Re: SQL tree duplication

> Hi,
>
> I have the following kind of sql structure, in 3 levels:
>
> -----------------------
> create table documents (
>   id serial,
>   name varchar(50),
>   primary key (id)
> );
>
> create table lines (
>   id serial,
>   name varchar(50),
>   document_id integer,
>   primary key (id),
>   foreign key (document_id) references documents (id)
> );
>
> create table line_details (
>   id serial,
>   name varchar(50),
>   line_id integer,
>   primary key (id),
>   foreign key (line_id) references lines (id)
> );
> -----------------------
>
> I'd like to be able to "duplicate" a document, with all of its lines and
> line details.
>
> Is there any easy way to do that with Postgresql? The only solution I
> can think of at the moment is to loop through all lines and line
> details, and replace foreign keys properly with values fetch with
> "currval". It should work just fine, but I was wondering if some
> advanced features of Postgresql could help in this situation.

You will have to do that in 3 steps (one for each table), but looping may
not be necessary - just use INSERT ... SELECT ... syntax. Something like

INSERT INTO Lines SELECT FROM Lines WHERE document_id = OLD_ID;

But it depends on primary keys in the Lines and Line_details tables - if
the primary keys are composed (and the document_id is part of them) then
there is no problem with duplicities. Otherwise you'll have to solve it
somehow, and looping may be necessary.

Tomas