Re: BUG #3965: UNIQUE constraint fails on long column values

From: Gregory Stark <stark(at)enterprisedb(dot)com>
To: "Heikki Linnakangas" <heikki(at)enterprisedb(dot)com>
Cc: "Juho Saarikko" <juhos(at)mbnet(dot)fi>, <pgsql-bugs(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: BUG #3965: UNIQUE constraint fails on long column values
Date: 2008-02-20 11:51:47
Message-ID: 87tzk3x2uk.fsf@oxford.xeocode.com
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"Heikki Linnakangas" <heikki(at)enterprisedb(dot)com> writes:

"Heikki Linnakangas" <heikki(at)enterprisedb(dot)com> writes:

> Gregory Stark wrote:
>> "Heikki Linnakangas" <heikki(at)enterprisedb(dot)com> writes:
>>
>>> As others have pointed out, CREATE UNIQUE INDEX i ON ((md5(column)) is a pretty
>>> good work-around.
>>
>> Unless you need cryptographic security I would not suggest using MD5. MD5 is
>> intentionally designed to take a substantial amount of CPU resources to
>> calculate.
>
> Return type of hash* functions is just 32 bits. I wonder if that's wide enough
> to avoid accidental collisions? Depends on the application of course...

Oh, I missed that you were suggesting a UNIQUE index. That seems unsafe to me
even for md5 or its ilk. But that would depend on the application too.

--
Gregory Stark
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com
Ask me about EnterpriseDB's RemoteDBA services!

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