Inherited tables and column references

In the following example:

create table parent (
    id         integer unique not null,
    name   varchar(24)
);

create table child (
    first_name   varchar(256),
    last_name   varchar(256)
) inherits (parent);

create table relations (
    id        integer references child (id)
);

Creating the relations table fails with:

    ERROR: there is no unique constraint maching given keys for
referenced table "child"

If I change the last table to:

create table relations (
    id        integer references parent (id)
);

it works.

This essentially means that references must point to the real table
where the referenced column is, and cannot point to that same column in
a table that inherits the real table.

is this by design, is it a bug, is it just not implemented yet, or am I
doing this wrong?


/s.