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- <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><title>9.16. Sequence Manipulation Functions</title><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="stylesheet.css" /><link rev="made" href="pgsql-docs@lists.postgresql.org" /><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.79.1" /><link rel="prev" href="functions-json.html" title="9.15. JSON Functions and Operators" /><link rel="next" href="functions-conditional.html" title="9.17. Conditional Expressions" /></head><body><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/transitional" class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="5" align="center">9.16. Sequence Manipulation Functions</th></tr><tr><td width="10%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="functions-json.html" title="9.15. JSON Functions and Operators">Prev</a> </td><td width="10%" align="left"><a accesskey="u" href="functions.html" title="Chapter 9. Functions and Operators">Up</a></td><th width="60%" align="center">Chapter 9. Functions and Operators</th><td width="10%" align="right"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html" title="PostgreSQL 12.4 Documentation">Home</a></td><td width="10%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="functions-conditional.html" title="9.17. Conditional Expressions">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr></hr></div><div class="sect1" id="FUNCTIONS-SEQUENCE"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both">9.16. Sequence Manipulation Functions</h2></div></div></div><a id="id-1.5.8.21.2" class="indexterm"></a><a id="id-1.5.8.21.3" class="indexterm"></a><a id="id-1.5.8.21.4" class="indexterm"></a><a id="id-1.5.8.21.5" class="indexterm"></a><a id="id-1.5.8.21.6" class="indexterm"></a><p>
- This section describes functions for operating on <em class="firstterm">sequence
- objects</em>, also called sequence generators or just sequences.
- Sequence objects are special single-row tables created with <a class="xref" href="sql-createsequence.html" title="CREATE SEQUENCE"><span class="refentrytitle">CREATE SEQUENCE</span></a>.
- Sequence objects are commonly used to generate unique identifiers
- for rows of a table. The sequence functions, listed in <a class="xref" href="functions-sequence.html#FUNCTIONS-SEQUENCE-TABLE" title="Table 9.50. Sequence Functions">Table 9.50</a>, provide simple, multiuser-safe
- methods for obtaining successive sequence values from sequence
- objects.
- </p><div class="table" id="FUNCTIONS-SEQUENCE-TABLE"><p class="title"><strong>Table 9.50. Sequence Functions</strong></p><div class="table-contents"><table class="table" summary="Sequence Functions" border="1"><colgroup><col /><col /><col /></colgroup><thead><tr><th>Function</th><th>Return Type</th><th>Description</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><code class="literal"><code class="function">currval(<code class="type">regclass</code>)</code></code></td><td><code class="type">bigint</code></td><td>Return value most recently obtained with
- <code class="function">nextval</code> for specified sequence</td></tr><tr><td><code class="literal"><code class="function">lastval()</code></code></td><td><code class="type">bigint</code></td><td>Return value most recently obtained with
- <code class="function">nextval</code> for any sequence</td></tr><tr><td><code class="literal"><code class="function">nextval(<code class="type">regclass</code>)</code></code></td><td><code class="type">bigint</code></td><td>Advance sequence and return new value</td></tr><tr><td><code class="literal"><code class="function">setval(<code class="type">regclass</code>, <code class="type">bigint</code>)</code></code></td><td><code class="type">bigint</code></td><td>Set sequence's current value</td></tr><tr><td><code class="literal"><code class="function">setval(<code class="type">regclass</code>, <code class="type">bigint</code>, <code class="type">boolean</code>)</code></code></td><td><code class="type">bigint</code></td><td>Set sequence's current value and <code class="literal">is_called</code> flag</td></tr></tbody></table></div></div><br class="table-break" /><p>
- The sequence to be operated on by a sequence function is specified by
- a <code class="type">regclass</code> argument, which is simply the OID of the sequence in the
- <code class="structname">pg_class</code> system catalog. You do not have to look up the
