Re: [GENERAL] Some questions about oid's and sequences.

> Howdy:
>
> I am coming from the Windows world, and Microsoft SQL variants in
> particular. Both Access and SQL Server have autoincrement data types --
> I understand that Postgresql has "sequences" which do the same thing,
> but I can't find any documentation on them. I have browsed all the
> online documentation that comes with Postgresql, and can't find anything
> about it. Could someone point me to some docs that would explain how to
> use sequences?
>

man create_sequence

> I have a similar question about oid's. I am not sure what they are --
> from their name, I would guess that they are autoassigned, unique
> identifiers for each row in a table.

Yes. oid stands for Object I.D. Remember postgress is documented in an
object oriented way. The tables definitions is called the "class" from which
the "objects" (records) are instantiated.

> Is that correct? If so (or even
> if not), how do I create and use them.

They are created automatically. To access them type:

select oid from blah;

> Any documentation that addresses
> oid usage specifically?

don't know. I kind of picked up the info from the list.

> I am confused because oid's seem to be to
> substitute for the BLOB data type which is available in other RDBMS's.

No they are not even close to the same thing.

Hope this helps...james