Duplicate single database record - postgresql

Question

Hello what is the easiest way to duplicate a DB record over the same table?
My problem is that the table where I am doing this has many column, like 100+, and I don't like how the solution looks like. Here is what I do (this is inside plpqsql function):
...
1. duplicate record
INSERT INTO history
(SELECT NEXTVAL('history_id_seq'), col_1, col_2, ... , col_100)
FROM history
WHERE history_id = 1234
ORDER BY datetime DESC
LIMIT 1)
RETURNING
history_id INTO new_history_id;
2. update some columns
UPDATE history
SET
col_5 = 'test_5',
col_23 = 'test_23',
datetime = CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
WHERE history_id = new_history_id;
Here are the problems I am attempting to solve
Listing all these 100+ columns looks lame
When new column is added eventually the function should be updated too
On separate DB instances the column order might differ, which would cause the function fail
I am not sure if I can list them once more (solving issue 3) like insert into <table> (<columns_list>) values (<query>) but then the query looks even uglier.
I would like to achieve something like 'insert into ', but this seems impossible the unique primary key constraint will raise a duplication error.
Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance for you time.

Answer 1

This isn't pretty or particularly optimized but there are a couple of ways to go about this. Ideally, you might want to do this all in an UPDATE trigger though you could implement a duplication function something like this:
-- create source table
CREATE TABLE history (history_id serial not null primary key, col_2 int, col_3 int, col_4 int, datetime timestamptz default now());
-- add some data
INSERT INTO history (col_2, col_3, col_4)
SELECT g, g * 10, g * 100 FROM generate_series(1, 100) AS g;
-- function to duplicate record
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION fn_history_duplicate(p_history_id integer) RETURNS SETOF history AS
$BODY$
DECLARE
cols text;
insert_statement text;
BEGIN
-- build list of columns
SELECT array_to_string(array_agg(column_name::name), ',') INTO cols
FROM information_schema.columns
WHERE (table_schema, table_name) = ('public', 'history')
AND column_name <> 'history_id';
-- build insert statement
insert_statement := 'INSERT INTO history (' || cols || ') SELECT ' || cols || ' FROM history WHERE history_id = $1 RETURNING *';
-- execute statement
RETURN QUERY EXECUTE insert_statement USING p_history_id;
RETURN;
END;
$BODY$
LANGUAGE 'plpgsql';
-- test
SELECT * FROM fn_history_duplicate(1);
history_id | col_2 | col_3 | col_4 | datetime
------------+-------+-------+-------+-------------------------------
101 | 1 | 10 | 100 | 2013-04-15 14:56:11.131507+00
(1 row)
As I noted in my original comment, you might also take a look at the colnames extension as an alternative to querying the information schema.

Answer 2

You don't need the update anyway, you can supply the constant values directly in the SELECT statement:
INSERT INTO history
SELECT NEXTVAL('history_id_seq'),
col_1,
col_2,
col_3,
col_4,
'test_5',
...
'test_23',
...,
col_100
FROM history
WHERE history_sid = 1234
ORDER BY datetime DESC
LIMIT 1
RETURNING history_sid INTO new_history_sid;