SQL Delete When column a and column b does not exist - sql

Ok, so you have something like this working. You Insert into a table from a tmp table, where the Equipment Number and the Account Number are missing...
Insert INTO ClientEquipments(
SUB_ACCT_NO_SBB,
EquipmentDate,
EquipmentText,
EquipmentNumber)
Select
replace(a.SUB_ACCT_NO_SBB,'"','') as SUB_ACCT_NO_SBB,
getdate() as edate,'' as etext,
replace(a.equipmentNumber,'"','') equipmentNumber
from clientspaymenttemp a
where not exists
(select b.equipmentNumber
from clientEquipments b
where b.sub_acct_no_sbb=replace(a.SUB_ACCT_NO_SBB,'"','') and b.equipmentNumber=replace(a.equipmentNumber,'"',''))
group by SUB_ACCT_NO_SBB,equipmentNumber
But found a problem if the Equipment Number belonged to a different account number before, then my previous query will insert a new row, with the same Equipment Number but a new Account Number.
What I need it to do is simple:
If Account Number and Equipment Number exists, leave it alone no need to insert.
If Equipment Number exists, but it's assigned to a different Account Number, delete the old row. (Import file handles assignments so I am 100% sure that it needs to be assigned to new account)
Something Like this added somewhere in the previous code:
DELETE FROM ClientEquipments
WHERE (clientEquipmentId =
(SELECT clientEquipmentId
FROM ClientEquipments AS ClientEquipments_1
WHERE (equipmentNumber = '0012345CAEC6')))
If nothing exists then Insert a new row.
:::EDIT SOME MORE INFORMATION TO HELP ME OUT:::
I am reading a CSV file:
Sample Data:
Account | Name | Address | Some Extra Stuff | Equipment Number
"1234","First1,Last1","Address 1",etc etc... "ENum1234"
"1234","First1,Last1","Address 1",etc etc... "ENum5678"
"5678","First2,Last2","Address 2",etc etc... "ENum9123"
"9123","First3,Last3","Address 3",etc etc... "ENum4567"
This gets bulked imported into a temp table. (dbo.clients_temp)
Notice how account 1234 has 2 equipment numbers.
From here I insert new accounts into dbo.clients by doing a query from dbo.clients_temp to dbo.clients
Then I update dbo.clients with new information from dbo.clients_temp (ie Account 1234 might exists but now they have a new address.)
Now that my dbo.clients table is update with new clients, and new information for existing clients, I need to update my dbo.equipments table. I was originally doing what you see above, Insert Where Not Exists Account Number and Equipment Number.
Now the problem is that since equipments do change accounts, for example, Account Number 5678 might have become inactive which I don't track or care for at the database level, but the equipment Number might now belong to Account Number 1234. In this case, my original query will insert a new row into the database, since Account 1234 and Equipment Number are not returned in the SELECT.
Ok, I have lost this now :P I will try and revisit the question later on the weekend because I just confused myself O.o

I had to modify Gordon's answer above a bit, but that did the trick...
Below is the relevant line of code that deletes the inactive accounts.
DELETE FROM ClientEquipments WHERE EquipmentNumber =
(SELECT E.equipmentNumber FROM ClientEquipments As E INNER JOIN ClientsPaymentTemp AS T
on E.equipmentNumber = T.equipmentNumber and e.SUB_ACCT_NO_SBB <> T.SUB_ACCT_NO_SBB)

-- Fix Account Numbers and Equipment Numbers
update ClientPaymentTemp
set SUB_ACCT_NO_SBB = replace(SUB_ACCT_NO_SBB,'"',''),
equipmentNumber = replace(equipmentNumber,'"','')
-- Delete Existing Accounts Mapped to New Equipment
delete e
from ClientEquipments e
inner join clientspaymenttemp t
on e.EquipmentNumber = t.EquipmentNumber
and e.SUB_ACCT_NO_SBB <> t.SUB_ACCT_NO_SBB
-- Insert New Accounts
insert into ClientEquipments
(SUB_ACCT_NO_SBB,
EquipmentDate,
EquipmentText,
EquipmentNumber)
Select
SUB_ACCT_NO_SBB,
getdate() as edate,
'' as etext,
equipmentNumber
from ClientsPaymentTemp a
where not exists (select 1 from ClientEquipments where SUB_ACCT_NO_SBB = a.SUB_ACCT_NO_SBB and EquipmentNumber = a.EquipmentNumber)

