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.