Re: uuid-ossp (Re: [pgsql-packagers] Postgresapp 9.4 beta build ready)

On 5/18/14, 12:28 AM, Tom Lane wrote:
> So, having seen that proof-of-concept, I'm wondering if we shouldn't make
> an effort to support contrib/uuid-ossp with a choice of UUID libraries
> underneath it.  There is a non-OSSP set of UUID library functions
> available on Linux ("libuuid" from util-linux-ng).  I don't know whether
> that's at all compatible with the BSD functions, but even if it's not,
> presumably a shim for it wouldn't be much larger than the BSD patch.

I was going to propose based on earlier discussion that we would stick a
deprecation notice on uuid-ossp and leave it at that.

Between pgcrypto and https://github.com/petere/pglibuuid, there are
other options available.  Writing wrapper functions for backward
compatibility is trivial for users.

> A bigger question is whether there are any user-visible functional
> incompatibilities introduced by depending on either of those libraries
> instead of OSSP uuid.  Some research would be needed.

You might need to make sure your random sources are set up
appropriately, and that might differ between libraries.  And libuuid
recommends the use of the uuidd daemon in some circumstances.  These are
arguments, in my mind, for not providing compatibility wrappers by
default, so that these issues don't get hidden.