Create postgresql sequence for database ids

Hi!

We imported a MySQL database and, since in postgre there isn't Autoincrement options, we need to create a serial.

The thing is, the current exported id's doesn't allow us to change its type from int to a serial, instead of that, Postgresql is asking to create a sequence and set the default value as the nextval of that sequence

Is there any more efficient way to do it?

Regards!

dimensionavAsked: 2015-07-27

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LVL 6

Doug WaltonDatabase AdministratorCommented: 2015-07-27

As far as I know, that's the only way to do it which is kind of annoying.

If you have to do this a ton of times you could try creating a procedure that would take a table and column name as parameters that would do it for you.

LVL 23

earth man2Commented: 2015-07-30

say you have a table called tablename and the column you want to be the autoincrement id called colname.

It is not more efficient to do this any different way type serial is equivalent to ...

CREATE SEQUENCE tablename_colname_seq;
CREATE TABLE tablename (colname integer NOT NULL DEFAULT nextval('tablename_colname_seq'));

after the fact creating an autoincrement key on an existing table...
CREATE SEQUENCE tablename_colname_seq ;
ALTER TABLE tablename ALTER COLUMN colname SET DEFAULT nextval('tablename_colname_seq');
generally you would set it to be the primary key and set the sequence ownership....
ALTER SEQUENCE tablename_colname_seq RESTART WITH (select max(colname)+1 from tablename) OWNED BY tablename.colname;
CREATE UNIQUE INDEX tablename_pk ON tablename(colname);
ALTER TABLE tablename ADD PRIMARY KEY USING INDEX tablename_pk;

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