Re: Issue adding foreign key

george(dot)woodring(at)iglass(dot)net ("George Woodring") writes:

> I have 2 existing tables in my db:
>
> iss=> \d pollgrpinfo
> Table "public.pollgrpinfo"
> Column | Type | Modifiers
> ---------------+------------------------+-----------
> pollgrpinfoid | integer | not null
> pollgrpid | integer | not null
> name | character varying(100) |
> descript | character varying(200) |
> Indexes:
> "pollgrpinfo_pkey" primary key, btree (pollgrpinfoid)
> "pollgrpinfo_pollgrpid_key" unique, btree (pollgrpid)
>
> iss=> \d notpoll
> Table "public.notpoll"
> Column | Type | Modifiers
> -------------+------------------------+---------------------
> notpollid | integer | not null
> pollgrpid | integer |
> notgroupsid | integer |
> alerting | character(1) | default 'y'::bpchar
> disuser | character varying(50) |
> distime | integer |
> alertingcom | character varying(200) |
> Indexes:
> "notpoll_pkey" primary key, btree (notpollid)
> "notpoll_pollgrpid_key" unique, btree (pollgrpid)
> "notpoll_alerting_index" btree (alerting)
> Triggers:
> "RI_ConstraintTrigger_2110326" AFTER INSERT OR UPDATE ON notpoll
> FROM notgroups NOT DEFERRABLE INITIALLY IMMEDIATE FOR EACH ROW EXECUTE
> PROCEDURE "RI_FKey_check_ins"('notgroups_exists', 'notpoll',
> 'notgroups', 'UNSPECIFIED', 'notgroupsid', 'notgroupsid')
>
> I am trying to add a foreign key to the notpoll table
>
> iss=> alter table notpoll add constraint pollgrp_exists foreign
> key(pollgrpid) references pollgrpinfo on delete cascade;
> ERROR: insert or update on table "notpoll" violates foreign key
> constraint "pollgrp_exists"
> DETAIL: Key (pollgrpid)=(7685) is not present in table "pollgrpinfo".
>

When expressed as "FOREIGN KEY (foo) REFERENCES mytable" postgresql
assumes that foo references the PRIMARY KEY for table mytable. If you
are not referencing the primary key, you need to tell postgresql which
column e.g. FOREIGN KEY (foo) REFERNCES mytable(foo).

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