Related
I want to add another row in my existing table and I'm a bit hesitant if I'm doing the right thing because it might skew the database. I have my script below and would like to hear your thoughts about it.
I want to add another row for 'Jane' in the table, which will be 'SKATING" in the ACT column.
Table: [Emp_table].[ACT].[LIST_EMP]
My script is:
INSERT INTO [Emp_table].[ACT].[LIST_EMP]
([ENTITY],[TYPE],[EMP_COD],[DATE],[LINE_NO],[ACT],[NAME])
VALUES
('REG','EMP','45233','2016-06-20 00:00:00:00','2','SKATING','JANE')
Will this do the trick?
Your statement looks ok. If the database has a problem with it (for example, due to a foreign key constraint violation), it will reject the statement.
If any of the fields in your table are numeric (and not varchar or char), just remove the quotes around the corresponding field. For example, if emp_cod and line_no are int, insert the following values instead:
('REG','EMP',45233,'2016-06-20 00:00:00:00',2,'SKATING','JANE')
Inserting records into a database has always been the most common reason why I've lost a lot of my hairs on my head!
SQL is great when it comes to SELECT or even UPDATEs but when it comes to INSERTs it's like someone from another planet came into the SQL standards commitee and managed to get their way of doing it implemented into the final SQL standard!
If your table does not have an automatic primary key that automatically gets generated on every insert, then you have to code it yourself to manage avoiding duplicates.
Start by writing a normal SELECT to see if the record(s) you're going to add don't already exist. But as Robert implied, your table may not have a primary key because it looks like a LOG table to me. So insert away!
If it does require to have a unique record everytime, then I strongly suggest you create a primary key for the table, either an auto generated one or a combination of your existing columns.
Assuming the first five combined columns make a unique key, this select will determine if your data you're inserting does not already exist...
SELECT COUNT(*) AS FoundRec FROM [Emp_table].[ACT].[LIST_EMP]
WHERE [ENTITY] = wsEntity AND [TYPE] = wsType AND [EMP_COD] = wsEmpCod AND [DATE] = wsDate AND [LINE_NO] = wsLineno
The wsXXX declarations, you will have to replace them with direct values or have them DECLAREd earlier in your script.
If you ran this alone and recieved a value of 1 or more, then the data exists already in your table, at least those 5 first columns. A true duplicate test will require you to test EVERY column in your table, but it should give you an idea.
In the INSERT, to do it all as one statement, you can do this ...
INSERT INTO [Emp_table].[ACT].[LIST_EMP]
([ENTITY],[TYPE],[EMP_COD],[DATE],[LINE_NO],[ACT],[NAME])
VALUES
('REG','EMP','45233','2016-06-20 00:00:00:00','2','SKATING','JANE')
WHERE (SELECT COUNT(*) AS FoundRec FROM [Emp_table].[ACT].[LIST_EMP]
WHERE [ENTITY] = wsEntity AND [TYPE] = wsType AND
[EMP_COD] = wsEmpCod AND [DATE] = wsDate AND
[LINE_NO] = wsLineno) = 0
Just replace the wsXXX variables with the values you want to insert.
I hope that made sense.
I'm trying to use set up a database for a school project, and I'm using triggers to set up referential integrity for one table. I have a table, Addresses, which stores the address for People, Studios, and Directors. Then I have a table called Address Reference. This table points to the Address table, and it has a two fields, the ReferenceID and the TableName to show which table and row this address is for. I have a Constraint so TableName will always be valid.
I'm trying to set up a trigger to make sure any rows inserted are valid, which I can do, I'm just trying to improve it. My code would look like this:
SELECT *
FROM inserted
WHERE ReferenceID IN
(SELECT PersonID
FROM inserted.TableName)
However I found I needed to use dynamic sql. So I was thinking something like this:
SELECT *
FROM inserted
WHERE ReferenceID IN
(EXEC('SELECT PersonID FROM' + inserted.TableName))
Which didn't work, even when I removed the exec.
I'm doing this in SQL Server Management Studio With SQL Server 11.0.3128
Let me know if you need any more information. I've looked around, and I haven't found any answers to this question that work.
This is a poor way to maintain referential integrity. There are a number of ways you could approach this.
The first would be to have an address table, then multiple tables to contain the links, e.g.
CREATE TABLE StudioAddress
( StudioID INT NOT NULL,
AddressID INT NOT NULL,
CONSTRAINT PK_StudioAddress__StudioID_AddressID PRIMARY KEY (StudioID, AddressID),
CONSTRAINT FK_StudioAddress__StudioID FOREIGN KEY (StudioID) REFERENCES Studio (StudioID),
CONSTRAINT FK_StudioAddress__AddressID FOREIGN KEY (AddressID) REFERENCES Address (AddressID)
);
This maintains your referenctial integrity without needing triggers, and still caters for a 1 to many relationship.
Another option would be to have 3 nullable columns in your address table (StudioID, PersonID, DirectorID), each with a foreign key to the relevant table, you can the add a check constraint to ensure only one of the 3 fields is populated (if this is required).
I much prefer the first option though, it is much cleaner, and also allows for the same address to be used for multiple things.
ADENDUM
If this has to be done using triggers, then I think you would need to use something like this:
IF EXISTS( SELECT 1
FROM inserted i
WHERE NOT EXISTS
( SELECT 1
FROM People p
WHERE p.PersonID = i.ReferenceID
AND i.TableName = 'People'
UNION ALL
SELECT 1
FROM Studios s
WHERE s.StudioID = i.ReferenceID
AND i.TableName = 'Studios'
UNION ALL
SELECT 1
FROM Directors d
WHERE d.DirectorID = i.ReferenceID
AND i.TableName = 'Directors'
)
)
BEGIN
ROLLBACK TRANSACTION;
RAISERROR('Referential integrity error', 16, 1);
END
This essentially checks that for all inserted/updated rows a record exists with the relevant ID in the relevant table.
I still stand by my earlier answer though, that this is a terrible approach, and I would question any syllabus this is on!
I have the following constraint:
ALTER TABLE Movie
ADD CONSTRAINT NomsRANGE
CHECK (totalNoms BETWEEN 0 AND 20);
...and used the following to try and test it:
INSERT INTO Movie
(totalNoms)
VALUES
('23');
I get the following error:
cannot insert NULL into ("ALI"."MOVIE"."MOVIEID")
My scheme is:
Actor (actorID, lastName, firstName, middleName, suffix, gender, birthDate, deathDate)
Movie (movieID, title, year, company, totalNoms, awardsWon, DVDPrice, discountPrice)
Quote (quoteID, quote)
Role (roleID ,roleName ,gender ,actorID* ,movieID*)
RoleQuote (roleID*, quoteID*)
And my relationships are:
CONSTRAINT_NAME C
------------------------------ -
QUOTE_FK R
ROLE_FK R
MOVIE_ROLE_FK R
ACTOR_ROLE_FK R
ACTORID P
MOVIEID P
QUOTEID P
ROLEID P
ROLEQUOTEID P
9 rows selected.
Answer:
The answer was simple none of you spotted this it took me all day but i solved it so am posting solution so it helps others.
INSERT INTO Movie(movieID, totalNoms)
VALUES('049', '22');
I missed the first value which was the primary key as the error was saying:
cannot insert NULL into ("ALI"."MOVIE"."MOVIEID")
When i entered a new primary key it showed the constraint was violated
Thank you guys for all the help
If you omit columns in an INSERT statement, the database still needs to fill the column for that row. Which would be NULL, unless you setup a DEFAULT constraint/etc for each column.
The error is telling you that MOVIE.movieid does not accept NULL, which is good. It sounds like you need to setup the sequence to populate the value, or provide logic for however you want MOVIE.movieid populated (far less ideal). The sequence can either be referenced in the INSERT statement to fill the value, or you can look at triggers/default constraints to handle things in the background.
