Actually, I'm the opposite. I like having specific types for this. It
makes is abundantly clear and well defined by calling it something
other than an integer. Yes, at least in this case, it's an integer,
but that doesn't mean you should add it to other integers, like
Salary, or something. It seems like if you use a modifier to an
integer, all that becomes less clear. Plus, if Drizzle uses custom
types for this, it would make more sense if other people wanted to
make their own sequence types.
$0.02
Tim
On Feb 5, 2009, at 2:25 AM, Roy Lyseng wrote:
Hi,
I like the idea of having these data types being regular data types
(like Integer, Decimal, Byte string or whatever), and having certain
system-enforced properties (ie auto-increment and/or auto-identity).
Auto-increment would mean that the system assigns a number that is
guaranteed to be assigned increasing numbers, with or without gaps
(maybe controlled by a NOGAPS property?). Auto-increment would
probably also imply that the column is read-only (no UPDATE allowed).
Auto-identity guarantees uniqueness, but not necessarily increasing
order. This would be more useful for distributed engines where each
engine instance can assigns values from a dedicated range.
Thus, the integer type with auto-identity or auto-increment would
have the same type compatibility properties as any other integer.
You may also assign the desired precision for your application (e.g
decimal(15,0)).
Regards,
Roy
Arjen Lentz wrote:
Hi Jay
On 05/02/2009, at 12:31 PM, Jay Pipes wrote:
On a practical note, the naming of both "auto-increment" and
"sequence" is unfortunate, because it causes implicit
expectations on the behaviour. UNIQUE_ID or GENERATOR (thank
Jim!) would be clearer, it's just intended to provide a unique
ID, and nothing else.
And while in principle I can see how having it user-definable in
terms of logic can be useful, I don't think it's essential.
In SQL Server, it's called IDENTITY, which I think is a fine
name. So is generator and UNIQUE_ID. I agree with all that auto-
increments *implied* always-incrementing behaviour is not good.
IDENTITY sounds very good. Of course we'd need to look at how it
behaves for MSSQL, because if Drizzle's implementation is
particularly different, it could confuse with having the same name.
Might learn something too.
Cheers,
Arjen.
--Arjen Lentz, Director @ Open Query (http://openquery.com.au)
MySQL Training from $475/day, DBA/Support from $249/month
My blog is at http://arjen-lentz.livejournal.com
OurDelta: free enhanced builds for MySQL @ http://ourdelta.org
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