SERIAL type feature request

From: Zoltan Boszormenyi <zboszor(at)dunaweb(dot)hu>
To: pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: SERIAL type feature request
Date: 2005-12-03 21:23:44
Message-ID: 43920CE0.7050304@dunaweb.hu
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Hi!

I would like to add an entry to PostgreSQL 8.2 TODO:
- Extend SERIAL to a full-featured auto-incrementer type.

To achieve this, the following three requirements should be fulfilled:

1. The statement parser should be able to handle this:

create table x (
id serial(N),
...
);

and behind the scenes this would translate into the "create sequence ...
start N"
before creating the table.

2. Upon INSERTing to a serial column, explicitly given 0 value or
'default' keyword
or omitted field (implicit default) should be interchangeable.

3. When a serial field value is given in an INSERT or UPDATE statement
and the value is larger the the current value of the sequence then the
sequence
should be modified accordingly.

This is the way Informix handles its serial type, although it doesn't seem
to have a visible sequence bound to the serial column.

Is it feasible in the 8.2 timeframe?

Thanks in advance,
Zoltán Böszörményi

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