasonable to
promote it to first-class citizen status in PostgreSQL.
I currently use varchars for UUIDs, but the table size, index size,
integrity (validation), and performance would be better if PostgreSQL
supported UUIDs directly.
On Thu, 18 Jan 2007 10:31:26 -0700, "Patrick Earl" <patearl@patearl.net>
said:
> One issue is that UUIDs are only 16 bytes of data. To store the as
> text in canonical form requires 36 bytes. As there are alternate
> frequently used representations, you also run into potential issues
> with input. The GUID type (proposed by Gevik) handles those standard
> input variations.
>
> Though I haven't tried it, I would imagine there would be performance
> implications when using 36 character keys everywhere to do indexing,
> joins, etc.
>
> Another issue is that higher level languages (such as Delphi and .NET)
> have GUID field types built in. If the field is just a string field,
> it won't map nicely to those higher level types.
>
> Patrick
>
> On 1/17/07, Chad Wagner <chad.wagner@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 1/17/07, Patrick Earl <patearl@patearl.net> wrote:
> > > Certainly support for the GUID field type itself is most important.
> > > As for the generators, though they are non-essential, they are very
> > > useful. Other platforms and libraries have standardized on uuid
> > > generators, so I don't see why PostgreSQL can't.
> >
> > Maybe I am oblivious to the reason, but why is there a need for a special
> > data type for GUID/UUIDs? Wouldn't you always be doing an "equality"
> > anyways? Wouldn't a varchar suffice?
> >
> > --
> > Chad
> > http://www.postgresqlforums.com/
>
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