Re: lastval()

"John Hansen" <john(at)geeknet(dot)com(dot)au> writes:
>> Hmm, if your app can build any of them at an arbitrary point,
>> you have a rather serious problem, I'd say. The apps I've
>> seen build either kind at each call site of such runquery().

> Actually, the app that I am referring to, does just that.
> However, in some instances, the only difference between two queries, would be the table name.
> A primary, with a serial as primary key, and a secondary without a serial.
> Inserting into the secondary, gives no sequence value, and thus currval() (or lastval()) would fail.
> I solved the error issue by hardcoding the table names available in runquery(), such that currval() is only called when the table is one of those containing a serial primary key. Not very elegant, which is why I'd like to see at least the lastval(false) method implemented.

I continue to find this argument completely unconvincing. If we provide
a function that works like that, then the result will be that whenever
you insert into the secondary table, your application will obtain and
use a completely WRONG answer --- namely the sequence value from some
other table entirely. If your code is able to not do anything wrong as
a result, it seems to me it could refrain from calling the function in
the first place.

regards, tom lane