- OID by hand, however, since the <code class="type">regclass</code> data type's input
- converter will do the work for you. Just write the sequence name enclosed
- in single quotes so that it looks like a literal constant. For
- compatibility with the handling of ordinary
- <acronym class="acronym">SQL</acronym> names, the string will be converted to lower case
- unless it contains double quotes around the sequence name. Thus:
- </p><pre class="programlisting">
- nextval('foo') <em class="lineannotation"><span class="lineannotation">operates on sequence <code class="literal">foo</code></span></em>
- nextval('FOO') <em class="lineannotation"><span class="lineannotation">operates on sequence <code class="literal">foo</code></span></em>
- nextval('"Foo"') <em class="lineannotation"><span class="lineannotation">operates on sequence <code class="literal">Foo</code></span></em>
- </pre><p>
- The sequence name can be schema-qualified if necessary:
- </p><pre class="programlisting">
- nextval('myschema.foo') <em class="lineannotation"><span class="lineannotation">operates on <code class="literal">myschema.foo</code></span></em>
- nextval('"myschema".foo') <em class="lineannotation"><span class="lineannotation">same as above</span></em>
- nextval('foo') <em class="lineannotation"><span class="lineannotation">searches search path for <code class="literal">foo</code></span></em>
- </pre><p>
- See <a class="xref" href="datatype-oid.html" title="8.19. Object Identifier Types">Section 8.19</a> for more information about
- <code class="type">regclass</code>.
- </p><div class="note"><h3 class="title">Note</h3><p>
- Before <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span> 8.1, the arguments of the
- sequence functions were of type <code class="type">text</code>, not <code class="type">regclass</code>, and
- the above-described conversion from a text string to an OID value would
- happen at run time during each call. For backward compatibility, this
- facility still exists, but internally it is now handled as an implicit
- coercion from <code class="type">text</code> to <code class="type">regclass</code> before the function is
- invoked.
- </p><p>
- When you write the argument of a sequence function as an unadorned
- literal string, it becomes a constant of type <code class="type">regclass</code>.
- Since this is really just an OID, it will track the originally
- identified sequence despite later renaming, schema reassignment,
- etc. This <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">early binding</span>”</span> behavior is usually desirable for
- sequence references in column defaults and views. But sometimes you might
- want <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">late binding</span>”</span> where the sequence reference is resolved
- at run time. To get late-binding behavior, force the constant to be
- stored as a <code class="type">text</code> constant instead of <code class="type">regclass</code>:
- </p><pre class="programlisting">
- nextval('foo'::text) <em class="lineannotation"><span class="lineannotation"><code class="literal">foo</code> is looked up at runtime</span></em>
- </pre><p>
- Note that late binding was the only behavior supported in
- <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span> releases before 8.1, so you
- might need to do this to preserve the semantics of old applications.
- </p><p>
- Of course, the argument of a sequence function can be an expression
- as well as a constant. If it is a text expression then the implicit
- coercion will result in a run-time lookup.
- </p></div><p>
- The available sequence functions are:
-
- </p><div class="variablelist"><dl class="variablelist"><dt><span class="term"><code class="function">nextval</code></span></dt><dd><p>
- Advance the sequence object to its next value and return that
- value. This is done atomically: even if multiple sessions
- execute <code class="function">nextval</code> concurrently, each will safely receive
- a distinct sequence value.
- </p><p>
- If a sequence object has been created with default parameters,
- successive <code class="function">nextval</code> calls will return successive
- values beginning with 1. Other behaviors can be obtained by using
- special parameters in the <a class="xref" href="sql-createsequence.html" title="CREATE SEQUENCE"><span class="refentrytitle">CREATE SEQUENCE</span></a> command;
- see its command reference page for more information.
