On Thu, 15 Jan 1998, Karl Denninger wrote:
> > > The last we discussed in pgsql-hackers was that OIDs would not be
> > > dropped...
> >
> > ..but would be optional.
> > Vadim
Phew, safed some code... :-)
> OIDs are a bastardization of the relational model. If you have to keep
> them, then do so, but their use should be SEVERELY discouraged.
Yes, shure, but Postgres (and many com. systems) isn't afull im-
plementation of the relational model. And sometimes i's very handy
to be able ti identify a specific record/tuple (i use them in front
end user interfaces. The interface stores the oid of the currently
displayed record--if the user changes/deletes the record it's easy
to do an update/delete. Even so it's possible to store the unique
index key this is much more elaborate to implement and is a pain
when the table definitions aren't hardcoded in the frontend
application). I don't see why oids per se violate the relational
model (and of course when some of my dbs started there was nothing
like 'unique key' in postgres and in some theunique key stretches
over several fields...(
Ralf
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Ralf Mattes
Joh.-Seb.- Bach Str. 13
D-79104 Freiburg i. Br.
email: Mattes@MHS.uni-freiburg.de / Ralf@slon.freinet.de
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