Re: Thanks for all the help on replacing 'unique'

Wm.A.Stafford wrote:
> I just wanted to issue a blanket "thanks" to all who responded to my
> inquiry about what to do about 'unique'. Distinct is the equivalent
> aggregate function as many pointed out. A co-worker said that Oracles
> 'unique' is probably an optimized version of distinct that takes
> advantage of some Oracle specific indexing.
>
> The example that I used to illustrate my problem in the first place was
> seriously flawed as many pointed out. The PostgreSQL db had been
> created from a Fastreader control file that had all column names in
> double quotes, ex. "total" instead of total; This produced a normal
> looking DB that did not react correctly to any SQL that used a column
> name. So for example, select count(*) would return the correct row
> count but count(some_column) would produce a 'no such column error'.
>
> My difficulty with unique was mostly caused by the failure of every
> attempt to come up with an alternate query which was caused, in turn,
> by the columns names used to create the tables.
>
> All in all, a pretty revolting experience with one possible bright
> spot, I think I have proved a little known principle of computer
> science: "garbage in, garbage out".

I have updated an FAQ item to specifically mention capitalization, so
that should help people in the future.

--
Bruce Momjian bruce(at)momjian(dot)us
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com

+ If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +