Oracle - updating a sorted table - sql

Question

I found an old table without a primary key, and in order to add one, I have to add a new column and fill it with sequence values. I have another column which contains the time of when the record was created, so I want to insert the sequence values to the table sorted by the column with the time.
I'm not sure how to do it. I tried using PL\SQL - I created a cursor for a query that returns the table with an ORDER BY, and then update for each record the cursor returns but it didn't work.
Is there a smart working way to do this?
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Another option is just to use a correlated subquery, with the wrinkle of a nested subquery to generate the row number. Setting up some sample data:
create table t42 (datefield date);
insert into t42 (datefield) values (sysdate - 7);
insert into t42 (datefield) values (sysdate + 6);
insert into t42 (datefield) values (sysdate - 5);
insert into t42 (datefield) values (sysdate + 4);
insert into t42 (datefield) values (sysdate - 3);
insert into t42 (datefield) values (sysdate + 2);
select * from t42;
DATEFIELD
---------
12-JUL-12
25-JUL-12
14-JUL-12
23-JUL-12
16-JUL-12
21-JUL-12
Then adding and populating the new column:
alter table t42 add (id number);
update t42 t1 set t1.id = (
select rn from (
select rowid, row_number() over (order by datefield) as rn
from t42
) t2
where t2.rowid = t1.rowid
);
select * from t42 order by id;
DATEFIELD ID
--------- ----------
12-JUL-12 1
14-JUL-12 2
16-JUL-12 3
21-JUL-12 4
23-JUL-12 5
25-JUL-12 6
Since this is a synthetic key, making it match the order of another column seems a bit pointless, but I guess doesn't do any harm.
To complete the task:
alter table t42 modify id not null;
alter table t42 add constraint t42_pk primary key (id);

Answer 2

First of all, create new field and allow null values.
Then, update field from other table or query. Best approach is to use merge statement.
Here a sample from documentation:
MERGE INTO bonuses D
USING (SELECT employee_id, salary, department_id FROM employees
WHERE department_id = 80) S
ON (D.employee_id = S.employee_id)
WHEN MATCHED THEN UPDATE SET D.bonus = D.bonus + S.salary*.01
DELETE WHERE (S.salary > 8000)
WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN INSERT (D.employee_id, D.bonus)
VALUES (S.employee_id, S.salary*.01)
WHERE (S.salary <= 8000);
Finally, set as non null this new field and promote it to primary key.
Here sample sentences:
ALTER TABLE
customer
MODIFY
(
your_new_field varchar2(100) not null
)
;
ALTER TABLE
customer
ADD CONSTRAINT customer_pk PRIMARY KEY (your_new_field)
;

Answer 3

One simple way is to create a new table, with new column an all other columns:
create table newt (
newtID int primary key not null,
. . .
)
Then insert all the old data into it:
insert into newt
select row_number() over (order by <CreatedAt>), t.*
from t
(You can substitute all the columns in, instead of using "*". Having the columns by name is the better practice. This is shorter, plus, I don't know the column names.)
If you alter the table to add the column, then the column will appear at the end. I find that quite awkward for the primary key. If you do that, though, you can update it as:
with t as (select row_number() over (order by <CreatedAt>) as seqnum, t.*
from t
)
update t
set newtID = seqnum