Grouper Developers Forum

[Chris Hyzer <>]

When I say "int", I dont mean Java int, I mean it is a whole number.  It 
would be a whole numeric type in the DB that could be much larger than 
2^32...  however like I said, if you are using this for something like GID 
and you have an external constraint max number of 2^32 then you would have 
that "constraint" but not in the DB.  e.g. in mysql if you look at whole 
number columns they are bigint(20), this would be similar.  ok?

thanks,
Chris
________________________________________
From: 

 
[]
 on behalf of Peter Schober 
[]
Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2012 5:49 AM
To: 

Subject: Re: [grouper-dev] gid/fid/aid

* David Langenberg 
<>
 [2012-04-25 06:17]:
> If you want such a constraint (uniqueness at the database layer) why not
> skip the INT datatype and use varchar?  Yes, storing essentially an integer
> as a string does rub wrong, but it seems future-proof at least from the
> outset.  I just worry that starting with INT will lead us to the same issue
> that we're having with IPv4 where sure in 1980 4 billion IP addresses
> seemed enough for anybody, but that sure doesn't cut it in 2012.

Somehow I doubt Grouper will play a role comparable to global IP
addressing 32 years in the future.
-peter