Thread: Foreign keys on inherited attributes
Greetings, I'm using pg 7.3.5 and playing with table inheritance, and I've run into the fact that foreign keys cannot be defined on inherited attributes. (As much is stated in the documentation, but it didn't sink in until I ran into the fact.) The documents say this will probably be fixed in a future release. My question is, are there any definite plans in that direction at this point? Take care, Shawn Harrison
On Mon, 26 Jan 2004, Shawn Harrison wrote: > I'm using pg 7.3.5 and playing with table inheritance, and I've run into the > fact that foreign keys cannot be defined on inherited attributes. (As much > is stated in the documentation, but it didn't sink in until I ran into the > fact.) > > The documents say this will probably be fixed in a future release. My > question is, are there any definite plans in that direction at this point? AFAIK, there's nobody actively looking at dealing with the various constraint/inheritance issues at this point.
On Mon, 2004-01-26 at 19:23, Shawn Harrison wrote:
I have a similar problem and have two inelegant workarounds.
1) Use triggers which does the key check. I don't know of any simple way to cascade deletes or updates.
2) Use inheritance to define the FK-containing tables as well, one for each PK-containing table. The supertable of these is provides the abstraction you sought.
Example: I wanted a hierarchy of models of different types (each with table-specific data) and heterogeneous sets of models, roughly like this:
(if the word model is distracting, think instead of jobs and sets of related job families, or some such analogy)
As you noted, making modelsetmodel.mid a FK of model.mid doesn't work because the PK index is NOT inherited.
Instead, I have this:
I hope that helps,
Reece
I'm using pg 7.3.5 and playing with table inheritance, and I've run into the fact that foreign keys cannot be defined on inherited attributes. (As much is stated in the documentation, but it didn't sink in until I ran into the fact.)
I have a similar problem and have two inelegant workarounds.
1) Use triggers which does the key check. I don't know of any simple way to cascade deletes or updates.
2) Use inheritance to define the FK-containing tables as well, one for each PK-containing table. The supertable of these is provides the abstraction you sought.
Example: I wanted a hierarchy of models of different types (each with table-specific data) and heterogeneous sets of models, roughly like this:
(if the word model is distracting, think instead of jobs and sets of related job families, or some such analogy)
model modelA modelB modelC (model{A,B,C} ISA model)
mid(PK) mid(PK) mid(PK) mid(PK)
colA1 colB1 colC1
setmodel
mid(FK)
sid(FK)
set
sid(PK)
nameAs you noted, making modelsetmodel.mid a FK of model.mid doesn't work because the PK index is NOT inherited.
Instead, I have this:
model modelA modelB modelC (model{A,B,C} ISA model)
mid(PK) mid(PK) mid(PK) mid(PK)
colA1 colB1 colC1
setmodel setmodelA setmodelB setmodelC (setmodel{A,B,C} ISA setmodel)
mid(FK) mid(FK) mid(FK) mid(FK)
sid(FK) sid(FK) sid(FK) sid(FK)
set
sid(PK)
name
Of course, setmodelA.mid is now a FK of modelA.mid, and so on for B and C. I can still select from setmodel to get the heterogeneous sets I originally sought.I hope that helps,
Reece
-- Reece Hart, http://www.in-machina.com/~reece/, GPG:0x25EC91A0 |