The Art of PostgreSQL/

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Sequences and the Serial Pseudo Data Type

Sequences and the Serial Pseudo Data Type

Learn how to use sequence in PostgreSQL.

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Other kinds of numeric data types in PostgreSQL are smallserial, serial, and bigserial. They’re actually pseudotypes—the parser recognizes their syntax but then transforms them into something else entirely:

PostgreSQL
CREATE TABLE tablename (
    colname SERIAL
);

This is equivalent to specifying:

PostgreSQL
CREATE SEQUENCE tablename_colname_seq;
CREATE TABLE tablename (
    colname integer NOT NULL DEFAULT nextval('tablename_colname_seq')
);
ALTER SEQUENCE tablename_colname_seq OWNED BY tablename.colname;

Sequence

We can use any of these two codes. The sequence SQL object is covered by the SQL standard and documented in the ...