Re: Domain vs table

On Oct 20, 2009, at 6:55 AM, Merlin Moncure wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 11, 2009 at 11:31 AM, Michal Szymanski
> <mich20061(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>> I think I've found answer to my question
>> http://www.commandprompt.com/blogs/joshua_drake/2009/01/
>> fk_check_enum_or_domain_that_is_the_question/
>>
>
> I mostly agree with the comments on the blog but let me throw a couple
> more points out there:
>
> *) It is possible (although not necessarily advised) to manipulate
> enums via direct manipulation of pg_enum
> *) enums are the best solution if you need natural ordering properties
> for indexing purposes
> *) domains can't be used in arrays
> *) foreign key is obviously preferred if you need store more related
> properties than the value itself
> *) if the constraint is complicated (not just a list of values), maybe
> domain/check constraint is preferred, possibly hooked to immutable
> function

Also, if the base table will have a very large number of rows
(probably at least 10M), the overhead of a text datatype over a
smallint or int/oid gets to be very large.
--
Decibel!, aka Jim C. Nasby, Database Architect decibel(at)decibel(dot)org
Give your computer some brain candy! www.distributed.net Team #1828