In DB2 I can do a command that looks like this to retrieve information from the inserted row:
SELECT *
FROM NEW TABLE (
INSERT INTO phone_book
VALUES ( 'Peter Doe','555-2323' )
) AS t
How do I do that in Postgres?
There are way to retrieve a sequence, but I need to retrieve arbitrary columns.
My desire to merge a select with the insert is for performance reasons. This way I only need to execute one statement to insert values and select values from the insert. The values that are inserted come from a subselect rather than a values clause. I only need to insert 1 row.
That sample code was lifted from Wikipedia Insert Article
A plain INSERT ... RETURNING ... does the job and delivers best performance.
A CTE is not necessary.
INSERT INTO phone_book (name, number)
VALUES ( 'Peter Doe','555-2323' )
RETURNING * -- or just phonebook_id, if that's all you need
Aside: In most cases it's advisable to add a target list.
The Wikipedia page you quoted already has the same advice:
Using an INSERT statement with RETURNING clause for PostgreSQL (since
8.2). The returned list is identical to the result of a SELECT.
PostgreSQL supports this kind of behavior through a returning clause in a common table expression. You generally shouldn't assume that something like this will improve performance simply because you're executing one statement instead of two. Use EXPLAIN to measure performance.
create table test (
test_id serial primary key,
col1 integer
);
with inserted_rows as (
insert into test (c1) values (3)
returning *
)
select * from inserted_rows;
test_id col1
--
1 3
Docs
Related
I have a table with PK and another column for other id. In some cases i need to insert record with equal values in both columns. For primary key values i'm using sequence, which gives a Field<Long> from Sequences.MY_SEQ.nextval().
How can i extract value from a Field<Long> for guaranteed insert same ids in both columns? Using Field<Long> in insert clause generates 2 different ids in columns.
Here is the solution:
Long id = dsl.select(Sequences.MY_SEQ.nextval()).fetchOne().value1();
Your own solution works, of course, but it will generate two round trips to the database. One for fetching the sequence value and another one for the insert. If that's not a problem, perfect. Otherwise, you can still do it in one single query using INSERT .. SELECT:
In SQL:
(using Oracle syntax. Your SQL syntax may vary...)
INSERT INTO my_table (col1, col2, val)
SELECT t.id, t.id, 'abc'
FROM (
SELECT my_seq.nextval AS id
FROM dual
) t
With jOOQ
Table<?> t = table(select(MY_SEQ.nextval().as("id"))).as("t");
dsl.insertInto(MY_TABLE)
.columns(MY_TABLE.COL1, MY_TABLE.COL2, MY_TABLE.VAL)
.select(
select(t.field("id"), t.field("id"), val("abc"))
.from(t))
.execute();
I am running a python script that inserts a large amount of data into a Postgres database, I use a single query to perform multiple row inserts:
INSERT INTO table (col1,col2) VALUES ('v1','v2'),('v3','v4') ... etc
I was wondering what would happen if it hits a duplicate key for the insert. Will it stop the entire query and throw an exception? Or will it merely ignore the insert of that specific row and move on?
The INSERT will just insert all rows and nothing special will happen, unless you have some kind of constraint disallowing duplicate / overlapping values (PRIMARY KEY, UNIQUE, CHECK or EXCLUDE constraint) - which you did not mention in your question. But that's what you are probably worried about.
Assuming a UNIQUE or PK constraint on (col1,col2), you are dealing with a textbook UPSERT situation. Many related questions and answers to find here.
Generally, if any constraint is violated, an exception is raised which (unless trapped in subtransaction like it's possible in a procedural server-side language like plpgsql) will roll back not only the statement, but the whole transaction.
Without concurrent writes
I.e.: No other transactions will try to write to the same table at the same time.
Exclude rows that are already in the table with WHERE NOT EXISTS ... or any other applicable technique:
Select rows which are not present in other table
And don't forget to remove duplicates within the inserted set as well, which would not be excluded by the semi-anti-join WHERE NOT EXISTS ...
One technique to deal with both at once would be EXCEPT:
INSERT INTO tbl (col1, col2)
VALUES
(text 'v1', text 'v2') -- explicit type cast may be needed in 1st row
, ('v3', 'v4')
, ('v3', 'v4') -- beware of dupes in source
EXCEPT SELECT col1, col2 FROM tbl;
EXCEPT without the key word ALL folds duplicate rows in the source. If you know there are no dupes, or you don't want to fold duplicates silently, use EXCEPT ALL (or one of the other techniques). See:
Using EXCEPT clause in PostgreSQL
Generally, if the target table is big, WHERE NOT EXISTS in combination with DISTINCT on the source will probably be faster:
INSERT INTO tbl (col1, col2)
SELECT *
FROM (
SELECT DISTINCT *
FROM (
VALUES
(text 'v1', text'v2')
, ('v3', 'v4')
, ('v3', 'v4') -- dupes in source
) t(c1, c2)
) t
WHERE NOT EXISTS (
SELECT FROM tbl
WHERE col1 = t.c1 AND col2 = t.c2
);
If there can be many dupes, it pays to fold them in the source first. Else use one subquery less.
