Re: serial sequence problem with existing keys

On Wed, 31 Oct 2001, Randall Perry wrote:

> I've had to modify a parent table by recreating it (I substituted integer
> foreign key values from lookup tables for text in 2 fields. As postgres
> doesn't have a DROP COLUMN command I couldn't revise the table structure
> without rebuilding it) .
>
> It has a serial data type for the primary key. I'm importing the data back
> in and need to keep the original primary key values, as they're used in
> several child tables.
>
> But, if I put in my own key values in a serial field the auto-increment
> sequence uses the next number from where it left off, and not the max value,
> and complains that it can't create a duplicate key.
>
> Is there any way around this, or am I going to have to programmatically
> increment the key and change serial to int?

Check out setval('<sequence name>', <number>) to change the sequence's
current value.