I have an SQL script that needs to drop several constraints and restore them at the end, but the constraint names are auto-generated and will be different each time the script is run.
I know how to get the constraint name from the table names, but it doesn't seem possible to use this information in the drop statement.
select conname from pg_constraint where
conrelid = (select oid from pg_class where relname='table name')
and confrelid = (select oid from pg_class where relname='reference table');
alter table something drop constraint (some subquery) is a syntax error.
Ideally I would like to get the constraint name and store it in a variable, but it doesn't seem that Postgres supports that and I can't make it work with psql \set.
Is this even possible?
To dynamically drop & recreate a foreign key constraint, you could wrap it all in a function or use the DO command:
DO
$body$
DECLARE
_con text := (
SELECT quote_ident(conname)
FROM pg_constraint
WHERE conrelid = 'myschema.mytable'::regclass
AND confrelid = 'myschema.myreftable'::regclass
LIMIT 1 -- there could be multiple fk constraints. Deal with it ...
);
BEGIN
EXECUTE '
ALTER TABLE wuchtel12.bet DROP CONSTRAINT ' || _con;
-- do stuff here
EXECUTE '
ALTER TABLE myschema.mytable
ADD CONSTRAINT ' || _con || ' FOREIGN KEY (col)
REFERENCES myschema.myreftable (col)';
END
$body$
You must own the table to use ALTER TABLE.
Else you can create a function with LANGUAGE plpgsql SECURITY DEFINER (using the same body) and
ALTER FUNCTION foo() OWNER TO postgres;
postgres being a superuser here - or the owner of the table.
But be sure to know what the manual has to say about security.
The manual also has more on dynamic commands.
You can use stored procedure also.
CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE public.p_costraint()
LANGUAGE plpgsql
AS $procedure$
DECLARE _constrint text;
begin
-- for dynamic change the constraint.
_constrint := (
SELECT quote_ident(conname)
FROM pg_constraint
WHERE conrelid = 'test.contacts'::regclass
AND confrelid = 'test.customers'::regclass
LIMIT 1 -- there could be multiple fk constraints. Deal with it ...
);
_constrint := _constrint || 'test';
EXECUTE '
ALTER TABLE test.contacts
ADD CONSTRAINT ' || _constrint || ' FOREIGN KEY (customer_id)
REFERENCES test.customers (customer_id)';
RAISE NOTICE 'hello, world!';
end
$procedure$;
In here. constraint name is used as a text variable.
You can just call it: call public.p_costraint();
It will return :
NOTICE: hello, world!
CALL
Related
Does Postgres have any way to say ALTER TABLE foo ADD CONSTRAINT bar ... which will just ignore the command if the constraint already exists, so that it doesn't raise an error?
A possible solution is to simply use DROP IF EXISTS before creating the new constraint.
ALTER TABLE foo DROP CONSTRAINT IF EXISTS bar;
ALTER TABLE foo ADD CONSTRAINT bar ...;
Seems easier than trying to query information_schema or catalogs, but might be slow on huge tables since it always recreates the constraint.
Edit 2015-07-13:
Kev pointed out in his answer that my solution creates a short window when the constraint doesn't exist and is not being enforced. While this is true, you can avoid such a window quite easily by wrapping both statements in a transaction.
This might help, although it may be a bit of a dirty hack:
create or replace function create_constraint_if_not_exists (
t_name text, c_name text, constraint_sql text
)
returns void AS
$$
begin
-- Look for our constraint
if not exists (select constraint_name
from information_schema.constraint_column_usage
where table_name = t_name and constraint_name = c_name) then
execute constraint_sql;
end if;
end;
$$ language 'plpgsql'
Then call with:
SELECT create_constraint_if_not_exists(
'foo',
'bar',
'ALTER TABLE foo ADD CONSTRAINT bar CHECK (foobies < 100);')
Updated:
As per Webmut's answer below suggesting:
ALTER TABLE foo DROP CONSTRAINT IF EXISTS bar;
ALTER TABLE foo ADD CONSTRAINT bar ...;
That's probably fine in your development database, or where you know you can shut out the apps that depend on this database for a maintenance window.
