Re: Migrating from 32 to 64 bit

montaseri(at)gmail(dot)com ("Medi Montaseri") writes:
> But theoretically speaking, 32 or 64-bit ness of the application (ie the postmaster server) should not influence the data types offered by a particular DB
> version. That is the semantics of data types and cpu-arch (register width, big endian, little endian, sparc, mips, x86), etc ) offered by a particular DB
> version should be orthogonal.
> A practical example is when I first begin my business on a Mac, then I move the database to a Sun and then on to a mainframe....

That's well and fine, but the point is that when those (reasonably
generic!) data types get compiled into code for a particular platform,
with particular endianness and word size, how it is optimal to
represent them will vary based on the characteristics of the platform.

As a result, not only do you need different executable binaries each
platform, but you also need different binary database structures on
each platform.

A conceptually mitigating factor should be that by the time you get
around to changing platforms, there will likely be a Newer, Better,
Major PostgreSQL version available. So you should be considering
doing a migration from "old, slower, inferior version on the inferior
platform" to the "better, stronger, faster version on the superior
platform." With THAT context, the need to run initdb is further
"given."
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