Re: Adding a unique number to each record in a table

On 10/24/2011 11:19 AM, Alexander Farber wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have a table in PostgreSQL 8.4.9 storing
> user comments (in the "about" field):
>
> # \d pref_rep
> Table "public.pref_rep"
> Column | Type | Modifiers
> ------------+-----------------------------+---------------
> id | character varying(32) |
> author | character varying(32) |
> good | boolean |
> fair | boolean |
> nice | boolean |
> about | character varying(256) |
> last_rated | timestamp without time zone | default now()
> author_ip | inet |
> Check constraints:
> "pref_rep_check" CHECK (id::text<> author::text)
> Foreign-key constraints:
> "pref_rep_author_fkey" FOREIGN KEY (author) REFERENCES pref_users(id)
> "pref_rep_id_fkey" FOREIGN KEY (id) REFERENCES pref_users(id)
>
> But now after having 40000 comments I've
> realized, that I need a web script for me as
> admin - for delete obscene/aggressive ones.
>
> Because doing it thru "psql" is tedious + error prone.
>
> Is there please a way to add a column to my table,
> which I could use to uniquely identify each
> record in that table (incl. old records)
>
> Regards
> Alex
>

alter table pref_rep add rowid serial;

Will both add the column and set it for existing rows, as well as for
new rows.

-Andy