How can I treat a sequence value like a generated key? - java

Here is my situation and my constraints:
I am using Java 5, JDBC, and DB2 9.5
My database table contains a BIGINT value which represents the primary key. For various reasons that are too complicated to go into here, the way I insert records into the table is by executing an insert against a VIEW; an INSTEAD OF trigger retrieves the NEXT_VAL from a SEQUENCE and performs the INSERT into the target table.
I can change the triggers, but I cannot change the underlying table or the general approach of inserting through the view.
I want to retrieve the sequence value from JDBC as if it were a generated key.
Question: How can I get access to the value pulled from the SEQUENCE. Is there some message I can fire within DB2 to float this sequence value back to the JDBC driver?
Resolution:
I resorted to retrieving the PREVIOUS_VAL from the sequence in a separate JDBC call.

Have you looked at java.sql.Statement.getGeneratedKeys()? I wouldn't hold out much hope since you're doing something so unusual but you never know.

You should be able to do this using the FINAL TABLE syntax:
select * from final table (insert into yourview values (...) );
This will return the data after all triggers have been fired.

Related

Update primary keys without creating duplicate rows?

I'm working on a Java project which needs to be able to alter all the primary keys in a table - and in most cases - some other values in the row as well.
The problem I have is that, if I update a row by selecting by its old primary key (SET pk=new_pk WHERE pk=old_pk) I get duplicate rows (since the old PK value may be equal to another row's new PK value and both rows are then updated).
I figured that in Oracle and some other DBs I might be able to do this with ROWNUM or something similar, but the system should work with most DB systems and right now we can't get this to work for MySQL.
I should add that I don't have access to change the schema of the DB - so, I can't add a column.
What I have tried:
Updating ResultSets directly with RS.updateRow() - this seems to
work, but is very slow.
Hashing the PK's in the table, storing the hash in code and selecting on the hashed PK. This acts sort of as a signature, since a
hashed PK indicates that the row has been read but not yet updated
and I can avoid appropriate rows that way. The issue with this seems
to have been hash collisions as I was getting duplicate PKs.
PS:
I realise this sounds like either a terrible idea, or terrible design, but we really have no choice. The system I'm working on aims to anonymize private data and that may entail changing PKs in some tables. Don't fear, we do account for FK references.
In this case you can use simple update with delta = max Pk from updating table
select delta
select max(pk) as delta from table
and then use it in query
update table SET pk=pk+delta+1
Before this operation you need to disable constraints. And don't forget that you should also update foreign keys.