- </p><div class="important"><h3 class="title">Important</h3><p>
- To avoid blocking concurrent transactions that obtain numbers from
- the same sequence, a <code class="function">nextval</code> operation is never
- rolled back; that is, once a value has been fetched it is considered
- used and will not be returned again. This is true even if the
- surrounding transaction later aborts, or if the calling query ends
- up not using the value. For example an <code class="command">INSERT</code> with
- an <code class="literal">ON CONFLICT</code> clause will compute the to-be-inserted
- tuple, including doing any required <code class="function">nextval</code>
- calls, before detecting any conflict that would cause it to follow
- the <code class="literal">ON CONFLICT</code> rule instead. Such cases will leave
- unused <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">holes</span>”</span> in the sequence of assigned values.
- Thus, <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span> sequence objects <span class="emphasis"><em>cannot
- be used to obtain <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">gapless</span>”</span> sequences</em></span>.
- </p></div><p>
- This function requires <code class="literal">USAGE</code>
- or <code class="literal">UPDATE</code> privilege on the sequence.
- </p></dd><dt><span class="term"><code class="function">currval</code></span></dt><dd><p>
- Return the value most recently obtained by <code class="function">nextval</code>
- for this sequence in the current session. (An error is
- reported if <code class="function">nextval</code> has never been called for this
- sequence in this session.) Because this is returning
- a session-local value, it gives a predictable answer whether or not
- other sessions have executed <code class="function">nextval</code> since the
- current session did.
- </p><p>
- This function requires <code class="literal">USAGE</code>
- or <code class="literal">SELECT</code> privilege on the sequence.
- </p></dd><dt><span class="term"><code class="function">lastval</code></span></dt><dd><p>
- Return the value most recently returned by
- <code class="function">nextval</code> in the current session. This function is
- identical to <code class="function">currval</code>, except that instead
- of taking the sequence name as an argument it refers to whichever
- sequence <code class="function">nextval</code> was most recently applied to
- in the current session. It is an error to call
- <code class="function">lastval</code> if <code class="function">nextval</code>
- has not yet been called in the current session.
- </p><p>
- This function requires <code class="literal">USAGE</code>
- or <code class="literal">SELECT</code> privilege on the last used sequence.
- </p></dd><dt><span class="term"><code class="function">setval</code></span></dt><dd><p>
- Reset the sequence object's counter value. The two-parameter
- form sets the sequence's <code class="literal">last_value</code> field to the
- specified value and sets its <code class="literal">is_called</code> field to
- <code class="literal">true</code>, meaning that the next
- <code class="function">nextval</code> will advance the sequence before
- returning a value. The value reported by <code class="function">currval</code> is
- also set to the specified value. In the three-parameter form,
- <code class="literal">is_called</code> can be set to either <code class="literal">true</code>
- or <code class="literal">false</code>. <code class="literal">true</code> has the same effect as
- the two-parameter form. If it is set to <code class="literal">false</code>, the
- next <code class="function">nextval</code> will return exactly the specified
- value, and sequence advancement commences with the following
- <code class="function">nextval</code>. Furthermore, the value reported by
- <code class="function">currval</code> is not changed in this case. For example,
-
- </p><pre class="screen">
- SELECT setval('foo', 42); <em class="lineannotation"><span class="lineannotation">Next <code class="function">nextval</code> will return 43</span></em>
- SELECT setval('foo', 42, true); <em class="lineannotation"><span class="lineannotation">Same as above</span></em>
- SELECT setval('foo', 42, false); <em class="lineannotation"><span class="lineannotation">Next <code class="function">nextval</code> will return 42</span></em>
- </pre><p>
-
- The result returned by <code class="function">setval</code> is just the value of its
- second argument.
- </p><div class="important"><h3 class="title">Important</h3><p>
- Because sequences are non-transactional, changes made by
- <code class="function">setval</code> are not undone if the transaction rolls
- back.
- </p></div><p>
- This function requires <code class="literal">UPDATE</code> privilege on the
- sequence.
- </p></dd></dl></div><p>
- </p></div><div class="navfooter"><hr /><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="functions-json.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="functions.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="functions-conditional.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">9.15. JSON Functions and Operators </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> 9.17. Conditional Expressions</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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