How to use constraints on ranges with a junction table? - postgresql

Question

Based on the documentation it's pretty straightforward how to prevent any overlapping reservations in the table at the same time.
CREATE EXTENSION btree_gist;
CREATE TABLE room_reservation (
room text,
during tsrange,
EXCLUDE USING GIST (room WITH =, during WITH &&)
);
However, when you have multiple resources that can be reserved by users, what is the best approach to check for overlappings? You can see below that I want to have users reserve multiple resources. That's why I'm using the junction table Resources_Reservations. Is there any way I can use EXCLUDE in order to check that no resources are reserved at the same time?
CREATE TABLE Users(
id serial primary key,
name text
);
CREATE TABLE Resources(
id serial primary key,
name text
);
CREATE TABLE Reservations(
id serial primary key,
duration tstzrange,
user_id serial,
FOREIGN KEY (user_id) REFERENCES Users(id)
);
CREATE TABLE Resources_Reservations(
resource_id serial,
reservation_id serial,
FOREIGN KEY (resource_id) REFERENCES Resources(id),
FOREIGN KEY (reservation_id) REFERENCES Reservations(id),
PRIMARY KEY (resource_id, reservation_id)
);

Answer 1

I think what you want is doable with a slight model change.
But first let's correct a misconception. You have foreign key columns (user_id, resource_id, etc) defined as SERIAL. This is incorrect, they should be INTEGER. This is because SERIAL is not actually a data type. It is a psuedo-data type that is actually a shortcut for: creating a sequence, creating a column of type integer, and defining the sequence created as the default value. With that out of the way.
I think your Resources_Reservations is redundant. A reservation is by a user, but a reservation without something reserved would just be user information. Bring the resource_id into Reservation. Now a Reservation is by a user for a resource with a duration. Everything your current model contains but less complexity.
Assuming you don't have data that needs saving, then:
create table users(
id serial primary key,
name text
);
create table resources(
id serial primary key,
name text
);
create table reservations(
user_id integer
resource_id integer
duration tstzrange,
foreign key (user_id) references users(id)
foreign key (resource_id) references resources(id),
primary key (resource_id, user_id)
);
You should now be able to create your GIST exclusion.