Deduplication and transaction isolation level

Hi all!

I import many, many rows of data into a table, from three or more computers, 4 times per hour. I have a primary key, and the query I use to import the data is supposed to dedup before inserting, but I still get primary key violations.

The import process is:

* Load CSV data into temp table
* INSERT INTO dest SELECT DISTINCT (pkey) FROM temp WHERE NOT EXISTS(temp.pkey = dest.pkey)

I assumed (erroneously) that this would guarantee no duplicate data could make it into the database. The primary key violations are proving me wrong.

My assumption is that two or more computers are inserting the same pkey, and since the transaction isolation level is unchanged from the default (read committed), the insert on machine A does not see that machine B's already inserted the row A's trying to insert. Is that likely?

Do I have other solutions? Should I run all files serially through PostgreSQL?

Thanks!
François Beausoleil

Table "public.show_interaction_bindings_2013_09_23"
Column | Type | Modifiers
-------------------------------------+-----------------------------+----------------------
interaction_id | uuid | not null
show_id | uuid | not null
service_name | character varying(8) | not null
interaction_service_id | text | not null
interaction_created_at | timestamp without time zone | not null
-- ...
Indexes:
"show_interaction_bindings_2013_09_23_pkey" PRIMARY KEY, btree (market_id, show_id, interaction_service_id, service_name) CLUSTER
Check constraints:
"int_created_at_within_partition" CHECK ('2013-09-23 07:00:00'::timestamp without time zone <= interaction_created_at AND interaction_created_at < '2013-09-30 07:00:00'::timestamp without time zone)
"persona_followers_count_greater_than_zero" CHECK (persona_followers_count > 0)
Inherits: show_interaction_bindings

-- Import script
CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE IF NOT EXISTS show_interaction_bindings_2013_09_23_import( LIKE show_interaction_bindings );
COPY show_interaction_bindings_2013_09_23_import(market_id, show_id, interaction_service_id, service_name, interaction_created_at /* , ... */) FROM stdin WITH (FORMAT csv, HEADER false, DELIMITER ',', QUOTE '\"');
-- data, thousands of rows
\.

ANALYZE show_interaction_bindings_2013_09_23_import;

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS show_interaction_bindings_2013_09_23(
CONSTRAINT int_created_at_within_partition CHECK(timestamp without time zone '2013-09-23 07:00' <= interaction_created_at AND interaction_created_at < timestamp without time zone '2013-09-30 07:00'
, PRIMARY KEY(market_id, show_id, interaction_service_id, service_name)
) INHERITS ( show_interaction_bindings );

-- The failing query

EXPLAIN ANALYZE
INSERT INTO show_interaction_bindings_2013_09_23(market_id, show_id, interaction_service_id, service_name, ...)
SELECT DISTINCT ON (market_id, show_id, interaction_service_id, service_name) market_id, show_id, interaction_service_id, service_name, interaction_created_at -- , ...
FROM show_interaction_bindings_2013_09_23_import
WHERE NOT EXISTS( SELECT *
FROM show_interaction_bindings_2013_09_23 dest
WHERE dest.show_id = show_interaction_bindings_2013_09_23_import.show_id
AND dest.market_id = show_interaction_bindings_2013_09_23_import.market_id
AND dest.service_name = show_interaction_bindings_2013_09_23_import.service_name
AND dest.interaction_service_id = show_interaction_bindings_2013_09_23_import.interaction_service_id );

-- The failure

psql:/var/tmp/csv-assembly-21534/2013-09-24-12.sql:32391: ERROR: duplicate key value violates unique constraint "show_interaction_bindings_2013_09_23_pkey"
DETAIL: Key (market_id, show_id, interaction_service_id, service_name)=(23813bc0-f08d-012f-70c3-4040b2a1b35b, 17104480-d6b6-0130-b1d1-7a163e02a1d3, 382389681297833984, Twitter) already exists.