On Tue, 2007-07-24 at 10:47 -0700, Gautam Sampathkumar wrote: > Hi, > I am in the process of porting a MySQL database to PostgreSQL. > I was wondering why PostgreSQL does not support unsigned data types? > > Does this mean I'd have to essentially double the space occupied by > most database columns e.g convert mysql integer to postgresql bigint? > Most applications don't need an unsigned int, because either the expected range is within 0-2 billion; or the expected range exceeds 0-4 billion. Either way, you can use a CHECK (my_attribute >= 0) to enforce the constraint. You might want to just check the table to see if there are any values that exceed 2 billion. If so, you might think about using bigint anyway, because you don't want to overflow. If you really do need an unsigned type, this is a good use of postgresql's extensible type system. You can just create an unsigned type for yourself. Regards, Jeff Davis ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend
