On 29/10/11 05:59, Merlin Moncure wrote:
CTE: Common Table _expression_On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 11:32 AM, <depstein@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:-----Original Message----- From: Merlin Moncure [mailto:mmoncure@xxxxxxxxx] Sent: Friday, October 28, 2011 8:29 PM To: Dmitry Epstein Cc: tgl@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx; Peter Gagarinov Subject: Re: nextval skips values between consecutive calls On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 10:28 AM, <depstein@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:-----Original Message----- From: Tom Lane [mailto:tgl@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] Sent: Friday, October 28, 2011 7:22 PM To: Dmitry Epstein Cc: pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx; Peter Gagarinov Subject: Re: nextval skips values between consecutive calls <depstein@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:-- This is rather surprising select nextval(' test_sequence'), generate_series(1, 1); -- 3, 1 select nextval(' test_sequence'), generate_series(1, 1); -- 5, 1Is there any explanation for why nextval skips a value in the secondcase?The targetlist is evaluated twice because of the presence of the set-returning function. On the second pass, generate_series reports that it's done, and so evaluation stops ... but nextval() was already called asecond time.SRFs in SELECT targetlists are a pretty dangerous thing, with a lot of surprising behaviors, especially if you combine them with other volatile functions. I recommend avoiding them. They'll probably be deprecated altogether as soon as we have LATERAL. regards, tom laneWhat's a good alternative in the meantime? Suppose I need to incorporate some unnests into my select, for example? (Well, I already found one alternative that seems to work, but I am not sure that's optimal.)Typically for guaranteed LATERAL-like behaviors you need to use a CTE. merlinWhat's a CTE?with foo as (select generate_series(1, 1) ind) select nextval(' test_sequence'), ind from foo; merlin as above WITH foo AS (...) the temporary table 'foo' is created once from the given expression, and is common to the following select and any nested sub selects. see '7.8. WITH Queries (Common Table Expressions)' in the manual for 9.1.1. |