I may be misunderstanding, but if all you're looking to do is delete a record where the account number isn't equal to something and the equipment number is equal to something, can't you just perform a delete with multiple where conditions?
Example:
DELETE FROM table
WHERE
equipmentNumber = someNumber AND
accountNumber <> someAccount
You could then get the number of rows affected using ##ROWCOUNT to check the number of rows affected and then insert if nothing was deleted. The example from the TechNet link above uses the following example:
USE AdventureWorks;
GO
UPDATE HumanResources.Employee
SET Title = N'Executive'
WHERE NationalIDNumber = 123456789
IF ##ROWCOUNT = 0
PRINT 'Warning: No rows were updated';
GO
I would think you could easily adapt that to do what you're looking to do.

Related

Find a single row and update it with nested queries

Good evening everyone, I'm trying to do an update on a Table but I can't really make it work
The feature needed is:
-Watch a field on a form, it contains the number of people that need to sit at the restaurant table.
-Find the first free table that has enough seats, set it as busy and assign a random waiter
Any idea?
more db infos:
Table "Waiters" is composed by ID(Autonumber),Name(Short Text). Has 2 names atm
Table "Tables" is composed by ID(Autonumber),Seats(Number),Busy(y/n),Waiter(short text). All tables have a fixed number of seats and have no Waiter + not busy
SOLUTION:
In the end i used "First" for the assignment and it works perfectly as it follows:
UPDATE Tables SET Tables.Waiter = DLookUp("FirstName","TopWtr")
WHERE ID IN (SELECT FIRST (ID)
FROM Tables
WHERE Seats >= Val(Forms!Room!Text12) AND Waiter Is Null);
Top wasn't working because it was returning multiple records - every table with same number of seats - and couldn't make it work with DISTINCT. This works probably because the table is already ordered by seats
Thanks to June7 for the input
Cannot SET a field value to result of a SELECT subquery - SELECT returns a dataset not a single value. Can return a single value with domain aggregate function.
Build a query object named TopWtr:
SELECT Top 1 ID FROM Waiters ORDER BY Rnd(ID);
Then use DLookup to pull that value. The Busy field seems redundant because if table has a waiter assigned that would indicate busy.
UPDATE Tables SET Tables.Waiter = DLookUp("ID","TopWtr"), Tables.Busy = True
WHERE ID IN (SELECT TOP 1 ID FROM Tables
WHERE Seats >= Val(Forms!Room!Testo17) AND Waiter Is Null
ORDER BY Seats)
An INNER JOIN may be preferable to WHERE clause:
UPDATE Tables INNER JOIN (SELECT TOP 1 ID FROM Tables
WHERE Seats >= Val(Forms!Room!Testo17) AND Waiter Is Null
ORDER BY Seats) AS T1
ON Tables.ID = T1.ID
SET Tables.Waiter = DLookUp("ID","TopWtr"), Tables.Busy = True

How to add a row and timestamp one SQL Server table based on a change in a single column of another SQL Server table

