Thread: Globally Unique IDs?
I am new to the mailing list, but not new to postgres. I did search through the mail-list archives, and didn't find an answer to this question. Oracle has a concept of a "globally unique ID" which can be gotten from their function call SYS_GUID(). Is there any plan to implement this (or something analogous) in a future version of Postgres? -- Keith Rose (ext. 2144)
You can get the same result I suppose if you just use the same sequence across all your tables.. Is Oracle doing anything more than that? You could even make a quick function to get the next value from a sequence and call it SYS_GUID() -- just an idea :-) Good luck! -Mitch Software development : You can have it cheap, fast or working. Choose two. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rose, Keith" <keithr@aiinet.com> To: "'PostgreSQL General'" <pgsql-general@postgresql.org> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2001 1:42 PM Subject: Globally Unique IDs? > I am new to the mailing list, but not new to postgres. I did search through > the mail-list archives, and didn't find an answer to this question. Oracle > has a concept of a "globally unique ID" which can be gotten from their > function call SYS_GUID(). Is there any plan to implement this (or something > analogous) in a future version of Postgres? > > -- > Keith Rose (ext. 2144) > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster >
At 01:42 PM 3/30/2001 -0500, you wrote: >I am new to the mailing list, but not new to postgres. I did search through >the mail-list archives, and didn't find an answer to this question. Oracle >has a concept of a "globally unique ID" which can be gotten from their >function call SYS_GUID(). Is there any plan to implement this (or something >analogous) in a future version of Postgres? I'm far from an expert with Postgresql, but I was just thinking the other day that you could probably use a single "sequence" in postgres for a number of tables to make sure id's are unique across multiple tables. If your not familiar with sequences, see here: http://www.postgresql.org/devel-corner/docs/user/datatype.html#DATATYPE-SERIAL
Well, that is what we are doing. I really haven't looked into Oracle's implementation. I actually _just_ got Oracle installed (along-side our postgres installation) to start playing with it. -----Original Message----- From: Mitch Vincent [mailto:mitch@venux.net] Sent: Friday, March 30, 2001 1:47 PM To: Rose, Keith; 'PostgreSQL General' Subject: Re: Globally Unique IDs? You can get the same result I suppose if you just use the same sequence across all your tables.. Is Oracle doing anything more than that? You could even make a quick function to get the next value from a sequence and call it SYS_GUID() -- just an idea :-) Good luck! -Mitch Software development : You can have it cheap, fast or working. Choose two. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rose, Keith" <keithr@aiinet.com> To: "'PostgreSQL General'" <pgsql-general@postgresql.org> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2001 1:42 PM Subject: Globally Unique IDs? > I am new to the mailing list, but not new to postgres. I did search through > the mail-list archives, and didn't find an answer to this question. Oracle > has a concept of a "globally unique ID" which can be gotten from their > function call SYS_GUID(). Is there any plan to implement this (or something > analogous) in a future version of Postgres? > > -- > Keith Rose (ext. 2144) > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster >
I believe Oracle's SYS_GUID will return an ID unique *throughout the world* on *all hosts*. Other software uses GUID's for thinks like COM identifiers. Typical output looks like: 351e1cc0-2540-11d5-a5cd-00036d15ee51 and is generated through some heuristics involving the current date, time, MAC address, etc. I don't know the specifics -- except that the ID generated will not be generated by anyone else anywhere. This would be a useful addition, IMHO. Mike Mascari mascarm@mascari.com -----Original Message----- From: Soma Interesting [SMTP:dfunct@telus.net] Sent: Friday, March 30, 2001 2:06 PM To: Rose, Keith; pgsql-general@postgresql.org Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Globally Unique IDs? At 01:42 PM 3/30/2001 -0500, you wrote: >I am new to the mailing list, but not new to postgres. I did search through >the mail-list archives, and didn't find an answer to this question. Oracle >has a concept of a "globally unique ID" which can be gotten from their >function call SYS_GUID(). Is there any plan to implement this (or something >analogous) in a future version of Postgres? I'm far from an expert with Postgresql, but I was just thinking the other day that you could probably use a single "sequence" in postgres for a number of tables to make sure id's are unique across multiple tables. If your not familiar with sequences, see here: http://www.postgresql.org/devel-corner/docs/user/datatype.html#DATATYPE- SERIAL ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/users-lounge/docs/faq.html
Mike Mascari <mascarm@mascari.com> writes: > I believe Oracle's SYS_GUID will return an ID unique *throughout the world* > on *all hosts*. Other software uses GUID's for thinks like COM identifiers. > Typical output looks like: > > 351e1cc0-2540-11d5-a5cd-00036d15ee51 > > and is generated through some heuristics involving the current date, time, > MAC address, etc. I don't know the specifics -- except that the ID > generated will not be generated by anyone else anywhere. This would be a > useful addition, IMHO. I can see this being useful but I'm not sure it should go into the core system--it could be an external function in the contrib/ section. We've gotten along without it so far... Oracle is a great system but it suffers from extreme bloat. Just MHO of course... -Doug