You'll have to figure out how you want/need to handle any other errors relating to column NULLability. Only after this is done, will you be able to see if your CHECK constraint works -- there's a little concern about if the value is provided as a string, if Oracle will implicitly convert it to an INT/NUMERIC data type.
1) The specific error is telling you that your INSERT statement needs to specify the MovieID. If you have created sequences to generate your synthetic primary key values, you'd want something like this (assuming there are no other NOT NULL columns in the Movie table)
INSERT INTO Movie
(movieID, totalNoms)
VALUES
(movieId_seq.nextval, 23);
2) Assuming that totalNoms is a NUMBER since your check constraint is treating it like a number, you would want to insert the number 23 rather than the string 23. Forcing Oracle to do implicit conversions is never a good idea-- it probably won't matter on a simple INSERT like this but if you get in the habit of using numbers when you're dealing with numeric fields and strings when you're dealing with character fields, life will be a lot easier.
Q: Is there any way to implement self-documenting enumerations in "standard SQL"?
EXAMPLE:
Column: PlayMode
Legal values: 0=Quiet, 1=League Practice, 2=League Play, 3=Open Play, 4=Cross Play
What I've always done is just define the field as "char(1)" or "int", and define the mnemonic ("league practice") as a comment in the code.
Any BETTER suggestions?
I'd definitely prefer using standard SQL, so database type (mySql, MSSQL, Oracle, etc) should't matter. I'd also prefer using any application language (C, C#, Java, etc), so programming language shouldn't matter, either.
Thank you VERY much in advance!
PS:
It's my understanding that using a second table - to map a code to a description, for example "table playmodes (char(1) id, varchar(10) name)" - is very expensive. Is this necessarily correct?
The normal way is to use a static lookup table, sometimes called a "domain table" (because its purpose is to restrict the domain of a column variable.)
It's up to you to keep the underlying values of any enums or the like in sync with the values in the database (you might write a code generator to generates the enum from the domain table that gets invoked when the something in the domain table gets changed.)
Here's an example:
--
-- the domain table
--
create table dbo.play_mode
(
id int not null primary key clustered ,
description varchar(32) not null unique nonclustered ,
)
insert dbo.play_mode values ( 0 , "Quiet" )
insert dbo.play_mode values ( 1 , "LeaguePractice" )
insert dbo.play_mode values ( 2 , "LeaguePlay" )
insert dbo.play_mode values ( 3 , "OpenPlay" )
insert dbo.play_mode values ( 4 , "CrossPlay" )
--
-- A table referencing the domain table. The column playmode_id is constrained to
-- on of the values contained in the domain table playmode.
--
create table dbo.game
(
id int not null primary key clustered ,
team1_id int not null foreign key references dbo.team( id ) ,
team2_id int not null foreign key references dbo.team( id ) ,
playmode_id int not null foreign key references dbo.play_mode( id ) ,
)
go
Some people for reasons of "economy" might suggest using a single catch-all table for all such code, but in my experience, that ultimately leads to confusion. Best practice is a single small table for each set of discrete values.
add a foreign key to "codes" table.
the codes table would have the PK be the code value, add a string description column where you enter in the description of the value.
table: PlayModes
Columns: PlayMode number --primary key
Description string
I can't see this as being very expensive, databases are based on joining tables like this.
That information should be in database somewhere and not on comments.
So, you should have a table containing that codes and prolly a FK on your table to it.
I agree with #Nicholas Carey (+1): Static data table with two columns, say “Key” or “ID” and “Description”, with foreign key constraints on all tables using the codes. Often the ID columns are simple surrogate keys (1, 2, 3, etc., with no significance attached to the value), but when reasonable I go a step further and use “special” codes. Following are a few examples.