[UPDATE: 2/20/19]
I figured out a pretty trivial solution to solve this problem.
CREATE TRIGGER TriggerClaims_History on Claims
AFTER INSERT
AS
BEGIN
SET NOCOUNT ON
INSERT INTO Claims_History
SELECT name, status, claim_date
FROM Claims
EXCEPT SELECT name, status, claim_date FROM Claims_History
END
GO
I am standing up a SQL Server database for a project I am working on. Important info: I have 3 tables - enrollment, cancel, and claims. There are files located on a server that populate these tables every day. These files are NOT deltas (i.e. each new file placed on server every day contains data from all previous files) and because of this, I am able to simply drop all tables, create tables, and then populate tables from files each day. My question is regarding my claims table - since tables will be dropped and created each night, I need a way to keep track of all the different status changes.
I'm struggling to figure out the best way to go about this.
I was thinking of creating a claims_history table that is NOT dropped each night. Essentially I'd want my claims_history table to be populated each time an initial new record is added to the claims table. Then I'd want to scan the claims table and add a row to the claims_history table if and only if there was a change in the status column (i.e. claims.status != claims_history.status).
Day 1:
select * from claims
id | name | status
1 | jane doe | received
select * from claims_history
id | name | status | timestamp
1 | jane doe | received | datetime
Day 2:
select * from claims
id | name | status
1 | jane doe | processed
select * from claims_history
id | name | status | timestamp
1 | jane doe | received | datetime
1 | jane doe | processed | datetime
Is there a SQL script that can do this? I'd also like to automatically have the timestamp field populate in claims_history table each time a new row is added (status change). I know I could write a python script to handle something like this, but i'd like to keep it in SQL if at all possible. Thank you.
Acording to your questions you need to create a trigger after update of the column claims.status and it very simple to do that use this link to know and see how to do a simple trigger click here create asimple sql server trigger
then as if there is many problem to manipulate dateTime in a query a would suggest you to use UNIX time instead of using datetime you can use Long or bigInt UNix time store the date as a number to know the currente time simple use the query SELECT UNIX_TIMESTAMP()
A very common approach is to use a staging table and a production (or final) table. All your ETLs will truncate and load the staging table (volatile) and then you execute an Stored Procedure that adds only the new records to your final table. This requires that all the data you handle this way have some form of key that identifies unequivocally a row.
What happens if your files suddenly change format or are badly formatted? You will drop your table and won't be able to load it back until you fix your ETL. This approach will save you from that, since the process will fail while loading the staging table and won't impact the final table. You can also keep deleted records for historic reasons instead of having them deleted.
I prefer to separate the staging tables into their proper schema, for example:
CREATE SCHEMA Staging
GO
CREATE TABLE Staging.Claims (
ID INT,
Name VARCHAR(100),
Status VARCHAR(100))
Now you do all your loads from your files into these staging tables, truncating them first:
TRUNCATE TABLE Staging.Claims
BULK INSERT Staging.Claims
FROM '\\SomeFile.csv'
WITH
--...
Once this table is loaded you execute a specific SP that adds your delta between the staging content and your final table. You can add whichever logic you want here, like doing only inserts for new records, or inserting already existing values that were updated on another table. For example:
CREATE TABLE dbo.Claims (
ClaimAutoID INT IDENTITY PRIMARY KEY,
ClaimID INT,
Name VARCHAR(100),
Status VARCHAR(100),
WasDeleted BIT DEFAULT 0,
ModifiedDate DATETIME,
CreatedDate DATETIME DEFAULT GETDATE())
GO
CREATE PROCEDURE Staging.UpdateClaims
AS
BEGIN
BEGIN TRY
BEGIN TRANSACTION
-- Update changed values
UPDATE C SET
Name = S.Name,
Status = S.Status,
ModifiedDate = GETDATE()
FROM
Staging.Claims AS S
INNER JOIN dbo.Claims AS C ON S.ID = C.ClaimID -- This has to be by the key columns
WHERE
ISNULL(C.Name, '') <> ISNULL(S.Name, '') AND
ISNULL(C.Status, '') <> ISNULL(S.Status, '')
-- Insert new records
INSERT INTO dbo.Claims (
ClaimID,
Name,
Status)
SELECT
ClaimID = S.ID,
Name = S.Name,
Status = S.Status
FROM
Staging.Claims AS S
WHERE
NOT EXISTS (SELECT 'not yet loaded' FROM dbo.Claims AS C WHERE S.ID = C.ClaimID) -- This has to be by the key columns
-- Mark deleted records as deleted
UPDATE C SET
WasDeleted = 1,
ModifiedDate = GETDATE()
FROM
dbo.Claims AS C
WHERE
NOT EXISTS (SELECT 'not anymore on files' FROM Staging.Claims AS S WHERE S.ClaimID = C.ClaimID) -- This has to be by the key columns
COMMIT
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
DECLARE #v_ErrorMessage VARCHAR(MAX) = ERROR_MESSAGE()
IF ##TRANCOUNT > 0
ROLLBACK
RAISERROR (#v_ErrorMessage, 16, 1)
END CATCH
END
This way you always work with dbo.Claims and the records are never lost (just updated or inserted).
If you need to check the last status of a particular claim you can create a view:
CREATE VIEW dbo.vClaimLastStatus
AS
WITH ClaimsOrdered AS
(
SELECT
C.ClaimAutoID,
C.ClaimID,
C.Name,
C.Status,
C.ModifiedDate,
C.CreatedDate,
DateRanking = ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY C.ClaimID ORDER BY C.CreatedDate DESC)
FROM
dbo.Claims AS C
)
SELECT
C.ClaimAutoID,
C.ClaimID,
C.Name,
C.Status,
C.ModifiedDate,
C.CreatedDate,
FROM
ClaimsOrdered AS C
WHERE
DateRanking = 1

