Any drawbacks of using ID instead of DATE column? - java

I will be storing the archival users' passwords in the ArchivalPassword table:
CREATE TABLE public.ArchivalPassword (
id SERIAL,
userid INTEGER NOT NULL,
content VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL,
CONSTRAINT archivalpassword_pkey PRIMARY KEY(id),
CONSTRAINT archivalpassword_user FOREIGN KEY (userid)
REFERENCES public.user(id)
ON DELETE CASCADE
ON UPDATE CASCADE
NOT DEFERRABLE
)
WITH (oids = false);
CREATE INDEX fki_archivalpassword_user ON public.archivalpassword
USING btree (userid);
For each user I store the limited number of the passwords (based on the archived.passwords.limit property). If the user changes the password I am fetching the archived passwords number from the ArchivalPassword table and if it is greater than limit I calculate how many have to be deleted and delete them.
The requirement is that I delete the oldest passwords. And the question is if I can make and assumption that the password with the lower ID is older than the one with greater ID? Or do I need to add the EXPIREDAT column (date), which will be used to determine which password is needed to be deleted (the one which has the oldest date in the EXPIREDAT column)?
Here is the hypothetical EXPIREDAT column definition:
expiredat TIMESTAMP(0) WITH TIME ZONE DEFAULT '2017-03-20 00:00:00+01' NOT NULL;
And the ID sequence definition:
CREATE SEQUENCE public.archivalpassword_id_seq
INCREMENT 1 MINVALUE 1
MAXVALUE 9223372036854775807 START 1
CACHE 1;
Can you see any drawbacks of using the ID column in the described case?

Assuming your id column is something like a BIGSERIAL then it has a sequence definition which is where it auto allocates the next id from. Under normal circumstances the id's will reliably be allocated in order based on user's changing their password. The sequence definition can however be manually changed so that it starts at a different number and if anyone did this then id numbers would no longer represent chronological order.
I would personally opt to use the EXPIREDAT column though as that will always be accurate and the intention is clear. Not sure why you say "but then i would have to sort the dates instead of the integers" - assuming you are letting Postgres do the sorting I'm not sure why you think there is much difference?

If you have many users then integer (serial data type in Postgres) is faster then a date and time (timestamp data type in Postgres) column to access the record. Not sure a date column would be good if password changes multiple times on the same day.

Related

MySQL auto increment key in table mistakes

so I created a table with a column which I declared EmployeeID as a primary key int with auto increment, but here is the problem:
If I delete a row and then insert a new one the new increment will still count
For example:
ID Name
1 jayden
2 karen
delete karen ...
ID Name
1 jayden
insert new one
ID Name
1 jayden
3 nicolas
So it basically skips the previous ID.
This is not a mistake, it is how MySQL works with auto_increment. It stores the last value which it gave at the insertion and increments it. You can always get the last ID at your next insertion
insert into yourtable(id, Name)
select id + 1, 'foo'
from yourtable
where id = (select max(id) from yourtable);
That's because an auto increment is a independent property of your table, that is only used when assigning new IDs and does not depend on the last existent ID on your table. This is how many relational databases, not only MySQL, were designed for.
To achieve what you want (which seems to be having IDs in sequence without "holes") you would need to query the last ID and increment on it to be set manually.
Ex:
SELECT id from Users ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 1
Or instead setting the auto_increment of your table according to your last id.
Be aware that both of this is not performatically wise. You should really stick to the auto increment default behavior, since it's optimal, unless you have some strong reason for not doing things as they were designed to be done.
This is expected behavior from the 'delete' command
What would you ever want/need an Unique Identifier that can be reaffected to someone else?
The 'Truncate' command will delete all your data and reset the ID, maybe this is what you are looking for
After delete a row use this query,
ALTER TABLE tbl_name AUTO_INCREMENT = ID;
Actually this is how MySQL works and it's not a mistake

