The clever way is called a transaction.
Before doing any data manipulation, start a transaction.
Like this:
BEGIN; http://developer.postgresql.org/docs/postgres/sql-begin.html
Then do your update statements;
Then if there was an error type:
ROLLBACK; http://developer.postgresql.org/docs/postgres/sql-rollback.html
This will revert you data back to the state it was in before the transaction.
If there wasn't an error and the data looks sound type:
COMMIT; http://developer.postgresql.org/docs/postgres/sql-commit.html
and the updates will be saved.
-- Garrett Bladow
---- This is what you wrote me ----
:This is a truly novice question but here goes:
:
:Yesterday I was on the command line and issued an UPDATE command. Right after I hit the ENTER key I realized that I
forgotto put the WHERE clause in... so... every entry in the table got the update. Ooops. Since I hadn't updated this
particulartable in a while I just dropped it and put it back in from a backup.
:
:My question is... is there a clever way to undo or rollback a mistake you make at the 'psql' prompt?
:
:-Steve
: