autoincrement and postgres

Anon

hi
i am a mysql-user but i want to migrate
to postgres for several reason.
one thing i really miss is the
autoincrement-feature for primary keys in
mysql. there should surely exist some possibility in postgres to do this...
can someone tell me how?
gotta something to do with sequences... maybe. its late at night and i dont wanna
read to much docu 😉
alex

Anon

If you read the documentation you'll find that the answer to your question is fairly obvious, and you'll be able to find answers to many of your future questions much more quickly than asking. Look for "serial".

stevebrett

I think it's good to ask.
One of the things that is not (that I've found) dcoumented well is the fact that serials do not increment automatically when doing bulk imports, so the best way I've found to deal with this is to manually (or in a function) use select count (*) from table and then select setval('sequence_name',value); to reset the sequence.
I believe MySql does it automatically.
Congratulations though Alex for choosing a 'proper' database, and don't worry about asking, Postgresql is notoriously poorly documented, although it is the king of open source DB's.

smarlowe

The real problem with postgresql is that it comes with great docs. In tar.gz format. That it doesn't install anywhere automagically.

Look in the doc directory for the .tar.gz files and you'll find many megabytes of great documentation, which is getting better everyday.

But you'll have to look for it and decide where you want to put it yourself, cause postgresql don't play 'dat. :⁾

pedrotuga

mmmm so you say the docs is tar.gz is richer than the manual???

wierd i think... what are you refering to? not the manual? cause if so... thats what i miss the most in mysql... that great manual.. postgres manual is poor 🙁

well anyway.. enough of offtopic....

cant i just create a sequence and use nextval everytime i need to insert something and currval everytime i need the inserted key?

Sxooter

Also, serial types do NOT automatically become NOT NULL and UNIQUE. I.e. you need to specify either or both of those, or primary key for the column if that's what you need.