If the values are a sequence (say, Ordered, Paid, Processed, Shipped), I might use 1, 2, 3, 4, to indicate sequence. This can make things easier if you want to find all “up through” a give stages, such as all orders that have not yet been shipped (ID < 4). If you are into planning ahead, make them 10, 20, 30, 40; this will allow you to add values “in between” existing values, if/when new codes or statuses come along. (Yes, you cannot and should not try to anticipate everything and anything that might have to be done some day, but a bit of pre-planning like this can make some changes that much simpler.)
Keys/Ids are often integers (1 byte, 2 byte, 4 byte, whatever). There’s little cost to make them character values (1 char, 2 char, 3, char, 4 char). That’s character, not variable character. Done this way, you can have mnemonics on your codes, such as
O, P, R, S
Or, Pd, Pr, Sh
Ordr, Paid, Proc, Ship
…or whatever floats your boat. Done this way, I have found that it can save a lot of time when analyzing or debugging. You still want the lookup table, for relational integrity as well as a reminder for the more obscure codes.
I am setting up a SaaS application that multiple clients will use to enter data. However, I have certain fields that Client A may want to force unique, Client B may want to allow dupes. Obviously if I am going to allow any one client to have dupes, the table may not have a unique constraint on it. The downside is that If I want to enforce a unique constraint for some clients, I will have to go about it in some other way.
Has anyone tackled a problem like this, and if so, what are the common solutions and or potential pitfalls to look out for?
I am thinking a trigger that checks for any possible unique flags may be the only way to enforce this correctly. If I rely on the business layer, there is no guarentee that the app will do a unique check before every insert.
SOLUTION:
First I considered the Unique Index, but ruled it out as they can not do any sort of joins or lookups, only express values. And I didn't want to modify the index every time a client was added or a client's uniqueness preference changed.
Then I looked into CHECK CONSTRAINTS, and after some fooling around, built one function to return true for both hypothetical columns that a client would be able to select as unique or not.
Here is the test tables, data, and function I used to
verify that a check constraint could do all that I wanted.
-- Clients Table
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Clients](
[ID] [int] NOT NULL,
[Name] [varchar](50) NOT NULL,
[UniqueSSN] [bit] NOT NULL,
[UniqueVIN] [bit] NOT NULL
) ON [PRIMARY]
-- Test Client Data
INSERT INTO Clients(ID, Name, UniqueSSN, UniqueVIN) VALUES(1,'A Corp',0,0)
INSERT INTO Clients(ID, Name, UniqueSSN, UniqueVIN) VALUES(2,'B Corp',1,0)
INSERT INTO Clients(ID, Name, UniqueSSN, UniqueVIN) VALUES(3,'C Corp',0,1)
INSERT INTO Clients(ID, Name, UniqueSSN, UniqueVIN) VALUES(4,'D Corp',1,1)
-- Cases Table
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Cases](
[ID] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
[ClientID] [int] NOT NULL,
[ClaimantName] [varchar](50) NOT NULL,
[SSN] [varchar](12) NULL,
[VIN] [varchar](17) NULL
) ON [PRIMARY]
-- Check Uniques Function
CREATE FUNCTION CheckUniques(#ClientID int)
RETURNS int -- 0: Ok to insert, 1: Cannot insert
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE #SSNCheck int
