Query insists on quoted columns - postgresql

I have a local copy of Postgres running, and I'm working on a C# .Net Core 2.1 app using nHibernate as an ORM.
It's started throwing an exception: PostgresException: 42703: column this_.datasetname does not exist
When I copy the SQL and run in pgAdmin I get a similar error.
This is a short version of the SQL which gives the same error:
SELECT this_.datasetName FROM orders this_
ERROR: column this_.datasetname does not exist LINE 1: SELECT
this_.datasetName FROM orders this_
^ HINT: Perhaps you meant to reference the column "this_.datasetName". SQL state: 42703 Character: 8
If I add quotes around the column name (but not around _this. as suggested) it works, but obviously I can't tell nHibernate to do that.
SELECT this_."datasetName" FROM orders this_
The following also works fine:
SELECT "datasetName" FROM orders
Why would it insist on adding the quotes? It never used to.

That's because this column was created with the surrounding double quotes in the first place - this makes the identifier case-sensitive, while by default it isn't. Since the identifier contains mixed case, you are stucked: the identifier needs to be quoted everywhere you use it.
If you look at the definition of the table, you will see something like:
create table orders (
...,
"datasetName" text,
...
)
I would strongly suggest fixing your schema. Quoted identifiers add no value in general, while on the other hand they make things unnecessary complicated. Camel case does not fill well for database identifiers, snake case is better, since case is not meaningful:
create table orders (
...,
dataset_name text,
...
)

Related

Trying to select all rows in this column with a certain value, and failing [duplicate]

I'm writing a Java application to automatically build and run SQL queries. For many tables my code works fine but on a certain table it gets stuck by throwing the following exception:
Exception in thread "main" org.postgresql.util.PSQLException: ERROR: column "continent" does not exist
Hint: Perhaps you meant to reference the column "countries.Continent".
Position: 8
The query that has been run is the following:
SELECT Continent
FROM network.countries
WHERE Continent IS NOT NULL
AND Continent <> ''
LIMIT 5
This essentially returns 5 non-empty values from the column.
I don't understand why I'm getting the "column does not exist" error when it clearly does in pgAdmin 4. I can see that there is a schema with the name Network which contains the table countries and that table has a column called Continent just as expected.
Since all column, schema and table names are retrieved by the application itself I don't think there has been a spelling or semantical error so why does PostgreSQL cause problems regardless? Running the query in pgAdmin4 nor using the suggested countries.Continent is working.
My PostgreSQL version is the newest as of now:
$ psql --version
psql (PostgreSQL) 9.6.1
How can I successfully run the query?
Try to take it into double quotes - like "Continent" in the query:
SELECT "Continent"
FROM network.countries
...
In working with SQLAlchemy environment, i have got this error with the SQL like this,
db.session.execute(
text('SELECT name,type,ST_Area(geom) FROM buildings WHERE type == "plaza" '))
ERROR: column "plaza" does not exist
Well, i changed == by = , Error still persists, then i interchanged the quotes, like follows. It worked. Weird!
....
text("SELECT name,type,ST_Area(geom) FROM buildings WHERE type = 'plaza' "))
This problem occurs in postgres because the table name is not tablename instead it is "tablename".
for eg.
If it shows user as table name,
than table name is "user".
See this:
Such an error can appear when you add a space in the name of a column by mistake (for example "users ").
QUICK FIX (TRICK)
If you have recently added a field which you have already deleted before and now trying to add the same field back then let me share you this simple trick! i did this and the problem was gone!!
so, now just delete the migration folder entirely on the app,then instead of adding that field you need to now add a field but with the name of which you have never declared on this app before, example if you are trying to add title field then create it by the name of heading and now do the migration process separately on the app and runserver, now go to admin page and look for that model and delete all the objects and come to models back and rename the field that you recently made and name it to which you were wishing it with earlier and do the migrations again and now your problem must have been gone!!
this occurs when the objects are there in the db but you added a field which wasn't there when the earlier objs were made, so by this we can delete those objs and make fresh ones again!
I got the same error when I do PIVOT in RedShift.
My code is similar to
SELECT *
INTO output_table
FROM (
SELECT name, year_month, sales
FROM input_table
)
PIVOT
(
SUM(sales)
FOR year_month IN ('nov_2020', 'dec_2020', 'jan_2021', 'feb_2021', 'mar_2021', 'apr_2021', 'may_2021', 'jun_2021', 'jul_2021', 'aug_2021',
'sep_2021', 'oct_2021', 'nov_2021', 'dec_2021', 'jan_2022', 'feb_2022', 'mar_2022', 'apr_2022', 'may_2022', 'jun_2022',
'jul_2022', 'aug_2022', 'sep_2022', 'oct_2022', 'nov_2022')
)
I tried year_month without any quote (got the error), year_month with double quote (got the error), and finally year_month with single quote (it works this time). This may help if someone in the same situation like my example.

