Re: nextval() clarification

Greg Donald wrote:

>Long time MySQL user, six weeks into Postgres here.
>
>I'm converting a PHP script that uses MySQL to use Postgres instead.
>To substitue the missing MySQL functionaility with mysql_insert_id()
>and auto_increment I am using code like this:
>
>$sql = "SELECT nextval('companies_company_id_seq'::text)";
>
>And then I do my insert with that value.
>
>It works fine but I don't understand why it always gives me a +1 value
>of what I'm expecting.  For example when I have an empty table it
>gives me 2 as the first nextval instead of a 1, or if I have two rows
>in there already it gives me a 4.  Is this by design or am I missing
>something?  It's not a problem I just want to know what's going on.
>
>TIA..
>
>
>
As others have mentioned, you are basically calling the nextval
operation twice. If the field you
are inserting data into is of type serial, whenever a record/row is
inserted, the nextval is inserted.
eg
CREATE TABLE testSeq (
  id serial,
  name text
);
INSERT INTO testSeq (name) VALUES ('foo');
testdb=# SELECT * FROM testSeq;
 id | name
----+------
  1 | foo
See, it automatically increments the value.

then INSERT INTO testSeq (name) VALUES ( 'fooBar');

and then if you re-increment the value yourself:
testdb=# SELECT nextval('public.testseq_id_seq'::text);
 nextval
---------
       3

and then insert another row:
INSERT INTO testSeq (name) VALUES ('bar');
testdb=# SELECT * FROM testSeq;
 id |  name
----+--------
  1 | foo
  2 | fooBar
  4 | bar
(3 rows)

bar is now 4, because you manually called nextval().

hth
Ron