abusing an aggregate funct

Hi all...

I ported a foxpro db to postgres - the foxpro strategy (if this is
not a non-sequitor) was to put everything in one big table...
with no unique constraints on any attr/no p_key.

I had perl iterate thru the dump file prepending an int value to each
tuple - which is now my p_key. Works fine.

Due to the sheer girth of the table the following query, called from
a data entry script, takes a bit of time to finish:

SELECT max(rec_num) FROM crtrd1;

I use this to setup `rec_num + 1' for my query number (p_key)...any
way I can speed this up a bit? I've run vacuum analyze but the
table size is doing me in...

Stuck_In_Staten_Island,
Tom

(thanks ;-)

---------- Sisters of Charity Medical Center ----------
Department of Psychiatry
----
Thomas Good <tomg(at)q8(dot)nrnet(dot)org>
Coordinator, North Richmond C.M.H.C. Information Systems
75 Vanderbilt Ave, Quarters 8 Phone: 718-354-5528
Staten Island, NY 10304 Fax: 718-354-5056