I am trying to create a temporary table in postgres by copying the column names and types from an existing table.
CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE temporary_table LIKE grades;
Typing the query into Postgre, it tells me about an error in LIKE. Is "Like" keyword not usable in Postgre or am I doing something wrong?
You need to wrap the like statement in parentheses:
CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE temporary_table (LIKE grades);
If you want defaults or indexes included as well, you need to add that explicitly
CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE temporary_table
(LIKE grades INCLUDING INDEXES INCLUDING DEFAULTS);
Related
I'm working with a huge Firebird database where tables have completely unreadable names like WTF$RANDOM_ABBREVIATION_6792 or RPG$RANDOM_ABBREVIATION_5462 where columns have names like "rid9312", "1NUM5", "2NUM4", "RNAME8".
I need to set them global aliases to be able to use them as a full-length table names like Document and column names like
Document.CreationDate instead of xecblob.DDATE4
or
TempDoc.MovingOrderID instead of TMP$LINKED_DOC_6101.DID6101
Altering the database, or a table, or a column might be a big problem because the records might be counted by millions and tens of millions, and more over that, a major part of the Delphi-written front-end for the database is bound to the table names and column names.
Is there a way to do that somehow?
The closest thing there is to a "global alias" is to create views. For example:
create view document
as
select
DDATE4 as creationdate
-- , other columns...
from xecblob;
or
create view document (creationdate /*, other column aliases... */)
as
select
DDATE4
-- , other columns...
from xecblob;
(personally, I find the first variant more readable)
This does require altering the database, but there is no real cost associated with that (it doesn't matter if the table contains no, one, thousands or millions of records).
I am about to model a PostgreSQL database, based on an Oracle database. The latter is old and its tables have been named after a 3-letter-scheme.
E.g. a table that holds parameters for tasks would be named TSK_PAR.
As I model the new database, I'd like to rename those tables to a more descriptive name using actual words. My problem is, that some parts of the software might rely on these old names until they're rewritten and adapted to the new scheme.
Is it possible to create something like an alias that's being used for the whole database?
E.g. I create a new task_parameters database, but add a TSK_PAR alias to it, so if a SELECT * FROM TSK_PAR is being used, it automatically refers to the new name?
Postgres has no synonyms like Oracle.
But for your intended use case, views should do just fine. A view that simply does select * from taks_parameters is automatically updateable (see here for an online example).
If you don't want to clutter your default schema (usually public) with all those views, you can create them in a different schema, and then adjust the user's search path to include that "synonym schema".
For example:
create schema synonyms;
create table public.task_parameters (
id integer primary key,
....
);
create view synonyms.task_par
as
select *
from public.task_parameters;
However, that approach has one annoying drawback: if a table is used by a view, the allowed DDL statements on it are limited, e.g. you can't drop a column or rename it.
As we manage our schema migrations using Liquibase, we always drop all views before applying "normal" migrations, then once everything is done, we simply re-create all views (by running the SQL scripts stored in Git). With that approach, ALTER TABLE statements never fail because there are not views using the tables. As creating a view is really quick, it doesn't add overhead when deploying a migration.
I'm coming from a background in SQL Server where I would create temp tables using the:
select id
into #test
from table A
I've just moved into a PostGresql environment and I was hoping I could do the same, but I'm getting a syntax error. I did a search and it seems like you have to do a Create Table statement.
Is it not possible to easily create temp tables in Postgres?
Postgres supports SELECT INTO, so this should work fine:
SELECT id
INTO TEMP TABLE test
FROM a
You can also use CREATE TABLE AS:
CREATE TEMP TABLE test AS
SELECT id FROM a
This version is generally preferred, as the CREATE statement provides additional options, and can also be used in PL/pgSQL functions (where the SELECT INTO syntax has been hijacked for variable assignment).
I have a database which relies on a PostgreSQL system and I am maintaining it so I want to change tables and overall scheme. For this I thought of renaming the older tables so they have an underscore as a prefix. But this is not working:
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS _my_table; -- table does not exists, this does nothing
ALTER TABLE my_table
RENAME TO _my_table;
The result of the query is the following:
NOTICE: table "_my_table" does not exist, skipping ERROR:
type "_my_table" already exists
********** Error **********
ERROR: type "_my_table" already exists SQL state: 42710
The '_my_table' table is a fake name, but this error is reproduced by actually creating a '_my_table' table and running the same script above.
I am using pgAdmin III to access the database tables and making use of it's 'rename' operation results in the same error.
The postgresql documentation for the alter table method does not tell me explicitly about this particular problem: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.3/static/sql-altertable.html
Do I really need to use a prefix like 'backup' instead of '_' ? Or would it be possible to rename it, my only interest is to maintain the information in the table whilst having the minimal changes to the table name.
You cannot simply put an underscore in front of the existing table name because every table has an associated type that is... a leading underscore before the table name. You can verify this in the pg_catalog.pg_type table. Having a table name start with an underscore is not the problem, but the internal procedure is that a new table is created physically from the old table and only when the old table is no longer in use by other processes will the old table, and its associated type, be deleted. Hence the error referencing the type (and not the relation).
So if you really want to keep the old name with an underscore, you should first ALTER TABLE to some temp name and then ALTER TABLE to the underscore + original name. Or simply use another prefix...
ERROR: type "_my_table" already exists
Both tables and types are stored in the internal table pg_class. A unique name is required, that's why you get this error message.
I am trying to rename a table in db2 like so
rename table schema1.mytable to schema2.mytable
but getting the following error message:
the name "mytable" has the wrong number of qualifiers.. SQLCODE=-108,SQLSTATE=42601
what is the problem here.... I am using the exact syntax from IBM publib documentation.
You cannot change the schema of a given object. You have to recreate it.
There are severals ways to do that:
If you have only one table, you can export and import/load the table. If you use the IDX format, the DDL will be included in the generated file. If using another format, the table has be created.
You can recreate the table by using:
Create table schema2.mytable like schema1.mytable
You can extract the DDL with the db2look tool
If you are changing the schema name for a schema given, you can use ADMIN_COPY_SCHEMA
These last two options only create the table structure, and you still need to import the data. After having create the table, you insert the data by different ways:
Inserting directly
insert into schema2.mytable select * from schema1.mytable
Via load from cursor
Via a Load or import from file (The file exported in the previous step)
The problem is the foreign relations, because they have to be recreated.
Finally, you can create an alias. It is easier, and you do not have to deal with relations.
You can easily rename a table with this statement:
RENAME TABLE SCHEMA.TABLENAME TO NEWTABLENAME;
You're not renaming table in provided example, you're trying to move to different schema, it's not the same thing. Look into db2move tool for this.
if you want to rename a table in the same schema, you can use like this.
RENAME TABLE schema.table_name TO "new_table_name";
Otherwise, you can use tools like DBeaver to rename or copy tables in a db2 db.
What if you leave it as is and create an alias with the new name and schema.
Renaming a table means to rename a table within same schema .To rename in other schema ,db2 call its ALIAS:
db2 create alias for