On Thursday 02 November 2006 16:58, Aaron Bono wrote: > On 11/2/06, Peter Hanson <lists@pkhanson.com> wrote: > > Hello, > > > > First, sorry if this has already been covered, though I didn't find > > anything > > similar in the archives. Also sorry if this is the wrong list for this > > type > > of question, though it seemed to be the most relevant list for this > > question. > > > > On to the question: > > > > I'm writing a simple import script that reads in an excel file that a > > customer > > fills out. Each worksheet represents a different table and the tables' > > fields > > are columns in each worksheet. > > > > The tables represented in the file are variable, I have no idea what > > table combinations will be in the excel file when it's sent to the > > script. > > > > What I need is a way for the script to determine what order it should > > process > > the worksheets in the excel file. > > > > For example, you have this table structure (each table would be a > > worksheet): > > > > PERSON (1) <--> (many) ORDER (1) <--> (many) ORDER_ITEM > > > > Obviously, the people would have to be inserted first, then the orders, > > and > > finally the items, to keep the foreign keys between the tables happy. > > > > Is there a mechanism in PostgreSQL that would tell me this order? Or is > > it > > something that would have to be assembled from analyzing the > > schema? Anybody > > needed to perform an operation like this before? Any help/direction would > > be > > greatly appreciated. > > What programming language are you using? Many languages provide mechanisms > to ask the database for metadata about tables including primary keys, > indexes, data types and foreign keys. That is one option for you.