Inserting a serial key with stored procedures

Yet another Stored Procedures question! The serial type is not a valid datatype within stored procedure language (SPL). How can one insert the "next highest value" into a serial field? Suppose I have: create table foo(foo_nr serial, foo_date date); and I want to create an SP that, passed a date, would insert a row with the desired date AND the next highest value of foo_nr as a key. How should this be done? I don't want to deal with a race issue where I query to get the max() value of the key, and then scramble to insert before someone else beats me to it. -- In-Real-Life: John Bossert, Thalatta Corporation, (+1 206.455.9838) Domain: bossert@thalatta.com Path: ...!sun!sunup!thebes!bossert