JPA sequence generation strategy IDENTITY for AS400 table

I have mentioned a sequence generation strategy as IDENTITY on my entity class for the primary key of a table in AS400 system.
#Id
#GeneratedValue(strategy=GenerationType.IDENTITY)
#Column(name = "SEQNO")
private Integer seqNo;
The table's primary key column is defined as GENERATED ALWAYS AS IDENTITY in database.
SEQNO BIGINT NOT NULL GENERATED ALWAYS AS IDENTITY(START WITH 1, INCREMENT BY 1)
My understanding of IDENTITY strategy is that it will leave the primary key generation responsibility to the table itself.
The problem that I am facing is that somehow in one environment, while inserting record in the table it gives me [SQL0803] Duplicate Key value specified.
Now there are couple of questions in my mind:
Is my understanding correct for #GeneratedValue(strategy=GenerationType.IDENTITY)?
In which scenario table will generate Duplicate key?
I figured out there are sequence values missing in the table, i.e. after 4, the sequence till 20 is missing and I do not know if someone manually deleted it or not, but could this be related to duplicate key generation?
YES. IDENTITY means use in-datastore features like "AUTO_INCREMENT", "SERIAL", "IDENTITY". So any INSERT should omit the IDENTITY column, and will pull the value back (into memory, for that object) after the INSERT is executed.
Should never get a duplicate key. Check the INSERT statement being used.
Some external process using the same table? Use the logs to see SQL and work it out.
I don't use JPA, but what you have seems reasonable to me.
As far as the DB2 for i side...
Are you sure you're getting the duplicate key error on the identity column? Are there no other columns defined as unique?
It is possible to have a duplicate key error on an identity column.
What you need to realize is that the next identity value is stored in the table object; not calculated on the fly. When I started using Identities, I got bit by a CMS package that routinely used CPYF to move data between newly created versions of a table. The new version of the table would have a next identity value of 1, even though there might be 100K records in it. (the package has since gotten smarter :) But the point remains that CPYF for instance, doesn't play nice with identity columns.
Additionally, it is possible to override the GENERATED ALWAYS via the OVERRIDING SYSTEM VALUE or OVERRIDING USER VALUE clauses of the INSERT statement. But inserting with an override has no effect on the stored next identity value. I suppose one could consider CPYF as using OVERRIDING SYSTEM VALUE
Now, as far as your missing identities...
Data was deleted
Data was copied in with overridden identities
Somebody ALTER TABLE <...> ALTER COLUMN <...> RESTART WITH
You lost the use of some values
Let me explain #4. For performance reasons, DB2 for i by default will cache 20 identity values for a process to use. So if you have two processes adding records, one will get values 1-20 the other 20-40. This allows both process to insert concurrently. However, if process 1 only inserts 10 records, then identity values 11-20 will be lost. If you absolutely must have continuous identity values, then specify NO CACHE during the creation of the identity.
create table test
myid int generated always
as identity
(start with 1, increment by 1, no cache)
Finally, with respect to the caching of identity values. While confirming a few things for this answer, I noticed that the use of ALTER TABLE to add a new column seemed to cause a loss of the cached values. I inserted 3 rows, did the alter table and the next row got an identity value of 21.

How to make a primary key start with a specific letter?

Here I am using MySQL and I want my primary key to start with a letter, like D000. Then everytime I enter a new record the primary key auto increments like so:
D001
D002
D003.
How can I do this?
You can't AUTO_INCREMENT a column whose type is VARCHAR.
What you could do is make it BIGINT and AUTO_INCREMENT, and whenever you need it as String, you can prepend it with your letter 'D' like:
Long dbKey = ...;
String key = "D" + dbKey;
You could create a stored procedure for this to set an "auto-incremented" string as the default value for this column, but it just doesn't worth the hassle. Plus working with numbers is always faster and more efficient than working with strings.
I'm not sure whether I get your question right, but shouldn't the following work?
CREATE TRIGGER myTrigger
BEFORE INSERT
ON myTable
FOR EACH ROW
BEGIN
SET NEW.myCustomId = COALESCE('D', RPAD('0',3,NEW.id));
END
for this case you NEED a "normal" primary key column..
Two ideas.
(Useless IMHO) I think Maria DB has virtual columns, though MySQL I think not. But you have views. So you could make a normal INT, AUTOINCREMENT and in the view have a calculated column concatting your key.
One can use different number ranges for different tables.
ALTER TABLE debtors AUTO_INCREMENT=10000;
ALTER TABLE creditors AUTO_INCREMENT=30000;
ALTER TABLE guests AUTO_INCREMENT=50000;
This admittedly is a lame solution, but might do. I think such a distinction might be what you are aiming at.
Not sure why you need it but you can add the D AFTER you fetched the data (String id = "D" + autoIncId;).
You can't insert a string or anything in an autoincrement field and I can't see anyway this can be useful (all the recorde will have a D, so no one has).
If you want to declare a row default, you can add a boolean column named DEFAULT.
while(rs.next()){
String id = rs.getBoolean("DEFAULT")?"D":"ND";
id+=rs.getLong(1);
}
EDIT
As per your comment I understand that you want to select the max ID and add 1 to it. Then it's ok to use an autoincrement field in your DB and it must be a number type (INTEGER, BIGINT...).
Please FORGET to add the "D" to your primary key, it will simply not going to work as you want. The autoincrement takes the last inserted ID and adds 1 to it. If your last id is "D3" adding 1 has the same meaning as adding 4 to "apple". You are using different types.
There is no way for SQL or any other programming language to understand that if you add 1 to "D3" it should become "D4". What you need to do is get rid of that D (which purpose I still don't understand).
Yo may try to do this aberration at your own risk:
INSERT INTO table (id, a, b, c)
VALUES ( fn_get_key( LAST_INSERT_ID("table_name ") +1), "a", "b", "c");
Where fn_get_key is a function that will convert the number into your desired string AND will execute:
ALTER TABLE table_name AUTO_INCREMENT = start_value;
Anyway I do not recommend your approach. Numeric strings are faster and easier to sort. You could always create a view that transforms the ID or use logic o change from the "D001" key to "1". Foreing key and uniqness of ids enforcement will be harder and more expensive