Increment ID on insertion of a new row on database

I need something which I dont know if it's possible to achieve. Basically I'll be adding new rows of information from java to a database with the table structure , ex:
Number | Color | Size
0 | Red | Big
1 | Green | Small
2 | Yellow| Medium
I'm using java and I'll only input the Color and Size, and I would like to know if it's possible to create a trigger that will store the variable Number(id) on the database side, and increment it each time I do an Insert of a new row into the db. I was thinking doing something like, " INSERT INTO table ((null),'Red', 'Big'), and then the database would update the value with the proper Number.
Also should be possible to bare with fact that some rows can be deleted, but it won'shouldn't affect anything, example: if I have ID's 0 , 1 ,2 and I delete 1, next row should still be 3.
Another thing, I'm using Sybase SQL Anywhere 12 to do this.
You should use autoincrement column in your database.
See this.
http://www.sqlines.com/sybase-asa/autoincrement_identity
As #Gordon Linoff said ...
Identity columns are doing that, for example ...
create table T1 (ID int identity(1,1), Name nvarchar(100))
In this case you would go ...
insert into T1 (Name) values ('John')
So, you would insert Name 'John' and DB itself would give him ID 1
Next time you do insert, ID 2 would be set ... and so on and on ..
Identity(1,1) - it means start from 1 and increment it by 1 on new insert
Thing about this is that once number is taken, there is no going back, so if you have IDs 1, 2, 3 .. and delete ID 3 .. on next insert ID will go up to 4, it will not populate "missing number"
there are several solutions that satisfy your requirements but those are different in several aspects and you should decide to select the best one.
some solutions are exists in DB context. (for example #Gregory answer),
but some other solutions are independent of the DB type and specific features. it means that you implement your solution independent of your db type and you could change your db (oracle, sql-server, my-sql , ...) and there is no need to change your java code.
in jpa there are three Sequence Strategies to solving this problem with #GeneratedValue.
1) Table sequencing: you use a separate table for this purpose in your db. this table hold the proper ids for other tables that have auto-increment-columns with this strategy.
2) Sequence objects: you use a sequence object in your db and jpa handle it. Sequence objects are only supported in some databases, such as Oracle, DB2, and Postgres.
3) Identity sequencing: uses special IDENTITY columns in the database to allow the database to automatically assign an id to the object when its row is inserted. Identity columns are supported in many databases, such as MySQL, DB2, SQL Server, Sybase, and PostgreSQL. Oracle does not support IDENTITY columns but it is possible to simulate them using sequence objects and triggers.
if you want to be independent from your db type, I recommend you to use "table strategy" in jpa.
see Java Persistence/Identity and Sequencing for details.
you asked:
I would like to know if it's possible to create a trigger that will
store the variable Number(id) on the database side, and increment it
each time I do an Insert of a new row into the db.
yes, you could use trigger, but as i mentioned there are some simpler solutions rather it.
Also should be possible to bare with fact that some rows can be
deleted, but it won'shouldn't affect anything
in jpa solutions the deleted ids don't be used in next usage, but if you implement your own solution you could use them.
I hope this answer help you.

How to get column from other tables, to form a new table?

I'm relatively new to working with JDBC and SQL. I have two tables, CustomerDetails and Cakes. I want to create a third table, called Transactions, which uses the 'Names' column from CustomerDetails, 'Description' column from Cakes, as well as two new columns of 'Cost' and 'Price'. I'm aware this is achievable through the use of relational databases, but I'm not exactly sure about how to go about it. One website I saw said this can be done using ResultSet, and another said using the metadata of the column. However, I have no idea how to go about either.
What you're probably looking to do is to create a 'SQL View' (to simplify - a virtual table), see this documentation
CREATE VIEW view_transactions AS
SELECT Name from customerdetails, Description from cakes... etc.
FROM customerdetails;
Or something along those lines
That way you can then query the View view_transactions for example as if it was a proper table.
Also why have you tagged this as mysql when you are using sqlite.
You should create the new table manually, i.e. outside of your program. Use the commandline 'client' sqlite3 for example.
If you need to, you can use the command .schema CustomerDetails in that tool to show the DDL ("metadata" if you want) of the table.
Then you can write your new CREATE TABLE Transactions (...) defining your new columns, plus those from the old tables as they're shown by the .schema command before.
Note that the .schema is only used here to show you the exact column definitions of the existing tables, so you can create matching columns in your new table. If you already know the present column definitions, because you created those tables yourself, you can of course skip that step.
Also note that SELECT Name from CUSTOMERDETAILS will always return the data from that table, but never the structure, i.e. the column definition. That data is useless when trying to derive a column definition from it.
If you really want/have to access the DB's metadata programatically, the documented way is to do so by querying the sqlite_master system table. See also SQLite Schema Information Metadata for example.
You should read up on the concept of data modelling and how relational databases can help you with it, then your transaction table might look just like this:
CREATE TABLE transactions (
id int not null primary key
, customer_id int not null references customerdetails( id )
, cake_id int not null references cakes( id )
, price numeric( 8, 2 ) not null
, quantity int not null
);
This way, you can ensure, that for each transaction (which is in this case would be just a single position of an invoice), the cake and customer exist.
And I agree with #hanno-binder, that it's not the best idea to create all this in plain JDBC.