Pgadmin is not able to read the column names due to header in column name [duplicate]

I'm writing a Java application to automatically build and run SQL queries. For many tables my code works fine but on a certain table it gets stuck by throwing the following exception:
Exception in thread "main" org.postgresql.util.PSQLException: ERROR: column "continent" does not exist
Hint: Perhaps you meant to reference the column "countries.Continent".
Position: 8
The query that has been run is the following:
SELECT Continent
FROM network.countries
WHERE Continent IS NOT NULL
AND Continent <> ''
LIMIT 5
This essentially returns 5 non-empty values from the column.
I don't understand why I'm getting the "column does not exist" error when it clearly does in pgAdmin 4. I can see that there is a schema with the name Network which contains the table countries and that table has a column called Continent just as expected.
Since all column, schema and table names are retrieved by the application itself I don't think there has been a spelling or semantical error so why does PostgreSQL cause problems regardless? Running the query in pgAdmin4 nor using the suggested countries.Continent is working.
My PostgreSQL version is the newest as of now:
$ psql --version
psql (PostgreSQL) 9.6.1
How can I successfully run the query?
Try to take it into double quotes - like "Continent" in the query:
SELECT "Continent"
FROM network.countries
...
In working with SQLAlchemy environment, i have got this error with the SQL like this,
db.session.execute(
text('SELECT name,type,ST_Area(geom) FROM buildings WHERE type == "plaza" '))
ERROR: column "plaza" does not exist
Well, i changed == by = , Error still persists, then i interchanged the quotes, like follows. It worked. Weird!
....
text("SELECT name,type,ST_Area(geom) FROM buildings WHERE type = 'plaza' "))
This problem occurs in postgres because the table name is not tablename instead it is "tablename".
for eg.
If it shows user as table name,
than table name is "user".
See this:
Such an error can appear when you add a space in the name of a column by mistake (for example "users ").
QUICK FIX (TRICK)
If you have recently added a field which you have already deleted before and now trying to add the same field back then let me share you this simple trick! i did this and the problem was gone!!
so, now just delete the migration folder entirely on the app,then instead of adding that field you need to now add a field but with the name of which you have never declared on this app before, example if you are trying to add title field then create it by the name of heading and now do the migration process separately on the app and runserver, now go to admin page and look for that model and delete all the objects and come to models back and rename the field that you recently made and name it to which you were wishing it with earlier and do the migrations again and now your problem must have been gone!!
this occurs when the objects are there in the db but you added a field which wasn't there when the earlier objs were made, so by this we can delete those objs and make fresh ones again!
I got the same error when I do PIVOT in RedShift.
My code is similar to
SELECT *
INTO output_table
FROM (
SELECT name, year_month, sales
FROM input_table
)
PIVOT
(
SUM(sales)
FOR year_month IN ('nov_2020', 'dec_2020', 'jan_2021', 'feb_2021', 'mar_2021', 'apr_2021', 'may_2021', 'jun_2021', 'jul_2021', 'aug_2021',
'sep_2021', 'oct_2021', 'nov_2021', 'dec_2021', 'jan_2022', 'feb_2022', 'mar_2022', 'apr_2022', 'may_2022', 'jun_2022',
'jul_2022', 'aug_2022', 'sep_2022', 'oct_2022', 'nov_2022')
)
I tried year_month without any quote (got the error), year_month with double quote (got the error), and finally year_month with single quote (it works this time). This may help if someone in the same situation like my example.