DECLARE #VinCheck int
SELECT #SSNCheck = 0
SELECT #VinCheck = 0
IF (SELECT UniqueSSN FROM Clients WHERE ID = #ClientID) = 1
BEGIN
SELECT #SSNCheck = COUNT(SSN) FROM Cases cs WHERE ClientID = #ClientID AND (SELECT COUNT(SSN) FROM Cases c2 WHERE c2.SSN = cs.SSN) > 1
END
IF (SELECT UniqueVIN FROM Clients WHERE ID = #ClientID) = 1
BEGIN
SELECT #VinCheck = COUNT(VIN) FROM Cases cs WHERE ClientID = #ClientID AND (SELECT COUNT(VIN) FROM Cases c2 WHERE c2.VIN = cs.VIN) > 1
END
RETURN #SSNCheck + #VinCheck
END
-- Add Check Constraint to table
ALTER TABLE Cases
ADD Constraint chkClientUniques CHECK(dbo.CheckUniques(ClientID) = 0)
-- Now confirm constraint using test data
-- Client A: Confirm that both duplicate SSN and VIN's are allowed
INSERT INTO Cases (ClientID, ClaimantName, SSN, VIN) VALUES(1, 'Alice', '111-11-1111', 'A-1234')
INSERT INTO Cases (ClientID, ClaimantName, SSN, VIN) VALUES(1, 'Bob', '111-11-1111', 'A-1234')
-- Client B: Confirm that Unique SSN is enforced, but duplicate VIN allowed
INSERT INTO Cases (ClientID, ClaimantName, SSN, VIN) VALUES(2, 'Charlie', '222-22-2222', 'B-2345') -- Should work
INSERT INTO Cases (ClientID, ClaimantName, SSN, VIN) VALUES(2, 'Donna', '222-22-2222', 'B-2345') -- Should fail
INSERT INTO Cases (ClientID, ClaimantName, SSN, VIN) VALUES(2, 'Evan', '333-33-3333', 'B-2345') -- Should Work
-- Client C: Confirm that Unique VIN is enforced, but duplicate SSN allowed
INSERT INTO Cases (ClientID, ClaimantName, SSN, VIN) VALUES(3, 'Evan', '444-44-4444', 'C-3456') -- Should work
INSERT INTO Cases (ClientID, ClaimantName, SSN, VIN) VALUES(3, 'Fred', '444-44-4444', 'C-3456') -- Should fail
INSERT INTO Cases (ClientID, ClaimantName, SSN, VIN) VALUES(3, 'Ginny', '444-44-4444', 'C-4567') -- Should work
-- Client D: Confirm that both Unique SSN and VIN are enforced
INSERT INTO Cases (ClientID, ClaimantName, SSN, VIN) VALUES(4, 'Henry', '555-55-5555', 'D-1234') -- Should work
INSERT INTO Cases (ClientID, ClaimantName, SSN, VIN) VALUES(4, 'Isaac', '666-66-6666', 'D-1234') -- Should fail
INSERT INTO Cases (ClientID, ClaimantName, SSN, VIN) VALUES(4, 'James', '555-55-5555', 'D-2345') -- Should fail
INSERT INTO Cases (ClientID, ClaimantName, SSN, VIN) VALUES(4, 'Kevin', '555-55-5555', 'D-1234') -- Should fail
INSERT INTO Cases (ClientID, ClaimantName, SSN, VIN) VALUES(4, 'Lisa', '777-77-7777', 'D-3456') -- Should work
EDIT:
Had to modify the function a few times to catch NULL values in the dupe check, but all appears to be working now.
One approach is to use a CHECK constraint instead of a unique.
This CHECK constraint will be backed by a SCALAR function that will
take as input ClientID
cross-ref ClientID against a lookup table to see if duplicates are allowed (client.dups)
if not allowed, check for duplicates in the table
Something like
ALTER TABLE TBL ADD CONSTRAINT CK_TBL_UNIQ CHECK(dbo.IsThisOK(clientID)=1)
If you can identify rows in the table for each client, depending on your DBMS you could do something like this:
CREATE UNIQUE INDEX uq_some_col
ON the_table(some_column, other_column, client_id)
WHERE client_id IN (1,2,3);
(The above is valid for PostgreSQL and and I think SQL Server 2005)
The downsize is, that you will need to re-create that index each time a new client is added that requires those columns to be unique.
You will probably have some checks in the business layer as well, mostly to be able to show proper error messages.