But if this is a lively mission critical 24x7 production environment you don't really want to be dropping constraints willy nilly like this. Even for a few milliseconds there's a short window where you're no longer enforcing your constraint which may allow errant values to slip through. That may have unintended consequences leading to considerable business costs at some point down the road.
You can use an exception handler inside an anonymous DO block to catch the duplicate object error.
DO $$
BEGIN
BEGIN
ALTER TABLE foo ADD CONSTRAINT bar ... ;
EXCEPTION
WHEN duplicate_table THEN -- postgres raises duplicate_table at surprising times. Ex.: for UNIQUE constraints.
WHEN duplicate_object THEN
RAISE NOTICE 'Table constraint foo.bar already exists';
END;
END $$;
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.4/static/sql-do.html http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.4/static/plpgsql-control-structures.html
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.4/static/errcodes-appendix.html
you can run query over pg_constraint table to find constraint exists or not.like:
SELECT 1 FROM pg_constraint WHERE conname = 'constraint_name'"
Creating constraints can be an expensive operation on a table containing lots of data so I recommend not dropping constraints only to immediately create them again immediately after - you only want to create that thing once.
I chose to solve this using an anonymous code block, very similar to Mike Stankavich, however unlike Mike (who catches an error) I first check to see if the constraint exists:
DO $$
BEGIN
IF NOT EXISTS ( SELECT constraint_schema
, constraint_name
FROM information_schema.check_constraints
WHERE constraint_schema = 'myschema'
AND constraint_name = 'myconstraintname'
)
THEN
ALTER TABLE myschema.mytable ADD CONSTRAINT myconstraintname CHECK (column <= 100);
END IF;
END$$;
Using information_schema.constraint_column_usage to check for the constraint doesn't work for foreign keys. I use pg_constraint to check for primary keys, foreign keys or unique constraints:
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION add_constraint(t_name text, c_name text, constraint_sql text)
RETURNS void
AS $$
BEGIN
IF NOT EXISTS(
SELECT c.conname
FROM pg_constraint AS c
INNER JOIN pg_class AS t ON c.conrelid = t."oid"
WHERE t.relname = t_name AND c.conname = c_name
) THEN
EXECUTE 'ALTER TABLE ' || t_name || ' ADD CONSTRAINT ' || c_name || ' ' || constraint_sql;
END IF;
END;
$$
LANGUAGE plpgsql;
Examples:
SELECT add_constraint('client_grant_system_scopes', 'client_grant_system_scopes_pk', 'PRIMARY KEY (client_grants_id, tenant, "scope");');
SELECT add_constraint('client_grant_system_scopes', 'client_grant_system_scopes_fk', 'FOREIGN KEY (tenant,"scope") REFERENCES system_scope(tenant,"scope") ON DELETE CASCADE;');
SELECT add_constraint('jwt_assertion_issuers', 'jwt_assertion_issuers_issuer_key', 'UNIQUE (issuer);');
Take advantage of regclass to reduce verbosity, increase performance, and avoid errors related to table naming clashes between schemas:
DO $$ BEGIN
IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT FROM pg_constraint
WHERE conrelid = 'foo'::regclass AND conname = 'bar') THEN
ALTER TABLE foo ADD CONSTRAINT bar...;
END IF;
END $$;
This will also work for tables in other schemas, e.g.:
DO $$ BEGIN
IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT FROM pg_constraint
WHERE conrelid = 's.foo'::regclass AND conname = 'bar') THEN
ALTER TABLE s.foo ADD CONSTRAINT bar...;
END IF;
END $$;
In psql You can use metacommand \gexec for run generated query.
SELECT 'ALTER TABLE xx ADD CONSTRAINT abc' WHERE not EXISTS (SELECT True FROM pg_constraint WHERE conname = 'abc') \gexec
For me those solutions didn't work because the constraint was a primary key.
This one worked for me:
ALTER TABLE <table.name> DROP CONSTRAINT IF EXISTS <constraint.name> CASCADE;
Considering all the above mentioned answers , the below approach help if you just want to check if a constraint exist in the table in which you are trying to insert and raise a notice if there happens to be one
DO
$$ BEGIN
IF NOT EXISTS (select constraint_name
from information_schema.table_constraints
where table_schema='schame_name' and upper(table_name) =
upper('table_name') and upper(constraint_name) = upper('constraint_name'))
THEN
ALTER TABLE TABLE_NAME ADD CONSTRAINT CONTRAINT_NAME..... ;
ELSE raise NOTICE 'Constraint CONTRAINT_NAME already exists in Table TABLE_NAME';
END IF;
END
$$;
Don't know why so many lines of code ?
