Re: Using a postgres table to maintain unique id?

At 11/13/2000 06:22 PM -0800, Michael Teter wrote:
> > Can someone show me how to create (and use) an int8
> > sequence?
>
> From what I can tell (both from docs and doing a
>describe on sequences in my database), a postgresql
>sequence is an int4, not an int8, and thus you are
>limited to a max of 2.1 billion values.
>
>If you require an int8 sequence, you'll probably have
>to manage your own and just use an int8 column.

I had originally started using int8 and creating custom
sequences. However, as mentioned in a previous post, there is an inherent
performance penalty in using int8 over int4. Tom Lane advised me that the
int8 routines are an emulated or synthesized data type. in the test I did
on our 7.0.2 server I notice about a 25-30% decrease in performance when
using complex joins on tables containing referential keys, primary keys all
in the int8 data type.

This might be something to think about as well.