That's perfectly possible now on Sql Server 2008(tested on my Sql Server 2008 box here):
create table a
(
cx varchar(50)
);
create unique index ux_cx on a(cx) where cx <> 'US';
insert into a values('PHILIPPINES'),('JAPAN'),('US'),('CANADA');
-- still ok to insert duplicate US
insert into a values('US');
-- will fail here
insert into a values('JAPAN');
Related article: http://www.ienablemuch.com/2010/12/postgresql-said-sql-server2008-said-non.html
There are a few things you can do with this, just depends on when/how you want to handle this.
You could use a CheckConstrain and modify this to do different lookups based on the client that was using it
You could use the business tier to handle this, but it will not protect you from raw database updates.
I personally have found that #1 can get too hard to maintain, especially if you get a high number of clients. I've found that doing it at the business level is a lot easier, and you can control it at a centralized location.
Thee are other options such as a table per client and others that could work as well, but these two are at least the most common that I've seen.
You could add a helper column. The column would be equal the the primary key for the application that allows duplicates, and a constant value for the other application. Then you create a unique constraint on UniqueHelper, Col1.
For the non-dupe client, it will have a constant in the helper column, forcing the column to be unique.
For the dupe column, the helper column is equal to the primary key, so the unique constraint is satisfied by that column alone. That application can add any number of dupes.
One possibility might be to use BEFORE INSERT and and BEFORE UPDATE triggers that can selectively enforce uniqueness.
And another possibility (kind of a kludge) would be to have an additional dummy field that is populated with unique values for one customer and duplicate values for the other customer. Then build a unique index on the combination of the dummy field and the visible field.
#Neil. I had asked in my comment above what your reasons were for putting all in the same table and you simply ignored that aspect of my comment and said everything was "plain and simple". Do you really want to hear the downsides of the conditional constraints approach in an Saas context?
You don't say how many different sets of rules this table in your Saas application may eventually need to incorporate. Will there be only two variations?
Performance is a consideration. Although each customer would have access to a dedicated conditional index|indices, fetching data from the base table could become slower and slower as the data from additional customers is added to it and the table grows.
If I were developing an Saas application, I'd go with dedicated transaction tables wherever appropriate. Customers could share standard tables like zipcodes, counties, and share even domain-specific tables like Products or Categories or WidgetTypes or whatever. I'd probably build dynamic SQL statements in stored procedures in which the correct table for the current customer was chosen and placed in the statement being constructed, e.g.
sql = "select * from " + DYNAMIC_ORDERS_TABLE + " where ... ")
If performance was taking a hit because the dynamic statements had to be compiled all the time, I might consider writing a dedicated stored procedure generator: sp_ORDERS_SELECT_25_v1.0 {where "25" is the id assigned to a particular user of the Saas app and there's a version suffix}.
You're going to have to use some dynamic SQL because the customer id must be appended to the WHERE-clause of every one of your ad hoc queries in order to take advantage of your conditional indexes:
sql = " select * from orders where ... and customerid = " + CURRENT_CUSTOMERID
Your conditional indexes involve your customer/user column and so that column must be made part of every query in order to ensure that only that customer's subset of rows are selected out of the table.
So, when all is said and done, you're really saving yourself the effort required to create a dedicated table and avoiding some dynamic SQL on your bread-and-butter queries. Writing dynamic SQL for bread-and-butter queries doesn't take much effort, and it's certainly less messy than having to manage multiple customer-specific indexes on the same shared table; and if you're writing dynamic SQL you could just as easily substitute the dedicated table name as append the customerid=25 clause to every query. The performance loss of dynamic SQL would be more than offset by the performance gain of dedicated tables.
P.S. Let's say your app has been running for a year or so and you have multiple customers and your table has grown large. You want to add another customer and their new set of customer-specific indexes to the large production table. Can you slipstream these new indexes and constraints during normal business hours or will you have to schedule the creation of these indexes for a time when usage is relatively light?
You don't make clear what benefit there is in having the data from separate universes mingled in the same table.
Uniqueness constraints are part of the entity definition and each entity needs its own table. I'd create separate tables.