RE: 4 billion record limit?

> Simply waiting for 64bit numbers is rather inelegant and also
> presumes usage
> parameters for the database... remember Bill Gates saying that he couldn't
> foresee any usage for more than 64MB of RAM?

I've heard this before and I just don't agree.  64MB ram, perhaps, but who
is going to need 64 * 2^32?  The magnitude of increase is fairly vast!

I probably need not mention that a 32 bit value can store up to
4,294,967,296 where a 64 bit number can store a number that is 4,294,967,296
times as big. If 32 bit wasn't enough to keep you happy for more than a few
years, a 64 bit oid really should be enough for anyone for long enough that
you won't be using the same software/hardware any more.

Similar to how a 32 bit unix time in seconds is only good for another ~40
years, but a 64 bit one will keep us going for billions of years.

I guess the real issue is rewriting the system so that the type of oid can
be chosen at compile time, so you can use whatever damn one you feel like.
I would also guess that the majority of systems out there using the latest
versions of postgres, already have compiler support for 64 bit integers.  So
when someone gets around to doing the necessary work, everything will be
nice.


- Andrew


P.S. IMHO if you can't afford to do a drop and reload once in a while,
Postgres isn't a good choice at the moment for your application.