Re: SQL INSERT/TRIGGER Help - Mailing list pgsql-sql

I'm not really sure how to the currval() method. I've read up on it and I noticed it works with nextval() and setval(). The parameter for currval() is a regex - is there a regex to represent the most recently automatically generated number ( i.e. a serial field)? If there isn't, I was thinking that a trigger could be used so that when an INSERT is executed against the Observation_Value table then I'll use setval() to store the automatically generated field. However I'm having some trouble defining a TRIGGER in PostGres. I noticed that one can implement a C code to achieve the effect of a trigger, however, would normal SQL work as well? I have the following:


Which doesn't work. I get the following error: ERROR: syntax error at or near "observation_id". I know that usually new represents, in this case, the inserted tuple, however, new doesn't seem to work with PostGres; what is the correct way to do this? I used a function because it appears that this is the only way to define a trigger. If I can simply execute the SQL statement in my function that would be awesome - but what is the syntax for this? Well I'm not really sure if I've defined my function correctly - I just imitated an example I've seen.

Thanks for your help Andreas, one step closer :) currval() is so much better than creating a view.

Regards,
Pooven