Folks,
I have a database that contains a chronological journal of activity. Forvarious reasons, this journal contains both
completeand incomplete records,and while all records are timestamped, the primary key is not strictly orderedby
timestamp.
What I want to do is update each incomplete record with the contents of thelast previous complete record. As a
simple-mindedtest case:
CREATE TABLE history AS (
history_id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
period_date TIMESTAMP,
fieldA VARCHAR(30),
fieldB INT4 );
CREATE VIEW complete_history_records AS
SELECT history.*
FROM history WHERE fieldA IS NOT NULL and fieldB IS NOT NULL
UPDATE history SET fieldA = chr.fieldA fieldB = chr.fieldB
FROM (SELECT complete_history_records.* WHERE ??? ) chr
WHERE (history.fieldA IS NULL or history.fieldB IS NULL);
The problem is that I cannot figure out a subselect that will allow me toselect the last complete history record prior
tothe one being updated. Itseems like I need to reference a field in the main query in the subselect,which can't be
done.
To further hamper things, for portability reasons, I can use neither SELECTDISTINCT ON nor custom functions.
I'm stumped. Please offer suggestions!
-Josh Berkus
______AGLIO DATABASE SOLUTIONS___________________________ Josh Berkus Complete
informationtechnology josh@agliodbs.com and data management solutions (415) 565-7293 for law firms, small
businesses fax 621-2533 and non-profit organizations. San Francisco
