On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 08:07:01PM -0700, Tommy Pham wrote: > On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 7:37 PM, Paul M Foster <paulf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > wrote: > > > > Unless you have some compelling need to store a number like this, I > > don't see the need to. What I store is what is called in PostgreSQL a > > "serial" value. MySQL calls it "auto_increment". You store all the other > > values as a row, and the DBMS adds in the "auto_increment"/"serial" > > value for you. It's an integer, *usually* one larger than the last value > > entered. > > > > Paul > > > > The (personal) project I'm about to start will run in several threads > (thinking how can I make this happen in PHP) where the inserts could > be multiple inserts at once. Identity (type) insert doesn't behave > nicely (locking up the DB) when there are multiple inserts at once. > Using UUID is one of the possible solution to resolving this problem > for me. I initially misunderstood your request. But what DBMS are you using that locks up on multiple simultaneous inserts? Any reasonable DBMS (besides SQLite) ought to queue inserts and execute them without locking up. I think I still don't understand what you're trying to do. It appears you're trying to get around an insert-locking problem by using UUIDs. But I'm not sure how a UUID will resolve your problem. As far as the DBMS is concerned, and insert is an insert, regardless of what you're storing. A UUID would just be another field to store; it could be any datatype, as far as the DBMS is concerned. Now, if you actually mean *updates*, that may be a different matter. But again, the DBMS should queue them. I will say this-- if you're looking to add a unique identifier to each record (I presume the reason for the UUID), and you're going to need more than 2 billion records (32-bit platform), or 9 quadrillion records (64-bit platform), integers or serials won't do. In PostgreSQL, you can specify arbitrary precision numbers up to 1000 digits of precision as: uuid number(128) which would be what you're looking for. But you'd have to generate that value yourself, as only a PostgreSQL "serial" type (integer) will automatically increment. Hope that helps (but I doubt it). Paul -- Paul M. Foster -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
