Hi! CREATE TABLE t1 (c1 text, c2 SMALLINT, PRIMARY KEY (c1,c2)); CREATE TABLE t2 (a text); I am looking for a solution that will insert rows into table t1 with one SQL similar to this: INSERT INTO t1 SELECT a,my_seq() FROM t2 WHERE a='const_id' my_seq() in SELECT clause returns a sequence of SMALLINT starting from 1 for every rows returned from t2. As a result, suppose 3 rows are returned from SELECT * FROM t2 WHERE a='const_id' , then 3 records will be inserted to table t1: const_id, 1 const_id, 2 const_id, 3 I know a PL/PGSQL function like this does the job: DECLARE i SMALLINT:=1; rec RECORD; BEGIN FOR rec IN SELECT 1 FROM t2 WHERE a='const_id' LOOP INSERT INTO t1 VALUES ('const_id',i); i:=i+1; END LOOP END but it works much slower than a single SQL especially when there are many rows returned from table t2. Sequence mechanism appears to be not applicable to column t1.c2, either, becase t1.c2 is not the primary key, but the concatenated columns (c1,c2) are. I also thought about implementing my_seq(bool start) in C by utilizing some static variables. However, this approach should not work, either, at least becasue (a) I think the backend will call it only once in a SQL statement rather than once for every returned rows from table t2, and (b) this function, if ever exists, has race issue. Regards, CN -- http://www.fastmail.fm - One of many happy users: http://www.fastmail.fm/docs/quotes.html