SQL Server : trigger firing every time

For my school project I need to add a trigger to my SQL Server database. I decided a 'no double usernames' trigger on my Users table would be relevant.
The problem is, that this trigger is firing every time I execute an INSERT query. I can't figure out why this is happening every time. I even tried different ways of writing my trigger.
The trigger I have now:
CREATE TRIGGER [Trigger_NoDuplicates]
ON [dbo].[Users]
FOR INSERT
AS
BEGIN
SET NOCOUNT ON
IF(EXISTS(SELECT Username FROM Users
WHERE Username = (SELECT Username FROM inserted)))
BEGIN;
RAISERROR('This username already exists!',15, 0)
ROLLBACK
END
END
Thanks in advance!
A trigger always fires every time, do you mean "raises an error every time"?
You currently have the following (expanded to multiple lines to make it clearer)...
IF (
EXISTS (
SELECT Username
FROM users
WHERE Username = (SELECT Username FROM inserted)
)
)
The key point here is the name of the table inserted. Past tense. It's already happened.
Anything in the inserted table has already been inserted into the target table.
So, what you need to check is that the username is in the target table more than once already.
However, it is possible to insert more than one record in to a table at once. This means that Username = (SELECT Username FROM inserted) will cause its own error. (You can't compare a single value to a set of values, and inserted can contain more than one row => more than one username...)
This is how I would approach your trigger...
IF EXISTS (
SELECT
users.Username
FROM
users
INNER JOIN
inserted
ON inserted.Username = users.Username
GROUP BY
users.Username
HAVING
COUNT(*) > 1
)
This takes the (already inserted in to) users table, and picks out all the records that mach username with any record in the inserted table.
Then it GROUPs them by they username field.
Then it filters the results to only include groups with more than 1 record.
These groups (usernames), have duplicate entries and should cause your trigger to raise an error.
An alternative is a bit more similar to your approach, but many people won't recognise it, so I generally wouldn't recommend it...
IF EXISTS (
SELECT
users.Username
FROM
users
WHERE
users.Username = ANY (SELECT username FROM inserted)
GROUP BY
users.Username
HAVING
COUNT(*) > 1
)
The ANY keyword gets very rarely used, but does what it sounds like. It allows a single value to be compared to a set of values.
Finally, if your table has an IDENTITY column, you can avoid the GROUP BY by explicitly stating you don't want to compare a row to itself...
IF EXISTS (
SELECT
users.Username
FROM
users
INNER JOIN
inserted
ON inserted.Username = users.Username
AND inserted.id <> users.id
)

Selectively retrieve data from tables when one record in first table is linked to multiple records in second table

I have 2 tables:
1. Tbl_Master: columns:
a. SEQ_id
b. M_Email_id
c. M_location_id
d. Del_flag
2. Tbl_User: columns
a. U_email_id
b. Last_logged_date
c. User_id
First table Is master table it has unique rows i.e. single record of all users in the system.
Each User can be uniquely identified by the email_id in each table.
One user can have multiple profile, which means for one us_email_id field in the tblUser table, there can be many user_id in tbl_User,
i.e there can be multiple entries in second table for each user.
Now I have to select only those users who have logged in for last time before, lets say '2012', i.e before 1-Jan-2012.
But if one user has 2 or more user_id and one user_id has last_logged_date less than 2012
But other user_id has greater than 2012 then such user should be ignored.
In the last all all the result user will be marked for deletion by setting DEL_flag in master table to ‘Yes’
For eg:
Record in Tbl_Master:
A123 ram#abc.com D234 No
A123 john#abc.com D256 No
Record in tbl_User can be Like:
ram#abc.com '11-Dec-2011' Ram1
ram#abc.com '05-Apr-2014' Ram2
john#abc.com '15-Dec-2010' John1
In such case only John's Record should be selected not of Ram whose one profile has last_logged_date>1-Jan-2012
Another possibility was
SELECT
m.M_Email_id,
MAX(u.Last_logged_date) AS last_login
FROM
Tbl_Master m
INNER JOIN
Tbl_User u on u.U_email_id = m.M_Email_id
GROUP BY m.M_Email_id
HAVING
-- Year(MAX(u.Last_logged_date)) < 2012 -- use the appropriate function of your DBMS
EXTRACT(YEAR FROM(MAX(u.Last_logged_date))) < 2012 -- should be the version for oracle
-- see http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B14117_01/server.101/b10759/functions045.htm#i1017161
Your UPDATE operation can use this select in the WHERE clause.
Try this, this ans is in sql server, I haven't worked on Oracle.
select * from Tbl_Master
outer apply
(
select U_email_id,max(Last_logged_date)as LLogged,count(U_email_id) as RecCount
from Tbl_User
where Tbl_User.U_email_id = Tbl_Master.M_Email_id
group by U_email_id
)as a
where RecCount >2
and Year(LLogged) < '2012'
Try this DEMO
Hope it helps you.

Need a SQL statement focus on combination of tables but entries always with unique ID