PostgreSQL JDBC getGeneratedKeys returns all columns

I've recently switched from MySQL to PostgreSQL for the back end of a project and discovered some of my database proxy methods needed reviewing. To insert linked objects I use a transaction to make sure everything is stored. I do this using jdbc methods such as setAutoCommit(false) and commit(). I've written a utility method that inserts a record into a table and returns the generated key. Basically I've followed technique 2 as described here:
http://www.selikoff.net/2008/09/03/database-key-generation-in-java-applications/
This has worked since the start of the project, but after migrating from MySQL to PostgreSQL getGeneratedKeys returns all the columns of the newly inserted record (see console output below).
Code:
final ResultSet keys = ps.getGeneratedKeys();
final ResultSetMetaData metaData = keys.getMetaData();
for (int j = 0; j < metaData.getColumnCount(); j++) {
System.out.println("Col name: "+metaData.getColumnName(j+1));
}
Output:
Col name: pathstart
Col name: fk_id_c
Col name: xpathid
Col name: firstnodeisroot
Database signature for the table (auto generated SQL from pgAdmin III):
CREATE TABLE configuration.configuration_xpath
(
pathstart integer NOT NULL,
fk_id_c integer NOT NULL,
xpathid integer NOT NULL DEFAULT nextval('configuration.configuration_xpath_id_seq'::regclass),
firstnodeisroot boolean NOT NULL DEFAULT false,
CONSTRAINT configuration_xpath_pkey PRIMARY KEY (xpathid),
CONSTRAINT configuration_fk FOREIGN KEY (fk_id_c)
REFERENCES configuration.configuration (id_c) MATCH SIMPLE
ON UPDATE CASCADE ON DELETE CASCADE
)
Database signature for the sequence behind the PK:
CREATE SEQUENCE configuration.configuration_xpath_id_seq
INCREMENT 1
MINVALUE 1
MAXVALUE 9223372036854775807
START 242
CACHE 1
OWNED BY configuration.configuration_xpath.xpathid;
So the question is, why is getGeneratedKeys returning all the columns instead of just the generated key? I've searched and found someone else with a similar problem here:
http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/004801cb7518$cbc632e0$635298a0$#pravdin#disi.unitn.it
But their question has not been answered, only a suggested workaround is offered.
Most drivers support getGeneratedKeys() by tacking on a RETURNING-clause at the end of the query with the columns that are auto-generated. PostgreSQL returns all fields because it has RETURNING * which simply returns all columns. That means that to return the generated key it doesn't have to query the system table to determine which column(s) to return, and this saves network roundtrips (and query time).
This is implicitly allowed by the JDBC specification, because it says:
Note:If the columns which represent the auto-generated keys were not specified, the JDBC driver implementation will determine the columns which best represent the auto-generated keys.
Reading between the lines you can say that this allows for saying 'I don't know, or it is too much work, so all columns best represent the auto-generated keys'.
An additional reason might be that it is very hard to determine which columns are auto-generated and which aren't (I am not sure if that is true for PostgreSQL). For example in Jaybird (the JDBC driver for Firebird that I maintain) we also return all columns because in Firebird it is impossible to determine which columns are auto-generated (but we do need to query the system tables for the column names because Firebird 3 and earlier do not have RETURNING *).
Therefor it is always advisable to explicitly query the generated keys ResultSet by column name and not by position.
Other solutions are explicitly specifying the column names or the column positions you want returned using the alternate methods accepting a String[] or int[] (although I am not 100% sure how the PostgreSQL driver handles that).
BTW: Oracle is (was?) even worse: by default it returns the ROW_ID of the row, and you need to use a separate query to get the (generated) values from that row.
UPDATE - The accepted answer (by Mark) correctly explains what the problem is. My solution also works, but that's only because I added the PK column first when recreating the tables. Either way, all columns are returned by getGeneratedKeys().
After some research I've managed to find a possible cause of the problem. As I said before, I've changed from MySQL to PostgreSQL during the development of a software project. For this migration, I've taken an SQL dump which I loaded into PostgreSQL. Aside from the migrated tables, I've also created some new ones (using the GUI wizards in pgAdmin III). After a close investigation of the differences between two tables (one imported, one created), I've established 2 things:
CREATE TABLE statements from the MySQL dump convert PKs to BIGINT NOT NULL, not to SERIAL. This lead to the fact auto generated PKs no longer worked properly, though I fixed this before I asked this question.
The tables that I 'fixed' by adding a new sequence and linking it up work perfectly fine, but the SQL generation code (auto-generated by pgAdmin III, as shown in the original question) is different that that of a table that is made in PostgreSQL natively.
Note that my fixed tables work(ed) perfectly: I can insert records, update records and perform joins... basically do anything. The primary keys get auto generated and the sequence gets updated. However, the JDBC driver (psotgresql-9.2-1003.jdbc4.jar to be precise) fails to return my generated keys (though the tables are fully functional).
To illustrate the difference between a migrated and created table, here is an example of generation code for a table that I added after the migration:
CREATE TABLE configuration.configuration_xpathitem
(
xpathitemid serial NOT NULL,
xpathid integer,
fk_id_c integer,
itemname text,
index integer,
CONSTRAINT pk_configuration_xpathitem PRIMARY KEY (xpathitemid),
CONSTRAINT fk_configuration_xpathitem_configuration FOREIGN KEY (fk_id_c)
REFERENCES configuration.configuration (id_c) MATCH SIMPLE
ON UPDATE NO ACTION ON DELETE NO ACTION,
CONSTRAINT fk_configuration_xpathitem_configuration_xpath FOREIGN KEY (xpathid)
REFERENCES configuration.configuration_xpath (xpathid) MATCH SIMPLE
ON UPDATE NO ACTION ON DELETE NO ACTION
)
You can clearly see here my PK has the serial keyword, where it is integer not null default ... for the migrated (and fixed) table.
Because of this, I figured maybe the JDBC driver for PostgreSQL was unable to find the PK. I had already read the specification that #Mark highlighted in his reply and this lead me to think that that was the cause for the driver to return all columns. This lead me to believe the driver could not find the PK because I think it is looking for the serial keyword.
So to solve the problem, I dumped my data, deleted my faulty tables and added them again, this time from scratch rather than with the SQL statements from the MySQL dump, and reloaded my data. This has solved the problem for me. I hope this can help anyone that is also stuck.

