Postgresql – Inserting in PostgreSQL Foreign Table Violates Primary Key Constraint10

postgresqlpostgresql-9.5primary-key

I have two local databases in one of them I have created a foreign table that is referencing a table in the second database. When I want to insert in foreign table it inserts the primary key all over from beginning from 1 although when I insert in the actual table it continues from the last value entered.
Is there any way so if I insert in actual or foreign table it goes on the sequence of primary key?

CREATE TABLE Actual_Table (
  id   serial   PRIMARY KEY
  name varchar
);

Then I insert some data in the actual table

INSERT INTO Actual_Table (name) VALUES
  ('AHMAD'),
  ('MAHMOOD');

Then I create the following foreign table in the second database

CREATE FOREIGN TABLE Foreign_Table (
  id serial,
  name varchar
) server some_server options(schema_name 'public', table_name 'Actual_Table')

And then when I user insert in foreign table using the following insert statement I get an error that is violating the primary key constraint

INSERT INTO Foreign_Table (name) VALUES ('John');

This is the error I get

ERROR:  duplicate key value violates unique constraint "to_copy_pkey"
DETAIL:  Key (id)=(2) already exists.
CONTEXT:  Remote SQL command: INSERT INTO public.to_copy(id, name) VALUES ($1, $2)

Best Answer

Can you ignore ID field in the Foreign_Table script and try inserting? It should use the current serial value in the Foreign Table.

{
CREATE FOREIGN TABLE Foreign_Table (name varchar) server 
    some_server options(schema_name 'public', table_name 'Actual_Table')
}

Related Solutions

Postgresql – Violates foreign key constraint

Basically foreign key constraints are not inherited. If you are working with table inheritance you have a few options.

Stop enforcing foreign keys
Use constraint triggers to enforce foreign keys

In most cases you are better off with a single large table and smaller join tables possibly with deferred foreign keys. Unfortunately these are not possible either to fully do the things that table inheritance can do so typically there is going to be at least some custom coding.

PostgreSQL – insert/update violates foreign key constraints

There are a few problems with your tables. I'll try to address the foreign keys first, since you question asked about them :)

But before that, we should realize that the two sets of tables (the first three you created and the second set, which you created after dropping the first set) are the same. Of course, the definition of Table3 in your second attempt has syntax and logical errors, but the basic idea is:

CREATE TABLE table3 (   
  "ID" bigint NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',   
  "DataID" bigint DEFAULT NULL,   
  "Address" numeric(20) DEFAULT NULL,   
  "Data" bigint DEFAULT NULL,
   PRIMARY KEY ("ID"),   
   FOREIGN KEY ("DataID") REFERENCES Table1("DataID") on delete cascade on update cascade,   
   FOREIGN KEY ("Address") REFERENCES Table2("Address") on delete cascade on update cascade
);

This definition tell PostgreSQL roughly the following: "Create a table with four columns, one will be the primary key (PK), the others can be NULL. If a new row is inserted, check DataID and Address: if they contain a non-NULL value (say 27856), then check Table1 for DataID˙and Table2 for Address. If there is no such value in those tables, then return an error." This last point which you've seen first:

ERROR: insert or update on table "Table3" violates foreign key constraint 
    "Table3_DataID_fkey" DETAIL: Key (DataID)=(27856) is not present in table "Table1".

So simple: if there is no row in Table1 where DataID = 27856, then you can't insert that row into Table3.

If you need that row, you should first insert a row into Table1 with DataID = 27856, and only then try to insert into Table3. If this seems to you not what you want, please describe in a few sentences what you want to achieve, and we can help with a good design.

And now about the other problems.

You define your PKs as

CREATE all_your_tables (
    first_column NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',   
    [...]
    PRIMARY KEY ("ID"),

A primary key means that all the items in it are different from each other, that is, the values are UNIQUE. If you give a static DEFAULT (like '0') to a UNIQUE column, you will experience bad surprises all the time. This is what you got in your third error message.

Furthermore, '0' means a text string, but not a number (bigint or numeric in your case). Use simply 0 instead (or don't use it at all, as I written above).

And a last point (I may be wrong here): in Table2, your Address field is set to numeric(20). At the same time, it is the PK of the table. The column name and the data type suggests that this address can change in the future. If this is true, than it is a very bad choice for a PK. Think about the following scenario: you have an address '1234567890454', which has a child in Table3 like

ID        DataID           Address             Data
123       3216547          1234567890454       654897564134569

Now that address happens to change to something other. How do you make your child row in Table3 follow its parent to the new address? (There are solutions for this, but can cause much confusion.) If this is your case, add an ID column to your table, which will not contain any information from the real world, it will simply serve as an identification value (that is, ID) for an address.

Best Answer

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PostgreSQL – insert/update violates foreign key constraints

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