I need SQL code to solve the tables combination problem, described on below:
Table old data: table old
name version status lastupdate ID
A 0.1 on 6/8/2010 1
B 0.1 on 6/8/2010 2
C 0.1 on 6/8/2010 3
D 0.1 on 6/8/2010 4
E 0.1 on 6/8/2010 5
F 0.1 on 6/8/2010 6
G 0.1 on 6/8/2010 7
Table new data: table new
name version status lastupdate ID
A 0.1 on 6/18/2010
#B entry deleted
C 0.3 on 6/18/2010 #version_updated
C1 0.1 on 6/18/2010 #new_added
D 0.1 on 6/18/2010
E 0.1 off 6/18/2010 #status_updated
F 0.1 on 6/18/2010
G 0.1 on 6/18/2010
H 0.1 on 6/18/2010 #new_added
H1 0.1 on 6/18/2010 #new_added
the difference of new data and old date:
B entry deleted
C entry version updated
E entry status updated
C1/H/H1 entry new added
What I want is always keeping the ID - name mapping relationship in old data table no matter how data changed later, a.k.a the name always has an unique ID number bind with it.
If entry has update, then update the data, if entry is new added, insert to the table then give a new assigned unique ID. If the entry was deleted, delete the entry and do not reuse that ID later.
However, I can only use SQL with simple select or update statement then it may too hard for me to write such code, then I hope someone with expertise can give direction, no details needed on the different of SQL variant, a standard sql code as sample is enough.
Thanks in advance!
Rgs
KC
========
I listed my draft sql here, but not sure if it works, some one with expertise pls comment, thanks!
1.duplicate old table as tmp for store updates
create table tmp as
select * from old
2.update into tmp where the "name" is same in old and new table
update tmp
where name in (select name from new)
3.insert different "name" (old vs new) into tmp and assign new ID
insert into tmp (name version status lastupdate ID)
set idvar = max(select max(id) from tmp) + 1
select * from
(select new.name new.version new.status new.lastupdate new.ID
from old, new
where old.name <> new.name)
4. delete the deleted entries from tmp table (such as B)
delete from tmp
where
(select ???)
You never mentioned what DBMS you are using but if you are using SQL Server, one really good one is the SQL MERGE statement. See: http://www.mssqltips.com/tip.asp?tip=1704
The MERGE statement basically works as
separate insert, update, and delete
statements all within the same
statement. You specify a "Source"
record set and a "Target" table, and
the join between the two. You then
specify the type of data modification
that is to occur when the records
between the two data are matched or
are not matched. MERGE is very useful,
especially when it comes to loading
data warehouse tables, which can be
very large and require specific
actions to be taken when rows are or
are not present.
Example:
MERGE Products AS TARGET
USING UpdatedProducts AS SOURCE
ON (TARGET.ProductID = SOURCE.ProductID)
--When records are matched, update
--the records if there is any change
WHEN MATCHED AND TARGET.ProductName <> SOURCE.ProductName
OR TARGET.Rate <> SOURCE.Rate THEN
UPDATE SET TARGET.ProductName = SOURCE.ProductName,
TARGET.Rate = SOURCE.Rate
--When no records are matched, insert
--the incoming records from source
--table to target table
WHEN NOT MATCHED BY TARGET THEN
INSERT (ProductID, ProductName, Rate)
VALUES (SOURCE.ProductID, SOURCE.ProductName, SOURCE.Rate)
--When there is a row that exists in target table and
--same record does not exist in source table
--then delete this record from target table
WHEN NOT MATCHED BY SOURCE THEN
DELETE
--$action specifies a column of type nvarchar(10)
--in the OUTPUT clause that returns one of three
--values for each row: 'INSERT', 'UPDATE', or 'DELETE',
--according to the action that was performed on that row
OUTPUT $action,
DELETED.ProductID AS TargetProductID,
DELETED.ProductName AS TargetProductName,
DELETED.Rate AS TargetRate,
INSERTED.ProductID AS SourceProductID,
INSERTED.ProductName AS SourceProductName,
INSERTED.Rate AS SourceRate;
SELECT ##ROWCOUNT;
GO
Let me start from the end:
In #4 you would delete all rows in tmp; what you wanted to say there is WHERE tmp.name NOT IN (SELECT name FROM new); similarly #3 is not correct syntax, but if it was it would try to insert all rows.
Regarding #2, why not use auto increment on the ID?
Regarding #1, if your tmp table is the same as new the queries #2-#4 make no sense, unless you change (update, insert, delete) new table in some way.
But (!), if you do update the table new and it has an auto increment field on ID and if you are properly updating the table (using ID) from the application then your whole procedure is unnecessary (!).
So, the important thing is that you should not design the system to work like above.
