Brian, Terry, Richard and Sean,
thanx for your help.
Each table is a satellite overpass and there are 254 overpasses for each
cycle and 157 cycles presently. I came in later for this is someone
else's design. I have to learn database, too, so I'm taking what code
was there and trying to implement it.
thanx,
keith
Brian Hurt wrote:
> Keith D. Evans wrote:
>
>> Hello novices,
>>
>> I hope some aren't novices so that the questions can be answered. :-)
>>
>> I want to search many tables for certain data. The tables all have
>> exactly the same columns. In searching the archives, I noticed that
>> the exact table name seemed to be required for the select ... from ..
>> command, but we are talking about 20,000 tables or more. Specifiying
>> each table would be extremely inconvenient. And we may want to search
>> all the tables. Some of the columns are time, latitude and
>> longitude. We want to be able to search on time and/or lat and lon.
>> Time will be unique, but the lats and lons may repeat. Based on these
>> search criteria, we will pull out other data (columns) from the
>> table(s).
>>
>> I have been reading the documentation manuals for postgresql 7.4 and
>> browsing the archives, but have not found an answer to this question.
>> Can anyone help me?
>>
>> thanx,
>> keith evans
>>
>>
>>
> 20,000 tables all with the same columns strikes me as being a bad
> table design. The normal way to do this would be to have all 20,000
> tables in one table with an extra column specifying which group
> (original table) they belong to. You might consider refactoring your
> database.
>
> That being said, you might consider creating a table of the names of
> all of these tables, sticking the query inside a function which takes
> the table name as a parameter, and then select over the table name
> table calling the function. I'm not sure if that'd work (I'm a newbie
> as well), but it might work.
>
> Brian
>
--
"Every magnificent history begins with something small." Daisaku Ikeda
=======================================================
Keith D. Evans
Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology/UMBC
(301) 614-6282 (M,Tu)
(410) 455-5751 (W,Th,F)
http://www.jcet.umbc.edu/bios/evanmain.html
========================================================
Any opinions expressed in this email are not those of
NASA, or the Goddard Space Flight Center, or the Joint
Center for Earth Systems Technology or the University
of Maryland Baltimore County.
========================================================