-- SELECT "Column1", "Column2", "Column3" , count(star) FROM dbo."MyTable" GROUP BY "Column1" , "Column2" , "Column3" HAVING count(*) > 1;
alter table dbo."MyTable" drop constraint if exists "MyConstraint_Name" ;
ALTER TABLE dbo."MyTable" ADD CONSTRAINT "MyConstraint_Name" UNIQUE("Column1", "Column3", "Column2");
I have written a generic function to change ids of students with wrong ids. Since the students table is referenced by other tables i had to drop the foreign keys and disable the triggers temporarily. This is my function.
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION update_student_id(varchar, varchar) RETURNS varchar AS $$
DECLARE
old_id ALIAS FOR $1;
new_id ALIAS FOR $2;
msg varchar(120);
BEGIN
--disable triggers
ALTER TABLE students
DISABLE TRIGGER ALL;
ALTER TABLE studentdegrees
DISABLE TRIGGER ALL;
ALTER TABLE studentdegrees DROP CONSTRAINT studentdegrees_studentid_fkey;
UPDATE students
SET studentid=new_id
WHERE studentid=old_id;
ALTER TABLE studentdegrees
ADD CONSTRAINT studentdegrees_studentid_fkey
FOREIGN KEY (studentid)
REFERENCES students(studentid);
UPDATE studentdegrees
SET studentid=new_id
WHERE studentid=old_id;
UPDATE entitys
SET user_name=new_id
WHERE user_name=old_id;
--enable triggers
ALTER TABLE students
ENABLE TRIGGER ALL;
ALTER TABLE studentdegrees
ENABLE TRIGGER ALL;
msg:=old_id|| ' Changed to '||new_id;
RETURN msg;
END;
$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;
When i call the function like this
SELECT update_student_id(
studentid, a.stdid)
FROM
(SELECT studentid, REPLACE(studentid, ' ', '') AS stdid
FROM students
WHERE studentid NOT IN (SELECT REPLACE(studentid, ' ', ''))) AS a
I get this error
ERROR: cannot ALTER TABLE "students" because it is being used by active queries in this session
CONTEXT: SQL statement "ALTER TABLE studentdegrees DROP CONSTRAINT studentdegrees_studentid_fkey"
PL/pgSQL function update_student_id(character varying,character varying) line 17 at SQL statement
I migrate my data from MySQL Database to PostgreSQL Database and by mistaken i have all my column set not-null in PostgreSQL database.
After this i am facing issue for inserting data and have to uncheck not null manually, so is there any way to do for all column in table ( except id(PRIMARY KEY) ).
i have this query also for single column but its also time consuming,
ALTER TABLE <table name> ALTER COLUMN <column name> DROP NOT NULL;
I don't think there is built in functionality for this. But it's easy to write a function to do this. For example:
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION set_nullable(relation TEXT)
RETURNS VOID AS
$$
DECLARE
rec RECORD;
BEGIN
FOR rec IN (SELECT * FROM pg_attribute
WHERE attnotnull = TRUE AND attrelid=relation::regclass::oid AND attnum > 0 AND attname != 'id')
LOOP
EXECUTE format('ALTER TABLE %s ALTER COLUMN %s DROP NOT NULL', relation, rec.attname);
RAISE NOTICE 'Set %.% nullable', relation, rec.attname;
END LOOP;
END
$$
LANGUAGE plpgsql;
Use it like this:
SELECT set_nullable('my_table');
Just perform a new CREATE TABLE noNULL using the same structure as your current table and modify the NULLable field you need.
Then insert from old table
INSERT INTO noNULL
SELECT *
FROM oldTable
then delete oldTable and rename noNull -> oldTable
If I have several schemas that contain the same table, is there a way for me to make an update to all the tables at once? For example, if I have 3 schemas that each have a user table with columns first_name, last_name, email and I want to add a column for phone_num for each user table in all 3 schemas, is there a way i can do it? I could not find a way in the postgresql docs...
