Re: 7.0 FK trigger question

> Thanks for the reply. For the time begin I've solved this by copying every
> table in the database to a backup table without any constraints, recreating
> the tables and copying the data back in. I have to be a bit careful with
> doing it all in the right order, although I think I can solve this by doing
> everything in a transaction as the constraints are only checked at the end of
> transaction?

By default, constraints are checked at end of statement.
Constraints can be specified DEFERRABLE, then you can do SET
CONSTRAINTS ... DEFERRED which will delay them until COMMIT.

> OK, I'm definitely not being very bright here, but i cannot get my system to
> accept the alter column commands. An example on the man pages ,ay help a lot
> here! I tried
>
> test=# create table t (i int4);
> CREATE
> test=# create table t1 (k int4);
> CREATE
> test=# alter table t1 alter column k add constraint references t(i);
> ERROR: parser: parse error at or near "add"
> test=# alter table t1 alter column k constraint references t(i);
> ERROR: parser: parse error at or near "constraint"
> test=# alter table t1 alter k constraint references t(i);
> ERROR: parser: parse error at or near "constraint"
> test=# alter table t1 alter column k create constraint references t(i);
> ERROR: parser: parse error at or near "create"
>
> So what am I doing wrong?

alter table t1 add constraint chk_k foreign key (k) references t (i);

The referenced column(s) (t.i in your case above) must not be
a primary key - any combination is accepted. SQL standard
requires that there is a unique index defined for the
referenced columns so it is guaranteed that FKs reference to
exactly ONE row. Actually Postgres doesn't check or force it,
so you have to take care yourself. For example:

create table t (i integer, j integer);
create unique index t_pk_idx_1 on t (i, j); -- DON'T FORGET THIS!
create table t1 (k integer, l integer,
foreign key (k, l) references t (i, j));

BTW: all existing data is checked at ALTER TABLE time.

And our implementation of FK is based on SQL3. So you can
specify match type FULL (PARTIAL will be in 7.1), and
referential actions (ON DELETE CASCADE etc.) too. It is nice
to define ON UPDATE CASCADE, because if you UPDATE a PK, all
referencing FKs will silently follow then.

Jan

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