There are many cases when they are small lookup tables with few records
and detail tables with a lot of records.
In that cases it would be better to have an int2 autoincrement fields
for the lookup tables, not an int4.

create table goods(id int2 default nextval('goodies_seq'), name text);

does not work. Also,

create table goods(create table goods(id int2 default
nextval('goodies_seq'), name text);
 name text);

doesn't work either.

There is a chance to define a sql function next_goods_id returning int4
as 'select nextval('goodies_seq')::int2' but it isn't so nice.

BTW, shouldn't id int2 default nextval('goodies_seq')::int2 work ?

Constantin Teodorescu
FLEX Consulting Braila, ROMANIA

Wed, 11 Nov 1998 14:44:58 +0000
Constantin Teodorescu <teo@flex.ro>
Small int autoincrement columns ?