Workaround for Spring/Hibernate due to non-standard behaviour of UNIQUE constraint in MS SQL

There is a UNIQUE database constraint on an index which doesn't allow more than one record having identical columns.
There is a piece of code, managed by Hibernate (v2.1.8), doing two DAO
getHibernateTemplate().save( theObject )
calls which results two records entered into the table mentioned above.
If this code is executed without transactions, it results INSERT, UPDATE, then another INSERT and another UPDATE SQL statements and works fine. Apparently, the sequence is to insert the record containing DB NULL first, and then update it with the proper data.
If this code is executed under Spring (v2.0.5) wrapped in a single Spring transaction, it results two INSERTS, followed by immediate exception due to UNIQUE constraint mentioned above.
This problem only manifests itself on MS SQL due to its incompatibility with ANSI SQL. It works fine on MySQL and Oracle. Unfortunately, our solution is cross-platform and must support all databases.
Having this stack of technologies, what would be your preferred workaround for given problem?
You could try flushing the hibernate session in between the two saves. This may force Hibernate to perform the first update before the second insert.
Also, when you say that hibernate is inserting NULL with the insert, do you mean every column is NULL, or just the ID column?
I have no experience in Hibernate, so I don't know if you are free to change the DB at your will or if Hibernate requires a specific DB structure you cannot change.
If you can make changes then you can use this workaround in MSSQL tu emulate the ANSI behaviour :
drop the unique index/constraint
define a calc field like this:
alter table MyTable Add MyCalcField as
case when MyUniqueField is NULL
then cast(Myprimarykey as MyUniqueFieldType)
else MyUniqueField end
add the unique constraint on this new field you created.
Naturally this applies if MyUniqueField is not the primary key! :)
You can find more details in this article at databasejournal.com

Categories

Resources