Auto-generating a unique varchar field - mySQL, Java, Hibernate

Background : I have a database table called Contact. All users of my system have details of their contacts in this table including a firstname, a lastname, and also a varchar field called 'UniqueId'. Users of the system may put anything in the UniqueId field, as long as it is unique from that user's other contact's unique ids.
Aim : I now need to change my code so a unique id is automatically generated if the user does not provide one. This should be short and visually pleasing. Ideally it could just be an auto-incrementing number. However, AUTO_INCREMENT works for an integer field, not a varchar field.
Also note that each contact UniqueId needs to be unique from the other contacts of that user, but not neccesarily unique to the entire system. Therefore, the following UniqueIds are valid :
Contact
UserId Firstname Lastname UniqueId
1 Bob Jones 1
1 Harold Smith 2
2 Joe Bloggs 1
Question : So, how can I achieve this? Is there a reliable and clean way to get the database to generate a unique id for each contact in the existing UniqueId varchar field (Which is my preference if possible)? Or am I forced to make Java go and get the next available unique id, and if so, what is the most reliable way of doing this? Or any alternative solution?
Edit - 11th April AM: We use hibernate to map our fields. I'm just beginning to research if that may provide an alternative solution? Any opinions?
Edit - 11th April PM: 2 options are currently standing out, but neither seem as ideal as I would like.
1. As #eis suggests, I could have an auto-incrementing field in addition to my current varchar field. Then, either when a contact is saved the int can also be saved in the varchar field, or when a contact is retrieved the int can be used if the varchar is empty. But it feels messy and wrong to use two fields rather than one
2. I am looking into using a hibernate generator, as discussed here. But this involves holding a count elsewhere of the next id, and Java code, and seems to massively overcomplicate the process.
If my existing uniqueId field had been an int field, AUTO_INCREMENT would simply work, and work nicely. Is there no way to make the database generate this but save it as a String?
I think what you really should do is ditch your current 'uniqueid' and generate new ones that are really unique across the system, being always autogenerated and never provided by the user. You would need to do separate work to migrate to the new system. That's the only way I see to keep it sane. User could provide something like an alias to be more visually pleasing, if needs be.
On the upside, you could use autoincrement then.
Ok, one additional option, if you really really want what you're asking. You could have a prefix like §§§§ that is never allowed for a user, and always autogenerate ids based on that, like §§§§1, §§§§2 etc. If you disallow anything starting with that prefix from the end user, you would know that there would be no collisions, and you could just generate them one-by-one whenever needed.
Sequences would be ideal to generate numbers to it. You don't have sequences in MySQL, but you could emulate them for example like this.
I apologize, I really don't know MySQL syntax, but here's how I'd do it in SQL Server. Hopefully that will still have some value to you. Basically, I'm just counting the number of existing contacts and returning it as a varchar.
CREATE FUNCTION GetNewUniqueId
(#UserId int)
RETURNS varchar(3)
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE #Count int;
SELECT #Count = COUNT(*)
FROM Contacts
WHERE UserId = #UserId;
SET #Count = #Count + 1;
RETURN CAST(#Count AS varchar(3));
END
But if you really want something "visually pleasing," why not try returning something more like Firstname + Lastname?
CREATE FUNCTION GetNewUniqueId
(#UserId int, #FirstName varchar(255), #LastName varchar(255))
RETURNS varchar(515)
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE #UniqueId varchar(515), #Count int;
SET #UniqueId = #FirstName + #LastName;
SELECT #Count = COUNT(*)
FROM Contacts
WHERE UserId = #UserId AND LEFT(UniqueId, LEN(#UniqueId)) = #UniqueId;
IF #Count > 0
SET #UniqueId = #UniqueId + '_' + CAST(#Count + 1 AS varchar(3));
RETURN #UniqueId;
END

dictionary data insert or select (oracle, java)

I have an table (in ORADB) containing two columns: VARCHAR unique key and NUMBER unique key generated from an sequence.
I need my Java code to constantly (and in parallel) add records to this column whenever a new VARCHAR key it gets, returning the newly generated NUMBER key. Or returns the existing NUMBER key when it gets an existing VARCHAR (it doesn't insert it then, that would throw an exception of course due to the uniq key violation).
Such procedure would be executed from many (Java) clients working in parallel.
Hope my English is understandable :)
What is the best (maybe using PL/SQL block instead of Java code...) way to do it?
I do not think you can do better than
SELECT the_number FROM the_table where the_key = :key
if found, return it
if not found, INSERT INTO the_table SELECT :key, the_seq.NEXT_VAL RETURNING the_number INTO :number and COMMIT
this could raise a ORA-00001(duplicate primary key insert)
if the timing is unlucky. In this case, SELECT again.
Not sure if JDBC supports RETURNING, so you might need to wrap it into a stored procedure (also saves database roundtrips).
You can use an index-organized table (with the_key as primary key), makes the lookup faster.

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