What does regclass signify in Postgresql
I have the following line in a CREATE TABLE statement: field1_id bigint DEFAULT nextval('table1_field1_id_seq'::regclass) NOT NULL, What does regclass signify in the above? Is it an absolute requirement to add ::regclass ? N.B: I had seen the Postgresql documentation link which tells about regclass , but couldn't understand it. No, you do not need the cast to regclass when calling a function like nextval that accepts a regclass parameter, as there is an implict cast from text to regclass . In some other contexts an explicit cast to regclass may be required. Explanation: ::regclass is a cast,