SCassidy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Starting with this:
create sequence languages_seq increment by 1;
create table languages (
id integer primary key default nextval('languages_seq'),
language_name varchar(100)
);
(I like specifying my own sequence names, instead of using "serial",
plus
using a default this way lets me insert an integer directly, when
necessary, or letting it default, but you can use serial, if you want).
You can always insert your own value into a SERIAL column. From the
8.1 docs:
The data types serial and bigserial are not true types, but merely a
notational convenience for setting up unique identifier columns
(similar to the AUTO_INCREMENT property supported by some other
databases). In the current implementation, specifying
CREATE TABLE tablename (
colname SERIAL
);
is equivalent to specifying:
CREATE SEQUENCE tablename_colname_seq;
CREATE TABLE tablename (
colname integer DEFAULT nextval('tablename_colname_seq') NOT NULL
);
(http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.1/interactive/datatype.html#DATATYPE-
SERIAL)
Your example above differs only in the sequence name (plus you have a
PK constraint, but you can do this on a SERIAL column too).
- John D. Burger
MITRE
