On Mon, 4 Oct 1999, Christopher Stephens wrote:
> Sorry Greg, but I didn't understand this answer, apart from realising that
> what I want to do is possible (ie to turn an empty field in a large table
> into an ascending sequence of numbers).
> Can you give me concrete examples of how this would be done or point me at
> some appropriate documentation please?
Christopher,
If you have a table called 'staff' that you want to index using a unique,
sequential number, such as a staff ID, you'd use the following
CREATE SEQUENCE ON staff
then you'd simply request the next sequence value each time you wanted to
enter a new record. eg.
SELECT _seq from staff
store this value into a variable called $seq for example
INSERT INTO staff VALUES ($seq, '$firstName','$lastName' etc...
Each time you select the _seq field from a table that has a sequence
defined on it you'll get the next sequence value. It is an atomic
operation so you are assured of a correct sequence.
Bambi
...
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