Re: OIDs - can they be used for accessing records ?

Derek Clarkson <dhc(at)bigpond(dot)net(dot)au> writes:
> I am currently designing a DB and was wondering whether the OIDs assigned to
> each record could also be used as foreign keys links ? is this a good idea
> instead of using sequences ? Pros ? Cons ?

It's usually considered a bad idea, mainly because there's no good way
to dump and reload the data (well, you can use pg_dump's -o switch,
but that's a kluge). Also you have little or no control over the
possibility of OID wraparound leading to key conflicts. Sequences are
a much cleaner solution.

Be careful to keep track of whether you're using int4 or int8 sequence
values, and declare the foreign key referencing columns to match. You
will take a nasty performance hit if they don't match.

regards, tom lane