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In-Reply-To: <C6308BB7.3611D%maximilian.tyrtania@onlinehome.de>
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	<C6308BB7.3611D%maximilian.tyrtania@onlinehome.de>
Date: Wed, 13 May 2009 14:48:44 -0400
Message-ID: <bd36f99e0905131148k5255d63ai69c76072efa078c5@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Distinct oddity
From: Glenn Maynard <glennfmaynard@gmail.com>
To: pgsql-sql@postgresql.org
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For purposes of DISTINCT, I'd expect any sort order should do; all it
needs is for equal values to be grouped together.  If strcoll() ever
fails to do that, I'd call it a critical bug--even throwing total
garbage at it should result in a consistent ordering, even if the
ordering itself is totally meaningless.  Many sort functions depend on
this.

On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 8:37 AM, Maximilian Tyrtania
<maximilian.tyrtania@onlinehome.de> wrote:
> Opened those files (with textwrangler, as I 've never used sed), stripped
> off the '$', sorted and looked at the differences (using textwranglers
> "compare documents"-feature).

Can you narrow down what triggers this?  Try copying off the table,
and running this:

******
CREATE FUNCTION is_inconsistent() RETURNS BOOLEAN LANGUAGE SQL AS $$
	select (select count(distinct(f.bezeichnung))      from firmen_copy f) <>
               (select count(distinct(f.bezeichnung||'1')) from firmen_copy f)
$$;

-- If deleting [first,last] leaves the results inconsistent, return
true; otherwise
-- roll back the deletion and return false.
CREATE FUNCTION test_delete_range(first BIGINT, last BIGINT)
RETURNS BOOLEAN LANGUAGE plpgsql AS $$
BEGIN
        DELETE FROM firmen_copy WHERE id BETWEEN first AND last;
        IF is_inconsistent() THEN RETURN true; END IF;
        SELECT 1/0;
EXCEPTION
        WHEN division_by_zero THEN
                RETURN false;
END;
$$;

CREATE FUNCTION test_func()
RETURNS INTEGER LANGUAGE plpgsql AS $$
DECLARE
        total bigint;
BEGIN
        IF NOT is_inconsistent() THEN RETURN -1; END IF;

        LOOP
                total := (SELECT MAX(id) FROM firmen_copy);

                IF test_delete_range(0, total/2) THEN CONTINUE; END IF;
                IF test_delete_range(total*1/4, total*3/4) THEN
CONTINUE; END IF;
                IF test_delete_range(total/2, total) THEN CONTINUE; END IF;

                RETURN 0;
        END LOOP;
END;
$$;

SELECT test_func();
******

This assumes you have a primary key named "id", and that your IDs
start around 0 and are vaguely monotonic (renumber them in the copy if
necessary).  I can't easily test this code, of course, but it's a
simple binary search.  Depending on what's triggering this, it may or
may not be able to narrow in on a test case.

Tangentally, is there a better way of rolling back a function than a
dumb hack like "SELECT 1/0"?

-- 
Glenn Maynard