Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2006 08:52:56 -0400
From: Andrew Sullivan <ajs@crankycanuck.ca>
To: pgsql-sql@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Populating using Select
Message-ID: <20060926125256.GB12878@phlogiston.dyndns.org>
References: <55c095e90609260535r1951013ep15ec0d5a89c8a78a@mail.gmail.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
In-Reply-To: <55c095e90609260535r1951013ep15ec0d5a89c8a78a@mail.gmail.com>
User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.9i

On Tue, Sep 26, 2006 at 09:35:18AM -0300, Ezequias Rodrigues da Rocha wrote:
> I was trying to make something like this:
> 
> Insert into base.neigborhood values (nextval(), Select distinct name from
> base.clients).

Not quite.  

INSERT INTO base.neighborhood (column list)
	SELECT nextval('sequence name'),
		name
	FROM	base.clients
	GROUP BY name;

Note that this will give you a different number for each of the
names.  If what you want is for them all to have the same number,
then perform the nextval and then call currval() on the sequence.

By the way, this is a pretty common use of SQL (inserting into one
table the results of a select from another).  If you thought this
wouldn't work, you maybe need a little more SQL practice than you
think you do.  Any of the excellent PostgreSQL books out there should
cover this much.  Alternatively, the standard SQL introductions would
get you there.

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan  | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
In the future this spectacle of the middle classes shocking the avant-
garde will probably become the textbook definition of Postmodernism. 
                --Brad Holland