Re: Please help

On Mar 1, 2005, at 12:32 PM, Kumar S wrote:

> Hello all,
>
>
> I have a table and it has is like this:
> exp_id
>  exp_name
>  exp_type
>  exp_desc
>  exp_pmid
>  exp_paper
>  exp_author
>  genechip_id
>  exp_rawdata_link
>  con_id
> Indexes:
>     "experiment_pkey" primary key, btree (exp_id)
> Foreign-key constraints:
>     "$1" FOREIGN KEY (genechip_id) REFERENCES
> genechip_array(genechip_id)
>     "$2" FOREIGN KEY (con_id) REFERENCES
> contacts(con_id)
>
>
> Based on the data I have information that should fill
> in this column U133A.
>
> What I have in the genechip_array table is
>
>  genechip_id |        fc_genechip_array  |gc_spec
> --+----------------------+------------------
>
> 5 | Human Genome U133A Array   | Homo sapiens
>
>
> Now how can I bring in the foreign key 5 to my
> previous table. All I have is U133A.
>
> Could any one help me in this.
>

Postgresql doesn't do this automatically.  A foreign key only functions
as a link between tables after it is formed.  You must supply the link
in the first place by a lookup in the foreign table either in the
client or as part of a function to load the data.  You aren't going to
have many genechip_ids, so you could easily just append a column full
of "5" to the incoming data for each of those tables if you want a
quick and easy solution.

Sean