PostgreSQL bigserial & nextval

Question

I've got a PgSQL 9.4.3 server setup and previously I was only using the public schema and for example I created a table like this:

CREATE TABLE ma_accessed_by_members_tracking (
    reference bigserial NOT NULL,
    ma_reference bigint NOT NULL,
    membership_reference bigint NOT NULL,
    date_accessed timestamp without time zone,
    points_awarded bigint NOT NULL
);

Using the Windows Program PgAdmin III I can see it created the proper information and sequence.

However I've recently added another schema called "test" to the same database and created the exact same table, just like before.

However this time I see:

CREATE TABLE test.ma_accessed_by_members_tracking
(
  reference bigint NOT NULL DEFAULT nextval('ma_accessed_by_members_tracking_reference_seq'::regclass),
  ma_reference bigint NOT NULL,
  membership_reference bigint NOT NULL,
  date_accessed timestamp without time zone,
  points_awarded bigint NOT NULL
);

My question / curiosity is why in a public schema the reference shows bigserial but in the test schema reference shows bigint with a nextval?

Both work as expected. I just do not understand why the difference in schema's would show different table creations. I realize that bigint and bigserial allow the same volume of ints to be used.

Answer 1

Merely A Notational Convenience

According to the documentation on Serial Types, smallserial, serial, and bigserial are not true data types. Rather, they are a notation to create at once both sequence and column with default value pointing to that sequence.

I created test table on schema public. The command psql \d shows bigint column type. Maybe it's PgAdmin behavior ?

Update

I checked PgAdmin source code. In function pgColumn::GetDefinition() it scans table pg_depend for auto dependency and when found it - replaces bigint with bigserial to simulate original table create code.