On Wed, Jun 02, 2004 at 02:39:45PM +0300, Andrei Bintintan wrote: > Hi, > > I have a problem. > > Let's say I have the following table: > CREATE TABLE rekl_element( > id serial PRIMARY KEY, > active boolean NOT NULL DEFAULT 'y', > num int4 NOT NULL, > text varchar(10) > ); > > Now I want that "num" column is "unique" but only for those columns that > have active='y'. For the columns that have active='f' I don't care if num is > unique or not. I'm asking this because num will be doubled some times.
You can use a little trick for this. Add a column 'uniqueness' that has a default nextval ('mysequence'::text). Make an unique index on the columns (num, uniqueness). Obviously, this will work because the column uniqueness has unique values. Now write a trigger that sets the uniqueness column to 0 when the active column equals 'y'. This will result in: - unique num columns (or the index will fail) where active = 'y' - arbitrary num colums (index will always be unique) where active = 'n' -- __________________________________________________ "Nothing is as subjective as reality" Reinoud van Leeuwen [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.xs4all.nl/~reinoud __________________________________________________ ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 7: don't forget to increase your free space map settings