Thanks in advance!
I think you want to alter table and not to update the table. If yes then below code will work for you,
-- Function: alter_table()
-- DROP FUNCTION alter_table();
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION alter_table()
RETURNS integer AS
$BODY$
DECLARE
v_schema text;
BEGIN
FOR v_schema IN
SELECT quote_ident(nspname)
FROM pg_namespace n
WHERE nspname !~~ 'pg_%'
AND nspname <> 'information_schema'
LOOP
EXECUTE 'SET LOCAL search_path = ' || v_schema;
ALTER TABLE "user" ADD COLUMN show_price boolean NOT NULL DEFAULT TRUE;
END LOOP;
return 1;
END;
$BODY$
LANGUAGE plpgsql VOLATILE
COST 100;
ALTER FUNCTION alter_table()
OWNER TO postgres;
Question is simple. How to add column x to table y, but only when x column doesn't exist ? I found only solution here how to check if column exists.
SELECT column_name
FROM information_schema.columns
WHERE table_name='x' and column_name='y';
With Postgres 9.6 this can be done using the option if not exists
ALTER TABLE table_name ADD COLUMN IF NOT EXISTS column_name INTEGER;
Here's a short-and-sweet version using the "DO" statement:
DO $$
BEGIN
BEGIN
ALTER TABLE <table_name> ADD COLUMN <column_name> <column_type>;
EXCEPTION
WHEN duplicate_column THEN RAISE NOTICE 'column <column_name> already exists in <table_name>.';
END;
END;
$$
You can't pass these as parameters, you'll need to do variable substitution in the string on the client side, but this is a self contained query that only emits a message if the column already exists, adds if it doesn't and will continue to fail on other errors (like an invalid data type).
I don't recommend doing ANY of these methods if these are random strings coming from external sources. No matter what method you use (client-side or server-side dynamic strings executed as queries), it would be a recipe for disaster as it opens you to SQL injection attacks.
Postgres 9.6 added ALTER TABLE tbl ADD COLUMN IF NOT EXISTS column_name.
So this is mostly outdated now. You might use it in older versions, or a variation to check for more than just the column name.
CREATE OR REPLACE function f_add_col(_tbl regclass, _col text, _type regtype)
RETURNS bool
LANGUAGE plpgsql AS
$func$
BEGIN
IF EXISTS (SELECT FROM pg_attribute
WHERE attrelid = _tbl
AND attname = _col
AND NOT attisdropped) THEN
RETURN false;
ELSE
EXECUTE format('ALTER TABLE %s ADD COLUMN %I %s', _tbl, _col, _type);
RETURN true;
END IF;
END
$func$;
Call:
SELECT f_add_col('public.kat', 'pfad1', 'int');
Returns true on success, else false (column already exists).
Raises an exception for invalid table or type name.
Why another version?
This could be done with a DO statement, but DO statements cannot return anything. And if it's for repeated use, I would create a function.
I use the object identifier types regclass and regtype for _tbl and _type which a) prevents SQL injection and b) checks validity of both immediately (cheapest possible way). The column name _col has still to be sanitized for EXECUTE with quote_ident(). See:
Table name as a PostgreSQL function parameter
format() requires Postgres 9.1+. For older versions concatenate manually:
EXECUTE 'ALTER TABLE ' || _tbl || ' ADD COLUMN ' || quote_ident(_col) || ' ' || _type;
You can schema-qualify your table name, but you don't have to.
You can double-quote the identifiers in the function call to preserve camel-case and reserved words (but you shouldn't use any of this anyway).
I query pg_catalog instead of the information_schema. Detailed explanation:
How to check if a table exists in a given schema
Blocks containing an EXCEPTION clause are substantially slower.
This is simpler and faster. The manual:
Tip
A block containing an EXCEPTION clause is significantly more
expensive to enter and exit than a block without one.
Therefore, don't use EXCEPTION without need.
Following select query will return true/false, using EXISTS() function.
