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From: Nathan Bossart <nathandbossart@gmail.com>
To: Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>
Cc: Álvaro Herrera <alvherre@kurilemu.de>
Cc: Pg Hackers <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: table AM option passing
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2026 16:17:40 -0500
Message-ID: <absWdP4uVsmiDW9A@nathan> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <44e6ze3kuunhky63wmfjxrmn72pds2whwf5ok6hpz7c4my7k2h@l65zhpcuasnf>
References: <abmQByncauZoE21V@nathan>
	<202603171944.2qugoabbkfqr@alvherre.pgsql>
	<44e6ze3kuunhky63wmfjxrmn72pds2whwf5ok6hpz7c4my7k2h@l65zhpcuasnf>

On Tue, Mar 17, 2026 at 05:09:49PM -0400, Andres Freund wrote:
> Personally I object to the existence of the bits* types, to me they're just
> noise over using the corresponding unsigned integer types. One more thing that
> one has to just know what it means without there being any actual improved
> type checking or such. It's not like using bits* would make it any easier to
> make the underlying type a struct or such (which is different to
> e.g. TransactionId, we could probably replace that with a struct without crazy
> amounts of trouble).

Yeah, I don't see why you'd prefer bits32 over uint32.  If anything, uint32
is probably less confusing because most hackers will have used it before.
AFAICT the bits* types are a relic of the 80s, and there used to be other
types like bool8 and word32, all of which were just uint* behind the
scenes.  Those were removed in 2004 by commit ca7a1f0c86.  I assume bits*
was left behind because it was still in use.

> I think we should just rip the bits* types out and replace them with the
> underlying types.

+1.  If there seems to be consensus, I'm happy to write the patch.

-- 
nathan

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