To get the concept of updating data in the database from the application side take a look at examples here (php/mysql).
Also, to get the syntax correct on your queries go through the basic version of SET, INSERT, DELETE and SELECT commands (no way around this).
Note - if you are concerned about performance you can skip this whole answer :-)
If you can redesign have 2 tables - one with the data and other with the name - ID linkage. Something like
table_original
name version status lastupdate
A 0.1 on 6/8/2010
B 0.1 on 6/8/2010
C 0.1 on 6/8/2010
D 0.1 on 6/8/2010
E 0.1 on 6/8/2010
F 0.1 on 6/8/2010
G 0.1 on 6/8/2010
and name_id
name ID
A 1
B 2
C 3
D 4
E 5
F 6
G 7
When you get the table_new with the new set of data
TRUNCATE table_original
INSERT INTO name_id (names from table_new not in name_id)
copy table_new to table_original
Note : I think there's a bit of ambiguity about the deletion here
If the entry was deleted, delete the
entry and do not reuse that ID later.
If name A gets deleted, and it turns up again in a later set of updates do you want to a. reuse the original ID tagged to A, or b. generate a new ID?
If it's b. you need a column Deleted? in name_id and a last step
4 . set Deleted? = Y where name not in table_original
and 2. would exclude Deleted? = Y records.
You could also do the same thing without the name_id table based on the logic that the only thing you need from table_old is the name - ID links. Everything else you need is in table_new,
This works in Informix and gives exactly the display you require. Same or similar should work in MySQL, one would think. The trick here is to get the union of all names into a temp table and left join on that so that the values from the other two can be compared.
SELECT DISTINCT name FROM old
UNION
SELECT DISTINCT name FROM new
INTO TEMP _tmp;
SELECT
CASE WHEN b.name IS NULL THEN ''
ELSE aa.name
END AS name,
CASE WHEN b.version IS NULL THEN ''
WHEN a.version = b.version THEN a.version
ELSE b.version
END AS version,
CASE WHEN a.status = b.status THEN a.status
WHEN b.status IS NULL THEN ''
ELSE b.status
END AS status,
CASE WHEN a.lastupdate = b.lastupdate THEN a.lastupdate
WHEN b.lastupdate IS NULL THEN null
ELSE b.lastupdate
END AS lastupdate,
CASE WHEN a.name IS NULL THEN '#new_added'
WHEN b.name IS NULL THEN '#' || aa.name || ' entry deleted'
WHEN a.version b.version THEN '#version_updated'
WHEN a.status b.status THEN '#status_updated'
ELSE ''
END AS change
FROM _tmp aa
LEFT JOIN old a
ON a.name = aa.name
LEFT JOIN new b
ON b.name = aa.name;
a drafted approach, I have no idea if it works fine......
CREATE TRIGGER auto_next_id
AFTER INSERT ON table FOR EACH ROW
BEGIN
UPDATE table SET uid = max(uid) + 1 ;
END;
If I understood well what you need based on the comments in the two tables, I think you can simplify a lot your problem if you don't merge or update the old table because what you need is table new with the IDs in table old when they exist and new IDs when they do not exist, right?
New records: table new has the new records already - OK (but they need a new ID)
Deleted Records: they are not in table new - OK
Updated Records: already updated in table new - OK (need to copy ID from table old)
Unmodified records: already in table new - OK (need to copy ID from table old)
So the only thing you need to do is to:
(a) copy the IDs from table old to table new when they exist
(b) create new IDs in table new when they do not exist in table old
(c) copy table new to table old.
(a) UPDATE new SET ID = IFNULL((SELECT ID FROM old WHERE new.name = old.name),0);
(b) UPDATE new SET ID = FUNCTION_TO GENERATE_ID(new.name) WHERE ID = 0;
(c) Drop table old;
CREATE TABLE old (select * from new);
As I don't know which SQL database you are using, in (b) you can use an sql function to generate the unique id depending on the database. With SQL Server, newid(), With postgresql (not too old versions), now() seems a good choice as its precision looks sufficient (but not in other databases as MySQL for example as I think the precision is limited to seconds)
Edit: Sorry, I hadn't seen you're using sqlite and python. In this case you can use str(uuid.uuid4()) function (uuid module) in python to generate the uuid and fill the ID in new table where ID = 0 in step (b). This way you'll be able to join 2 independent databases if needed without conflicts on the IDs.
Why don't you use a UUID for this? Generate it once for a plug-in, and incorporate/keep it into the plug-in, not into the DB. Now that you mention python, here's how to generate it:
import uuid
UID = str(uuid.uuid4()) # this will yield new UUID string
Sure it does not guarantee global uniqueness, but chances you get the same string in your project is pretty low.