EXISTS(): The argument of EXISTS is an arbitrary SELECT statement, or
subquery. The subquery is evaluated to determine whether it returns
any rows. If it returns at least one row, the result of EXISTS is
"true"; if the subquery returns no rows, the result of EXISTS is
"false"
SELECT EXISTS(SELECT column_name
FROM information_schema.columns
WHERE table_schema = 'public'
AND table_name = 'x'
AND column_name = 'y');
and use the following dynamic SQL statement to alter your table
DO
$$
BEGIN
IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT column_name
FROM information_schema.columns
WHERE table_schema = 'public'
AND table_name = 'x'
AND column_name = 'y') THEN
ALTER TABLE x ADD COLUMN y int DEFAULT NULL;
ELSE
RAISE NOTICE 'Already exists';
END IF;
END
$$
For those who use Postgre 9.5+(I believe most of you do), there is a quite simple and clean solution
ALTER TABLE if exists <tablename> add if not exists <columnname> <columntype>
the below function will check the column if exist return appropriate message else it will add the column to the table.
create or replace function addcol(schemaname varchar, tablename varchar, colname varchar, coltype varchar)
returns varchar
language 'plpgsql'
as
$$
declare
col_name varchar ;
begin
execute 'select column_name from information_schema.columns where table_schema = ' ||
quote_literal(schemaname)||' and table_name='|| quote_literal(tablename) || ' and column_name= '|| quote_literal(colname)
into col_name ;
raise info ' the val : % ', col_name;
if(col_name is null ) then
col_name := colname;
execute 'alter table ' ||schemaname|| '.'|| tablename || ' add column '|| colname || ' ' || coltype;
else
col_name := colname ||' Already exist';
end if;
return col_name;
end;
$$
This is basically the solution from sola, but just cleaned up a bit. It's different enough that I didn't just want to "improve" his solution (plus, I sort of think that's rude).
Main difference is that it uses the EXECUTE format. Which I think is a bit cleaner, but I believe means that you must be on PostgresSQL 9.1 or newer.
This has been tested on 9.1 and works. Note: It will raise an error if the schema/table_name/or data_type are invalid. That could "fixed", but might be the correct behavior in many cases.
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION add_column(schema_name TEXT, table_name TEXT,
column_name TEXT, data_type TEXT)
RETURNS BOOLEAN
AS
$BODY$
DECLARE
_tmp text;
BEGIN
EXECUTE format('SELECT COLUMN_NAME FROM information_schema.columns WHERE
table_schema=%L
AND table_name=%L
AND column_name=%L', schema_name, table_name, column_name)
INTO _tmp;
IF _tmp IS NOT NULL THEN
RAISE NOTICE 'Column % already exists in %.%', column_name, schema_name, table_name;
RETURN FALSE;
END IF;
EXECUTE format('ALTER TABLE %I.%I ADD COLUMN %I %s;', schema_name, table_name, column_name, data_type);
RAISE NOTICE 'Column % added to %.%', column_name, schema_name, table_name;
RETURN TRUE;
END;
$BODY$
LANGUAGE 'plpgsql';
usage:
select add_column('public', 'foo', 'bar', 'varchar(30)');
Can be added to migration scripts invoke function and drop when done.
create or replace function patch_column() returns void as
$$
begin
if exists (
select * from information_schema.columns
where table_name='my_table'
and column_name='missing_col'
)
then
raise notice 'missing_col already exists';
else
alter table my_table
add column missing_col varchar;
end if;
end;
$$ language plpgsql;
select patch_column();
drop function if exists patch_column();
In my case, for how it was created reason it is a bit difficult for our migration scripts to cut across different schemas.
To work around this we used an exception that just caught and ignored the error. This also had the nice side effect of being a lot easier to look at.
However, be wary that the other solutions have their own advantages that probably outweigh this solution:
DO $$
BEGIN
BEGIN
ALTER TABLE IF EXISTS bobby_tables RENAME COLUMN "dckx" TO "xkcd";
EXCEPTION
WHEN undefined_column THEN RAISE NOTICE 'Column was already renamed';
END;
END $$;
You can do it by following way.
ALTER TABLE tableName drop column if exists columnName;
ALTER TABLE tableName ADD COLUMN columnName character varying(8);
So it will drop the column if it is already exists. And then add the column to particular table.
Simply check if the query returned a column_name.
If not, execute something like this:
ALTER TABLE x ADD COLUMN y int;
Where you put something useful for 'x' and 'y' and of course a suitable datatype where I used int.