Adding serial key

Y'all Jonathan properly chided me for not considering that adding a new column to a table will result in it having null values - hence when you add an integer and then convert it to serial you'll get a non-unique value error. I no longer have the original message and can't remember whether the poor soul I misdirected wanted to add a new column or convert an existing one. (I checked usenet - ain't there yet) Try this in 4gl: DEFINE ctr, junk INTEGER ALTER TABLE foo ADD (ser_val INTEGER) DECLARE u_curs CURSOR FOR SELECT ser_val FROM foo FOR UPDATE OF ser_val LET ctr = 0 FOREACH u_curs INTO junk LET ctr = ctr + 1 UPDATE foo SET ser_val = ctr WHERE CURRENT OF u_curs END FOREACH ALTER TABLE foo MODIFY (ser_val SERIAL) # Altering it to serial does not add an index. CREATE UNIQUE INDEX ix1 ON foo(ser_val) cheers j. _____________________________________________________________________________ Jack Parker - Hewlett Packard, DMD/IS Boise, Idaho, USA jparker@hpbs3645.boi.hp.com _____________________________________________________________________________ If anything can go wrong, fix it. To hell with Murphy. _____________________________________________________________________________ Any opinions expressed herein are my own and not those of my employers. _____________________________________________________________________________