Thread: Serial Column Tweaking

We're converting a database from Oracle to PostGreSQL (7.3.4); many of our tables have a sequential ID field as a prime key, populated in Oracle from sequences; we would like to make these fields serial data types in PostGreSQL (to simplify insert statements etc)--and we want to keep the ID values from the existing tables; is there a way to set a minimum value for the serial type?  Or will we have to go to explicit sequences with defined minimum values?

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David Rickard
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On Tue, Oct 07, 2003 at 12:25:23 -0700,
  David Rickard <David.Rickard@GTScompanies.com> wrote:
> We're converting a database from Oracle to PostGreSQL (7.3.4); many of our
> tables have a sequential ID field as a prime key, populated in Oracle from
> sequences; we would like to make these fields serial data types in
> PostGreSQL (to simplify insert statements etc)--and we want to keep the ID
> values from the existing tables; is there a way to set a minimum value for
> the serial type?  Or will we have to go to explicit sequences with defined
> minimum values?

When you use type serial a sequence is created. You can use setval to
set what value the sequence will give out next. Normally the associated
sequence name is tablename_columnname_seq .