Postgresql – Multiple inserts across tables with serial primary keys

postgresql

I asked this question on stack overflow, but I'm thinking it's better on this stack. Apologies if I've got that wrong. The motivation for this question is to prepare some sql scripts I can run during unit tests and production to define a bunch of master data for a web-based application that I'm building.

I have three tables, which I've abbreviated into the following

create table top (top_id serial, top_name text);
create table mid (mid_id serial, top_id integer, mid_name text);
create table bot (bot_id serial, mid_id integer, bot_name text);

what I want to achieve is

insert a value into top, and capture it's ID
insert multiple values into mid, using the same top_id,
for each value in mid, insert multiple values into bot, using each mid_id.

So, the final result might look like

top
----
1, first_top
2, second_top

mid
---
1, 1, first_mid_for_first_top
2, 1, second_mid_for_first_top
3, 2, first_mid_for_second_top

bot
---
1, 1, first_bot_for_first_mid
2, 1, second_bot_for_first_mid
3, 3, first_bot_for_third_mid

My first approach was to try to have a bunch of nested CTEs, but I couldn't make that into valid syntax (and on consideration, I think that it's not the right approach).

My second approach was to try to store the values into some sort of variable, but I don't know how to do that outside of the pg command line tool.

What I'm after is something analogous to

top_id_one = insert into top(null, 'first_top') returning top_id
mid_id_one = insert into mid(null, top_id_one, 'first_mid_for_first_top) returning mid_id
insert into bot(null, mid_id_one, 'first_bot_for_first_mid')

in a "pure sql" that I could paste into PG admin for example.

I realise that there's a few problems in the example above (for example using 'top' as a table name). My explorations have avoided these issues, but I was trying to find table names that would make my example make sense.

Best Answer

The following is incorrect:

insert into top values (null, 'first_top')

You are explicitly passing null for the first column. Postgres will (try to) store that value in the column and the sequence (that the serial uses) will not be used! By supplying an explicit value for a serial column (or any column with a default) you are overwriting that automatic default.

Now for the actual question:

You can use lastval() to obtain the most recently generated sequence value:

insert into top (top_name) values ('first_top');
insert into mid (top_id, mid_name) values (lastval(), 'first_mid_for_first_top');
insert into bot (mid_id, bot_name) values (lastval(), 'first_bot_for_first_mid');

You can't however insert multiple rows into the mid table in a single statement with that.

Related Solutions

Postgresql – Postgres multiple joins slow query, how to store default child record

You write:

Each customer can have multiple sites, but only one should be displayed in this list.

Yet, your query retrieves all rows. That would be a point to optimize. But you also do not define which site is to be picked.

Either way, it does not matter much here. Your EXPLAIN shows only 5026 rows for the site scan (5018 for the customer scan). So hardly any customer actually has more than one site. Did you ANALYZE your tables before running EXPLAIN?

From the numbers I see in your EXPLAIN, indexes will give you nothing for this query. Sequential table scans will be the fastest possible way. Half a second is rather slow for 5000 rows, though. Maybe your database needs some general performance tuning?

Maybe the query itself is faster, but "half a second" includes network transfer? EXPLAIN ANALYZE would tell us more.

If this query is your bottleneck, I would suggest you implement a materialized view.

After you provided more information I find that my diagnosis pretty much holds.

The query itself needs 27 ms. Not much of a problem there. "Half a second" was the kind of misunderstanding I had suspected. The slow part is the network transfer (plus ssh encoding / decoding, possibly rendering). You should only retrieve 100 rows, that would solve most of it, even if it means to execute the whole query every time.

If you go the route with a materialized view like I proposed you could add a serial number without gaps to the table plus index on it - by adding a column row_number() OVER (<your sort citeria here>) AS mv_id.

Then you can query:

SELECT *
FROM   materialized_view
WHERE  mv_id >= 2700
AND    mv_id <  2800;

This will perform very fast. LIMIT / OFFSET cannot compete, that needs to compute the whole table before it can sort and pick 100 rows.

pgAdmin timing

When you execute a query from the query tool, the message pane shows something like:

Total query runtime: 62 ms.

And the status line shows the same time. I quote pgAdmin help about that:

The status line will show how long the last query took to complete. If a dataset was returned, not only the elapsed time for server execution is displayed, but also the time to retrieve the data from the server to the Data Output page.

If you want to see the time on the server you need to use SQL EXPLAIN ANALYZE or the built in Shift + F7keyboard shortcut or Query -> Explain analyze. Then, at the bottom of the explain output you get something like this:

Total runtime: 0.269 ms

Postgresql – Possible to have nested inserts in Postgres 8.4

You should be able to do something like this with a writable CTE:

WITH i AS (
   INSERT INTO host (hostname, hostrole) VALUES ('foobar', 'Virtual') RETURNING id
)
INSERT INTO interface (name, mac, host)
SELECT 'eth0', '00:50:56:9d:34:d4', id
FROM i

(untested, but it should be something like that)

Writable CTE is in PostgreSQL 9.1 and up.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Postgresql – Postgres multiple joins slow query, how to store default child record

pgAdmin timing

Postgresql – Possible to have nested inserts in Postgres 8.4

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