Re: uuid type for postgres

Jonah H. Harris <jonah.harris@gmail.com>

From: "Jonah H. Harris" <jonah.harris@gmail.com>
To: nathan wagner <nw@hydaspes.if.org>
Cc: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Date: 2005-09-06T20:32:06Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers, pgsql-sql
The only time I've seen someone use UUIDs in PostgreSQL is when they were 
converting from SQL Server. I've seen many bad data models using UUID that 
could've/should've used normal sequences for portability.

I look forward to seeing you're code.

Thanks!


On 9/6/05, nathan wagner <nw@hydaspes.if.org> wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Sep 06, 2005 at 03:57:55PM -0400, jonah.harris@gmail.com wrote:
> > I agree with Josh on the UUID type, it gets abused far too often
> 
> Out of curiosity, how does it get abused? It doesn't seem to me
> that it would be any more prone to abuse than any other type.
> 
> > and (IMHO) isn't widely enough used to belong in the core.
> 
> Seems like a self-fulfilling cycle. There isn't one in core
> or contrib (pguuid is not in contrib, IIRC), and so one doesn't
> get used. Since no one uses one, it's not in core or contrib.
> 
> > Couldn't you just fix the
> > problem in pguuid rather than write a whole new type?
> 
> Not sure which you you're addressing here, but I can't fix the license
> problem. Nor can I readily fix the lack of a mac ioctl() to get
> the hardware mac address.
> 
> In any case, from an economy of effort view, I'd much rather maintain
> a postgres extension/interface to an existing uuid library, than fret
> the details of writing a uuid library myself. UUIDs themselves don't
> really interest me, I just happen to need one for my application.
> 
> I'm basically done. I'll tar it up and post a link to an alpha version in 
> a
> couple of hours. As far as i can tell, it works fine. I'm calling it alpha
> because i'm not doing proper error checking, and i'm not sure how to log 
> or
> throw an error even if i detect one. Also, I have only compiled it on
> Mac OS 10.3, I'll want to test it on my linux box.
> 
> --
> Nathan Wagner
> 
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