Re: Constraint allowing value up to 2 times but no more than 2 times - Mailing list pgsql-general

From Jim Nasby
Subject Re: Constraint allowing value up to 2 times but no more than 2 times
Date
Msg-id 561BE906.3050808@BlueTreble.com
Whole thread Raw
In response to Constraint allowing value up to 2 times but no more than 2 times  (Dara Unglaube <dara@glifwc.org>)
List pgsql-general
On 10/12/15 12:04 PM, Dara Unglaube wrote:
> Greeetings.
> I'm trying to come up with a way to allow one column to have the same
> value up to two times, but no more than two times. I attempted adding a
> constraint to check the count of the value in the field  - count
> (trsqqq) <=2 but aggregate functions are not allowed in constraints. Is
> there another way to do this? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The safest bet is some kind of unique constraint. That would require
having a separate count field, which you would limit to being 1 or 2 via
a CHECK constraint. You could use a trigger to set the value based on
what's already in the table.

By the way, the issue with doing a simple count is that it's not safe
from race conditions, like an insert and a delete happening together.
--
Jim Nasby, Data Architect, Blue Treble Consulting, Austin TX
Experts in Analytics, Data Architecture and PostgreSQL
Data in Trouble? Get it in Treble! http://BlueTreble.com


pgsql-general by date:

Previous
From: Dara Unglaube
Date:
Subject: Constraint allowing value up to 2 times but no more than 2 times
Next
From: Jim Nasby
Date:
Subject: Re: Effecient time ranges in 9.4/9.5?