On 2/9/2012 10:49 AM, Rich Shepard wrote:
I have a lot of data currently in .pdf files. I can extract the relevant data to plain text and format it to create a large text file of "INSERT INTO ..." rows. I need a unique ID for each row and there are no columns that would make a natural key so the serial data type would be appropriate. When I prepare the text file I can start each row with the delimiter (',') to indicate there's a table column preceding. If I define the primary key as serial type on that first position in the file, will postgres automagically fill it in as each row is read into the table? If not, or if there's a better way of approaching this task, please clue me in to that. TIA, Rich
If you create a serial column, dont put the column name or a value into your insert statement.
create table junk (id serial, stuff text); insert into junk(stuff) values ('my stuff'); or, and I've never done this, I think you can use the default keyword: insert into junk(id, stuff) values (default, 'my stuff'); -Andy -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general