Related:
Select rows which are not present in other table
With concurrent writes
Use the Postgres UPSERT implementation INSERT ... ON CONFLICT ... in Postgres 9.5 or later:
INSERT INTO tbl (col1,col2)
SELECT DISTINCT * -- still can't insert the same row more than once
FROM (
VALUES
(text 'v1', text 'v2')
, ('v3','v4')
, ('v3','v4') -- you still need to fold dupes in source!
) t(c1, c2)
ON CONFLICT DO NOTHING; -- ignores rows with *any* conflict!
Further reading:
How to use RETURNING with ON CONFLICT in PostgreSQL?
How do I insert a row which contains a foreign key?
Documentation:
The manual
The commit page
The Postgres Wiki page
Craig's reference answer for UPSERT problems:
How to UPSERT (MERGE, INSERT ... ON DUPLICATE UPDATE) in PostgreSQL?
Will it stop the entire query and throw an exception? Yes.
To avoid that, you can look on the following SO question here, which describes how to avoid Postgres from throwing an error for multiple inserts when some of the inserted keys already exist on the DB.
You should basically do this:
INSERT INTO DBtable
(id, field1)
SELECT 1, 'value'
WHERE
NOT EXISTS (
SELECT id FROM DBtable WHERE id = 1
);
I have a table table1 with columns id,value1 and value2.
Also I have a query
INSERT INTO table1(value1,value2) SELECT value3,value4 FROM table2 RETURNING id
that returns set of ids.
I want to store return values (these ids) in some temp table. Something like that:
INSERT INTO TEMP temp1 INSERT INTO table1(value1,value2) SELECT value3,value4 FROM table2 RETURNING id
How can I do it?
DBMS is PostgreSQL
with inserted as (
INSERT INTO table1 (value1,value2)
SELECT value3,value4
FROM table2
RETURNING id
)
insert into temp
select id
from inserted;
This requires Postgres 9.2 or later.
Two options.
If you need it just for one follow-up query, a with statement (see the horse's answer) is the easiest.
If you need it for more than one follow-up query, the other option is to not use insert ... returning, but rather create table as:
CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE foo AS
SELECT value3,value4 FROM table2
Caveats: if necessary, create the indexes you need on the table -- and analyze it if you do.
In PostgreSQL, it is possible to put RETURNING at the end of an INSERT statement to return, say, the row's primary key value when that value is automatically set by a SERIAL type.
Question:
How do I store this value in a variable that can be used to insert values into other tables?
Note that I want to insert the generated id into multiple tables. A WITH clause is, as far as I understand, only useful for a single insert. I take it that this will probably have to be done in PHP.
This is really the result of bad design; without a natural key, it is difficult to grab a unique row unless you have a handle on the primary key;
... that can be used to insert values into other tables?
You can even do that in a single SQL statement using a data-modifying CTE:
WITH ins1 AS (
INSERT INTO tbl1(txt)
VALUES ('foo')
RETURNING tbl1_id
)
INSERT INTO tbl2(tbl1_id)
SELECT * FROM ins1
Requires PostgreSQL 9.1 or later.
db<>fiddle here (Postgres 13)
Old sqlfiddle (Postgres 9.6)
Reply to question update
You can also insert into multiple tables in a single query:
WITH ins1 AS (
INSERT INTO tbl1(txt)
VALUES ('bar')
RETURNING tbl1_id
)
, ins2 AS (
INSERT INTO tbl2(tbl1_id)
SELECT tbl1_id FROM ins1
)
INSERT INTO tbl3(tbl1_id)
SELECT tbl1_id FROM ins1;
I'm trying to avoid writing separate SQL queries to achieve the following scenario:
I have a Table called Values:
Values:
id INT (PK)
data TEXT
I would like to check if certain data exists in the table, and if it does, return its id, otherwise insert it and return its id.
The (very) naive way would be:
select id from Values where data = "SOME_DATA";
if id is not null, take it.
if id is null then:
insert into Values(data) values("SOME_DATA");
and then select it again to see its id or use the returned id.
I am trying to make the above functionality in one line.
I think I'm getting close, but I couldn't make it yet:
So far I got this:
select id from Values where data=(COALESCE((select data from Values where data="SOME_DATA"), (insert into Values(data) values("SOME_DATA"));
I'm trying to take advantage of the fact that the second select will return null and then the second argument to COALESCE will be returned. No success so far. What am I missing?
Your command does not work because in SQL, INSERT does not return a value.
If you have a unique constraint/index on the data column, you can use that to prevent duplicates if you blindly insert the value; this uses SQLite's INSERT OR IGNORE extension:
INSERT OR IGNORE INTO "Values"(data) VALUES('SOME_DATE');
SELECT id FROM "Values" WHERE data = 'SOME_DATA';