Postgres multi table join when tables are capitalized

The software I used created tables in postgres with Capitalizations, and I know that postgres and caps are a pain to deal with. I am using a multi-table query but they have Caps and I am not sure how to get the query down correctly to make it work.
I have two databases TBLS and DBS. I want to get the column TBL_NAME where the two DB_ID's are the same.
Here is what I thought might work:
select '"t.TBL_NAME"' from "TBLS" t, "DBS" d where '"t.DB_ID"'='"d.DB_ID"';
Any way I try and place the " or ' I can't seem to get the query to work correctly.
"tablename"."columnname"
See the manual on SQL syntax.
'"X.COL"' is a string literal with content string "X.COL".
"X.COL" is a single unqualified identifier for the object named X.COL. Yes, table, column, etc names can have a . in them.
"X"."COL" is a qualified identifier for COL in object X. Depending on context it can mean "the table COL in schema X", "the column COL in table X", etc. This is the one you want.

PostgreSQL - Query on hstore - column does not exists

I wonder if someone could have an idea what is going wrong with this simple query on a hstore column in PostgreSQL 9.2
The queries are runned in pgAdmin
select attributeValue->"CODE_MUN" from shapefile_feature
returns: « attributevalue » column does not exists
when doing:
select * from shapefile_feature;
all the columns are returned including attributeValue, the hstore column
what is the problem?
PostgreSQL distinguish between "identifiers" and 'literal'. Identifiers are schema, table, column's, .. names, literals are others. A attribute in hstore are not SQL identifiers. So you have to pass their names as literals. Operator "->" is only shortcut for function "fetchval(hstore, text)" with possibility be indexed.
select attributeValue->'CODE_MUN' from shapefile_feature
is internally transformed to (don't do this transformation by self!)
select fetchval(attributeValue, 'CODE_MUN') from shapefile_feature
on buggy example in transformed form, you can better understand to error message:
select fetchval(attributeValue, "CODE_MUN") from shapefile_feature
PostgreSQL tries to find column "CODE_MUN" in shapefile_feature, bacause used double quotes means identifiers (in case sensitive notation).

Is name a special keyword in PostgreSQL?

I am using Ubuntu and PostgreSql 8.4.9.
Now, for any table in my database, if I do select table_name.name from table_name, it shows a result of concatenated columns for each row, although I don't have any name column in the table. For the tables which have name column, no issue. Any idea why?
My results are like this:
select taggings.name from taggings limit 3;
---------------------------------------------------------------
(1,4,84,,,PlantCategory,soil_pref_tags,"2010-03-18 00:37:55")
(2,5,84,,,PlantCategory,soil_pref_tags,"2010-03-18 00:37:55")
(3,6,84,,,PlantCategory,soil_pref_tags,"2010-03-18 00:37:55")
(3 rows)
select name from taggings limit 3;
ERROR: column "name" does not exist
LINE 1: select name from taggings limit 3;
This is a known confusing "feature" with a bit of history. Specifically, you could refer to tuples from the table as a whole with the table name, and then appending .name would invoke the name function on them (i.e. it would be interpreted as select name(t) from t).
At some point in the PostgreSQL 9 development, Istr this was cleaned up a bit. You can still do select t from t explicitly to get the rows-as-tuples effect, but you can't apply a function in the same way. So on PostgreSQL 8.4.9, this:
create table t(id serial primary key, value text not null);
insert into t(value) values('foo');
select t.name from t;
produces the bizarre:
name
---------
(1,foo)
(1 row)
but on 9.1.1 produces:
ERROR: column t.name does not exist
LINE 1: select t.name from t;
^
as you would expect.
So, to specifically answer your question: name is a standard type in PostgreSQL (used in the catalogue for table names etc) and also some standard functions to convert things to the name type. It's not actually reserved, just the objects that exist called that, plus some historical strange syntax, made things confusing; and this has been fixed by the developers in recent versions.
According to the PostgreSQL documentation, name is a "non-reserved" keyword in PostgreSQL, SQL:2003, SQL:1999, or SQL-92.
SQL distinguishes between reserved and non-reserved key words. According to the standard, reserved key words are the only real key words; they are never allowed as identifiers. Non-reserved key words only have a special meaning in particular contexts and can be used as identifiers in other contexts. Most non-reserved key words are actually the names of built-in tables and functions specified by SQL. The concept of non-reserved key words essentially only exists to declare that some predefined meaning is attached to a word in some contexts.
The suggested fix when using keywords is:
As a general rule, if you get spurious parser errors for commands that contain any of the listed key words as an identifier you should try to quote the identifier to see if the problem goes away.