On Thursday 16 January 2003 22:32, Matthew Nuzum wrote:
> I have a number of tables in my database that use the concept of
> “display order”, which is a field that can be used in an order by clause
> to dictate what order the results should come out in.
>
> I thought I would be crafty and devise a function that would always
> return the highest numbered item in the table. But it doesn’t work. It
> always gives me a parse error at $1. Here’s the function:
I may be wrong but aren't you trying to do something like this?
INSERT INTO files (accountid, filename, dsply_order)
VALUES ('account2', 'Testing',
(SELECT COALESCE(MAX(dsply_order), 0) + 1 FROM files
WHERE accountid = 'account2'));
Alternatively, assuming that fileid is a serial number, why not just use that
in your order by clause. I assume that you want something like this.
SELECT * FROM files WHERE accountid = 'account2' ORDER BY dsply_order;
This should give you exactly the same result:
SELECT * FROM files WHERE accountid = 'account2' ORDER BY fileid.
It all depends on what problem exactly you are trying to solve of course.
--
D'Arcy J.M. Cain <darcy@{druid|vex}.net> | Democracy is three wolves
http://www.druid.net/darcy/ | and a sheep voting on
+1 416 425 1212 (DoD#0082) (eNTP) | what's for dinner.
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
