Ernest E Vogelsinger <ernest@vogelsinger.at> writes:
> Do you know if there's a general performance difference between numeric
> (int4) and character (fixed-size char[5]) columns? The ident1 and ident2
> columns are planned to be char[5], only the third column (with least
> precedence) will be numeric.
int4 is certainly faster to compare than char(n), but I wouldn't contort
your database design on that basis... if the idents aren't naturally
integers, don't force them to be.
regards, tom lane