Re: A few SQL questions

> 1. In sybase, each column can have the same rule applied to it. You don't
> have to create multiple rules for columns in different tables. For instance,
> let's suppose that we require 5 digit numeric ids, using only a char(5)
> type, but there's a constraint on that column that says it must adhere to
> idrule, and idrule is defined as:
>
> create rule idrule as @id like "[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]" (ugly, I know,
> but i didn't write it)

A domain will do this:
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.2/interactive/sql-createdomain.html
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.2/interactive/functions-matching.html#FUNCTIONS-POSIX-REGEXP
in the constraint portion of the syntax you can specify a regular expression
id ~ '^[0-9]{5}$'

> 2. Is there any nice way to generate number sequences via select? In other
> words, something along the lines of:
> select 1 through 10 as number;

generate_series() should do what you want.
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.2/interactive/functions-srf.html

Regards,

Richard Broersma Jr.